Word: sst
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...what the economists have for the economic system." Nor do the social scientists have a measurement for social values akin to the dollar, although one possible theoretical unit is called the "utile," used by economists to weigh the price people would pay to avoid the sonic boom of an SST, for example, as against the economic benefits that the plane would give them...
Beset by problems from its inception, the American SST will not go into service for at least two years after its originally scheduled takeoff date of mid-1974. Boeing, understandably red-faced, denies somewhat defensively that it has made a final decision. But the economics of its swing-wing B-2707 has forced the Seattle company to put practicality over pride. Although wind-tunnel tests showed that the movable wing could perform well aerodynamically, it developed an insuperable weight problem. Carrying the 313-passenger payload envisioned for it, the 375-ton swing-wing SST would have had about one-half...
Less Time to Build. Boeing could see the difficulties coming. Even before President Johnson selected the company for the SST plum on New Year's Day of 1967, it had scrapped one movable wing design and substituted another. When new problems mounted, the company earlier this year ordered its engineers back to the drawing boards in an effort to salvage the original concept. Gradually, confided a Boeing executive, it became apparent that keeping the swing-wing would "reduce the payload to the point where the plane wouldn't be profitable...
Despite their basic similarity, Boeing's new SST design differs in some ways from the one advanced by Lockheed. Boeing's delta wing will not be swept back quite so dramatically as that of the Lockheed model, a fact that should make the B-2707 slightly more efficient at subsonic speeds, slightly less so at its maximum cruise speed of 1,800 m.p.h. And while Lockheed planned to build its plane without a horizontal tail, the Boeing version will have a relatively conventional tail configuration...
...make the plane profitable, however, and will enable the craft to achieve the designed range. The new version, employing the familiar fixed-wing concept, should also take less time to build. That is particularly important, since the slower (1,550 m.p.h.), delta-wing Anglo-French Concorde, a rival SST entry, is scheduled to make its first test flight this fall and start commercial service in mid-1971, five years earlier than the B-2707. Boeing's best hope at this stage is that if no more serious kinks develop, it may be able to accelerate its timetable. That...