RETURN TO FLIGHT « Heritage Concorde

RETURN TO FLIGHT

"She flies, Concorde flies"

The story of Concorde is a story of survival, many times she had stood close to extinction. But she survived, thanks to the dedication, faith and belief of those who controlled her destiny at various critical phases of her life, until 2003 when a group of short-sighted men within BA, Air France and Airbus SAS grounded her before her time.

Now the battle for survival begins again, the fight for a heritage flight!

In 2003 Ross Mallett in the UK, formed the ‘Save Concorde Group’. Under his direction, they were the only one’s leading the fight to see a Concorde return to our skies in a heritage role. During 2009 ‘Save Concorde Group’ made great progress and in November of that year, SCG joined forces with the French version of their group ’Olympus 593′. They formed an alliance that would combine the very best efforts of the French and English working in partnership to achieve the same aim. They called their partnership “La Nouvelle Entente Cordiale”. This section is intended to deal with their battle and progress towards this worthwhile goal!

During this time Olympus 593 are working to restore a former Air France Concorde at Le Bourget, the plan is to restore it to some sort of working order, as this will allow it to taxi around the airfield. There are no plans by Olympus 593 to return this Concorde to the skies, as have been stated in the press. The Save Concorde Group in the UK are supporting Olympus 593 with their effort, but it must be stated that the main aim of the Save Concorde Group, is to find an airframe that they can return to flight status.

The Concorde engine boroscopic inspection at Le Bourget was wonderful to see and yet there have been a lot of totally exaggerated press releases since May 29^th 2010.

One thing that I must state, is that at no time did Olympus 593 ever state to myself or anyone else, that this would lead to a Return to Flight (RTF); they only spoke about a Return to Taxi (RTT). So any press releases concerning this being the start of a return to flight are much exaggerated, and have no relevance to the events of May 29^th at Le Bourget, that I witnessed.

A new ‘Return to Flight’ section coming soon!

It will list all the technical facts concerning Return to Taxi and Return to Flight!

What systems are required, what are the problems with these systems after being dead for nearly 7 years now. What are the problems concerning the engines, whats needed to be in place and who will be needed to carry out the work! It will be the best RTF/RTT section on the internet!!

Heritage Concorde will start to look at every single system on Concorde, and look at all the problems concerning bring each of these systems back to life.

LATEST NEWS from Le Bourget………During a meeting at the museum in Paris, there are now plans in place for two major operations to be carried out on Concorde ‘Sierra Delta’ during 2010(without dates at this time). Electrical testing during the summer, and a dry run of the engines later in the year. Heritage Concorde will bring you the latest news concerning this.