London: August 7th, 2001: Concorde takes off today for Shannon Airport in the Republic of Ireland, for flight crew refresher training.

Alpha Foxtrot, is scheduled to depart from London’s Heathrow Airport at 10.30 and land at Shannon at 12 noon.

The flight, BA9185P, will be under the command of British Airways’ Captain Mike Bannister with Captain Les Brodie, Senior Engineering Officer Peter Carrigan and Senior Engineering Officer David Hoyle.

The aircraft will depart from British Airways engineering east base and take off from the southern runway. The 70 minute flight will follow the normal routing as if going to New York. From about 100 miles to the West of Ireland Concorde will make a right turn inbound to Shannon. During the flight Concorde will fly at Mach 2 - twice the speed of sound, for 30 minutes. This enables the crew to complete a supersonic flight cycle including all the checks and procedures.

The training at Shannon will include up to 35 take-offs and landings. Shannon is being used for this training as it has the required runway length and capacity and has been used before for the same purpose.

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