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British Airways Test-Fly Newly Modified Concorde
British Airways will test fly a newly modified Concorde jet for the first time since shortly after the crash of an Air France Concorde grounded both nations' fleets of the sleek aircraft last year, the airline said Monday.
The jet is scheduled to take off from Heathrow Airport on Tuesday afternoon and reach supersonic speed during a 3-hour flight whose length and conditions will match those of the New York-to-London run, an airline spokesman said.
The plane will fly out over the Atlantic Ocean, turn around southwest of Iceland, and return to a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, according to British Airways.
The airline's supersonic jets were grounded shortly after an Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris on July 25, killing 113 people. The British carrier hopes to fly its Concordes commercially again by late summer, a spokesman said.
Air France, which has conducted Concorde test flights at subsonic speeds, hopes to fly again by autumn.
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