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Concorde Will Take to the Skies Again

On January 21, 1976, mankind saw one of its long time dreams come true: a supersonic aircraft for passengers took off, bringing back all that wishful thinking of the 1950s that soon, supersonic will turn space flight and, who knows, maybe even galactic travel.

It wasn't meant to be, however, as a single crash in the aircraft's otherwise spotless career put an end to all the traveling and dreams. On July 25, 2000, Air France Flight 4590 went down ablaze, killing over 100 passengers and the Concorde with it.

Yet, the supersonic flight and the Concorde will return, if everything goes smoothly, sometime in 2012. A partnership between British Save Concorde Group (SCG) and French group Olympus 593 managed to revive the plane and ended, at the beginning of the month, a four-month trial of the plane's four Rolls Royce engines.

Their goal? Bring back the Concorde, to be used as a means to provide heritage flights. The main goal, however, is to get the plane ready to be used in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.

"This is just the beginning, but we are delighted and privileged to be working with a team of skilled Concorde engineers who both worked on the aircraft at British Airways and Air France," Ben Lord, vice-chairman of SCG said when the three companies announced the start of the tests.

There's no telling, however, where the revival of the plane will eventually lead. Already, specialized forums have begun being swamped with topics calling for a full revival of the plane.
This is only a measure of how much the plane meant for the world. Despite the fact most of the people posting their opinions today will never afford to travel aboard the Concorde (back in 2003, in Concorde's dying year, one ticket used to cost as much as $10,000), most of them would love to know it back in the air once again. As would we...
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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