Group Wants To Save One Of 'Britain's Greatest Engineering Achievement'

Almost every pilot will tell you that seeing a grounded airplane deteriorate over time is a sad sight.  When that plane is the magnificent supersonic Concorde, it seems even more heart-wrenching.

Scotland's Sunday Herald reports that three out of the four Concordes left in the United Kingdom are being left to corrode on lonely stretches of tarmac. Only the Scottish Museum of Flight has brought its Concorde in from the elements.

Ben Lord, of the Save Concorde Group, told the paper "Our national heritage is being left to rot on a forgotten runway. These iconic aircraft represent the single most stunning achievement in Britain’s post-war history, yet they are being allowed to slowly turn to rust,” said

He continued, “We are extremely concerned that Concorde is about to experience another winter without shelter. What’s more alarming is that we see no concern being shown by British Airways, which still owns the British airframes. By retaining ownership of the aircraft, this denies any of the museums where Concorde is now resting to apply for a lottery grant to ensure that at least preservation of the airframes is maintained under permanent cover.”

The Concorde was first flown in 1969 and retired in 2003 and remains the only civilian passenger aircraft to regularly exceed the speed of sound on scheduled flights.

When the airline ordered its ground crew to disable many of the plane's critical systems last year to prevent the possibility of the plane being resurrected, one former chief pilot described the decision as "an act of vandalism".

BA has dismissed claims that it is allowing the fleet to decay, stating that it is “incredibly proud” of Concorde, according to the Herald.

But Lord insists, “BA has absolutely no interest in Concorde and seems determined to let the last planes crumble into rust... It is as if they were trying to un-invent one of Britain’s greatest engineering achievements."

The Air and Space Museum in Paris, meanwhile, is trying to return one of Air France's Concordes to flying condition, though that attempt is widely regarded as impractical.

It seems even more unlikely that despite the earnest efforts of the Save Concorde Group, there will ever be a British Concorde in the skies again.

FMI: http://www.save-concorde.co.uk/