A British Airways Concorde took off from London's Heathrow airport yesterday on a safety test flight, roaring out over the Atlantic for the first time since last year's Air France crash.
Afterburners blazing, the sleek supersonic airliner accelerated rapidly along the runway, reaching its take-off speed of more than 300kph in about 30 seconds.
Unlike the ill-fated Air France Concorde, the British Airways plane raced safely past the runway's point of no return, pointed skyward, rose from the ground and climbed away.
Safety regulators grounded all Concordes last year after the Air France aircraft crashed on take off from Paris because of a tire burst -- a fairly common fault that all civil aircraft are supposed to survive. Air France has flown Concordes several times since the crash but only to move them between airfields.
"It is still 20, 30 years ahead of anything else," British Airways' former Concorde pilot Jock Lowe said before the mission, during which engineers planned to check that modifications to the plane have not affected its performance.
While engineers working in laboratories are confident that modifications will make the Concordes safe, regulators will not let the type go back into commercial service until they are satisfied with how it performs in supersonic flight.
"If there is any small anomaly in the test data the authorities will want the aircraft flying again for further tests," said Chris Yates, editor of Jane's Aviation Security.
Lowe said: "It was always a very, very safe aeroplane. It was the most tested aircraft that has ever been."
Flying rubber from the tire broke open a wing fuel tank in the Air France crash, starting an enormous fire as two engines lost power. With barely enough thrust for low-speed flight, the aircraft staggered on until a final engine failure sent it falling to the ground, killing 113.
The test Concorde is the first of the 12 surviving aircraft -- seven British and five French -- to get Kevlar linings inside some of their fuel tanks.
"The idea is that should a projectile hit the underside of the aircraft the Kevlar would prevent it from exiting through other side, making a bigger hole," Yates said.
"And it would prevent the fuel from flowing out in sufficient quantity to be a serious threat to life."
But a Concorde's fuel must circulate freely so it can cool the plane's skin, which becomes hot during supersonic cruise.
On Tuesday the British Airways Concorde headed for a supersonic run out to Iceland and back so engineers could check that the Kevlar linings were not interfering with that process.
British Airways said it also planned to empty the modified tanks during the flight to ensure the Kevlar did not trap some of the fuel in them, fearing that the aircraft might lose range.
Air France and British Airways have been working on the modifications with the companies that built the Concorde 20 to 30 years ago.
Those companies decided that the electrical leads on the undercarriage should be armored, to ensure they survived a tire burst and did not ignite any fuel that did pour out of the wing.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary