Word: sst
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...plans for a supersonic transport have had as many ups and downs as a single-prop plane bulling its way through a thunderstorm. Last week President Johnson received the most optimistic report yet on the SST-a report that has suddenly brightened the plane's uncertain prospects. Prepared by the Commerce Department, it bases its favorable analysis of the 1,900-m.p.h., 150-passenger plane on several new economic and technical discoveries...
Government and industry have been spending $2,000,000 a month for research on the SST, about 75% of it Government funds. Work on the drawing boards and in the wind tunnels has produced important design improvements in both the SST's airframe (for which Boeing and Lockheed are competing) and engines (General Electric v. Pratt & Whitney). The airframe makers have discovered that a relatively small reduction in airframe weight produces a disproportionately larger increase in payload; a 1% reduction, for example, would increase the payload by 10%. National Aeronautics and Space Administration research has given increased hope...
...this has convinced many previously hesitant airline officials that the plane is commercially practical, and has turned the congressional head wind against the SST into a tail wind. "My gloom has been dispelled," says Mike Monroney, chairman of the Senate Aviation Subcommittee, who less than two years ago was nearly ready to abandon the SST. "I am convinced that it is now time to get our SST off the drawing board." Says Boeing President William M. Allen: "Boeing would be prepared to implement a construction program tomorrow...
...trio of SST engineers tried hard to overcome doubts. Though many airmen have feared that the SSTs would be useless for medium-range flights because of the lengthy ascents they require to reach cruising altitudes, the engineers insisted that the planes will be practical down to flights of only 600 miles, will be able to operate productively for ten hours a day v. nine for the present jets. They held out promise that the sonic-boom problem will be solved eventually, possibly by delaying until high altitudes the crossover from subsonic to supersonic speeds. Most of all, they stressed...
...William P. Hildred, 71, who has served as I.A.T.A. director general for 18 years, announced that he will retire after next year. His replacement: Swedish Diplomat Knut Hammarskjöld, 42, a nephew of the late U.N. Secretary-General. Sir William had a word or two about the SST. "I hope," he said, "that I shall not live to see the damned things...