British Airways said it will carry out a test flight on a Concorde jet tomorrow afternoon for the first time since its supersonic fleet was grounded after an Air France Concorde crashed north of Paris a year ago.
The test flight of Concorde Alpha Foxtrot, the first to be modified, will take place from Heathrow Airport at 2.20 p.m. tomorrow.
The flight will be under the control of Captain Mike Bannister, BA's chief pilot. A representative of Airbus SAS and a team of engineers will be on board.
"It will take off from Heathrow, fly over the Atlantic, turn around over Iceland and come back to Oxfordshire," a BA spokesman said today.
"It will replicate a trans-Atlantic crossing in terms of altitude, speed and time in the air and will allow the engineers to verify what has been tested on the ground" he added.
The test flight will be followed by two days of tests on the aircraft at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
The test flight will be held on the same day as BA's annual shareholders' meeting.
PA