British Airways Concorde Intro

Concorde: Power And Speed

Concorde's four engines - specially designed Rolls-Royce/ Snecma Olympus 593s - give more than 38,000lbs of thrust each, with 'reheat'. This adds fuel to the final stage of the engine to produce the extra power required for take-off and the transition to supersonic flight. They are the most powerful pure jet engines flying commercially.

Concorde takes off at 220 knots (250mph) (compared with 165 knots for most subsonic aircraft). She cruises at around 1350mph - more than twice the speed of sound - and at an altitude of up to 60,000 ft (over 11 miles high). A typical London to New York crossing would take a little less than three and a half hours as opposed to about eight hours for a subsonic flight. Travelling Westwards, the five-hour time difference meant Concorde effectively arrived before she left. She travels "faster than the sun".

Concorde May Fly Again

Last weekend a former Concorde engineer performed a preliminary engine inspection on one of the Mach 2 airliners in hopes of green-lighting the resurrection of the Concorde as a flying piece of aviation history instead of a mothballed museum display.

Read More: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/concorde-may-fly-again/#ixzz0ptWE27Ms

Concorde’s Engines To Be Brought Back To Life

It’s not a question of if anymore, but when – for the first time since Concorde’s retirement back in 2003, her engines will be bursting back to life.

Following a recent meeting earlier this week at the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum in France, with our French alliance counterparts, known as Olympus593, negotiations were finalised and agreed that the engines of former Air France Concorde, known as “Sierra Delta” will be powered up.

Ben Lord, Vice Chairman, said: “This is absolutely fantastic news and very exciting. We have always maintained, with the benefit of our experienced engineers, that Concorde could have their engines restarted and this has been proven thanks to the shared belief that our colleagues in France have. Furthermore, this brings us a step further to the possibility of Concorde being returned to the skies in our proposed heritage capacity. Having previously been told in so many directions none of this was possible, it strongly supports our ongoing belief that where there is the will, there will always be a way to success."

This latest major development has been made thanks to the excellent advantages our colleagues across the Channel have over us in the UK – largely down to the museum in France owning their airframe. Given this support within France, which is combined with that of our support network here in the UK, it is highly probable that this French Concorde, could be the first of the original airframes to once again become an aircraft and not a technological relic. Perhaps the ability to perform a ground taxi, or who knows, even one day to fly would be the next possible stages. SCG is using all their resources to assist Olympus 593 and the team in France at this point and this is moving almost supersonically. The possibility to hear those fine engines from Rolls-Royce fire up again will be simply magical.

In an ironic twist, this major development gives further weight to the distinct possibility that Concorde could feature in the opening ceremony of the greatest event on the planet – the 2012 London Olympics.

Whilst efforts to return one of the British Airways Concorde’s to the skies goes on undiminished, the sight of a any Concorde back in the skies will no doubt strengthen the resolve of the British people, to allow us to return one of the BA planes to flight and thus satisfy the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the British public.