Forget 'Concordeski'É here comes 'Concorde-san'.
The French and Japanese trade ministers have signed a three-year research agreement at Le Bourget - worth $5.5 million - to look at developing a 300-seat supersonic airliner that would cut the flight time between New York and Tokyo to around 6h.
Speaking at Le Bourget, Japan's trade minister Shoichi Nakagawa said: "This is truly significant industrial co-operation. Bringing their respective advantages together should lead to the ability to offer highly-advanced aircraft and services in the future."
The minister added that Japan had successfully tested an engine that could theoretically reach speeds of up to five times the speed of sound (Mach 5).
The Mitsubishi F1 (just) and F2 fighters are the closest that the Japanese aviation industry has come to supersonic flight.
Source: Flight Daily News
