Word: sst
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...supersonic will not be test-flown until 1972, and will probably not enter service until 1978. Seattle's Boeing Co. has designed it to be a second-generation SST, leapfrogging the European competition. Compared with the Concorde, it will be bigger, faster and cheaper to operate. The airlines have taken 74 options on the Concorde, but have reserved 122 delivery positions on the Boeing SST assembly line...
...Million a Plane. Yet the SST raises a troublesome question: what is its proper place in the scheme of national priorities? Granted that money saved by delaying the SST would not likely be spent in the ghettos, it is still debatable whether a supersonic transport is a better investment than, say, an aircraft that could take off and land downtown. Every previous generation of aircraft has been cheaper, safer and more comfortable than the one before, but the SST is only faster. It will be no more comfortable and no more economical to operate than the 362-passenger Boeing...
...factor affecting the size of the market-and the fares-will be the selling price of the SST, now calculated at $40 million a plane. The price of developing new airplanes has an unsettlingly steep rate of climb. The Concorde's development costs so far have almost quadrupled to $1.72 billion, and the price tag has risen from $ 12 million a plane to $21 million...
20th Century Sound. In a market of 500 SSTs, Boeing's profit will be a handsome $3.5 million on every $40 million aircraft sold. The SST will create 25,000 new jobs at Boeing, and another 25,000 among a host of subcontractors, chiefly General Electric, which has engines virtually ready to attach to Boeing's airframe. To forestall criticism that the SST will create few jobs in the ghettos, Boeing is seeking more black engineers...
Beyond economics, there is the question of the sonic boom, which can vary in decibel level from a shot to a 50-mile wide swath of thunderous sound, and would annoy groundlings, to say the least. Transportation Secretary Volpe last week promised that the SST will fly supersonically only over water, at least until the sonic boom is brought within "acceptable limits." Three countries-Sweden, Ireland and West Germany-have already banned SSTs over their territory. The FAA calculates that if all restrictions on supersonic flight were removed, the eventual market would jump from 500 SSTs to 1,200, adding...