Word: mache
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Operating on the Jones philosophy, Northrop had to make some harsh choices. It scrapped a program to build a costly Mach 3 interceptor, elected instead to develop a bargain-basement ($550,000) jet trainer. "Some people thought we were damned fools, because the Air Force was planning to buy 500 of these interceptors at $5,000,000 apiece," recalls Jones. "But it was clear to me that there were some tough decisions ahead that the Defense Department hadn't owned up to. With money being poured into long-range missiles, a program for a long-range fighter-interceptor looked...
...they struggle to shake off the financial burdens of the subsonic jet, the airframe makers are haunted by another specter: the projected supersonic jet transport. To build a plane tough enough to withstand Mach 2 speeds would pose such immense problems that Boeing estimates development costs at $800 million. The most optimistic guess of the potential market for Mach 2s is only 450 planes by 1975; one longtime airline operator puts it as low as 50 ("a national prestige item"). There is every indication that the airframe manufacturers do not need two burnings by jet to learn their economic lesson...
Aeronautical experts expect about 150 Mach 3 jetliners to be in service by 1975. The planes will carry 100 to 130 passengers, have a crew of six, and be able to land and take off from most runways now used by subsonic jets. Except for tough, heat-resistant windshields in the cockpit, they will be windowless to give the fuselage greater strength. The passengers will see the outside by television...
Target date for the Mach 35 to enter passenger service...
Though five big U.S. planemakers have already turned out their own preliminary designs of Mach 3 commercial jetliners (see cut), development costs, estimated as high as $500 million, have scared them off. Under the new system, the Government and planemakers will decide on one design for the Mach 3; the Government will then let contracts to one or more planemakers and share the burden of the development costs. President Kennedy has asked Congress for $12 million to get the program started, and the Government may recoup at least a part of its investment by collecting a royalty on each plane...