Concorde up and away in first test flight since crash

A newly modified British Airways Concorde, Alpha Foxtrot, takes to the air at Heathrow Airport, London, Tuesday in its first supersonic test flight for the plane since the fleet was grounded after a crash in Paris last year. It is scheduled to land at around 6 p.m. at the Royal Air Force's Brize Norton, Oxfordshire facility. The flight, the first full test flight by either BA or Air France, which is also seeking to reinstate Concorde, should allow engineers to evaluate the impact of modifications to the test aircraft's fuel tanks and landing apparatus, the airline said. The modifications follow Concorde's grounding last August, weeks after an Air France SA plane crashed near Paris. The test Concorde is to fly to the west of Ireland before turning north toward Iceland. The aircraft will accelerate to 1,350 miles per hour, twice the speed of sound, and climb to 60,000 feet before returning to the U.K. "This is part of the overall program to return Concorde to service," said Kate Gay, a British Airways spokeswoman. The plane could be back in service by September if the tests go well.