Word: shurcliff
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...until the afternoon of August 18. "Sonic Boom Leaves Hub Trail of Terror," the Record-American headlined its story--no overstatement, according to other papers, because "scores of people" claimed to have been "knocked off their feet" by the boom, which was caused by a small military plane. Shurcliff doubts those particular claims, but booms invariably shatter windows, sometimes seriously undermine the foundations of buildings, and have even been responsible for deaths--three people in France died this summer when a boom caused their barn to collapse. Shurcliff estimates that the shockwaves from a fleet of 150 SST's flying...
...Shurcliff thinks the SST will be obsolete before it is built. The Concorde will be flying by 1971, probably four years before the SST, and its headstart may cut into the SST's market. (Three hundred of the 40 million dollar SST's must be sold to airlines before the project can pass the break-even point). Also, another plane will be in the air by 1971, a conventionally-designed, subsonic "jumbo jet." This jet will carry upwards of 500 passengers (against 280 for the SST) at 700 miles per hour without a sonic boom; its proven design will...
Competition from the jumbo jet aside, Shurcliff doubts that many passengers would want to pay the extra fare for a three-hour saving on a transatlantic flight. Improving the ground access to airports would accomplish the same time saving at much less cost, he feels. Oother investigators agree that consumer demand will be considerably less than current predictions. B. K. Lundbergh, a Swedish scientists, published a report last month on the problem of "dead time," the fact that the short flight time will make night flights to Europe extremely unpopular, since passengers would no longer be able to plan...
...Shurcliff first read of the SST in a scientific article by Lundberg about four years ago. Lundberg listed several of the SST's defects. "I was so amazed I practically memorized the article," Shurcliff remembers, and began writing letters to find out more about...
...read, the more horrified I got," he recalls. "Somebody obviously had to form a group to oppose this thing, and I was hoping and praying someone else would do it. All I wanted to do was to give money and join." But it was not that easy, and Shurcliff feels his life has changed "terrifically" since he and his deputy director John T. Edsall, professor of Biological Chemistry, held the League's first meeting in March. From March until June, he spent about five hours every night writing letters to Congressmen and FAA officials and preparing news releases, which...