Word: sst
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AFTER A MARGINALLY encouraging start, John Volpe seems headed for his first major blunder as Secretary of Transportation. Volpe announced this weekend that he would soon decide whether the government should continue its drive to build a supersonic transport (SST). In doing so, Volpe left broad hints that he is eager to send another $300 million of federal money down the SST drain...
Even if Volpe had tried to make a strong case for the SST, his stand would be flimsy. The arguments about the increased speed and efficiency of the supersonic planes sounded convincing three or four years ago; but since then, scientists have compiled a steadily-growing mound of evidence to suggest that those advantages are illusory...
...special presidential panel that has been invetigating the SST for several months has uncovered new sources of opposition. Many airlines have become skittish about the mammoth financial outlay it would take to buy new fleets of SSTs, and several airline executives have told the presidential board they hope the SST is scrapped. Budget-conscious government officials are also having second thoughts about the $1 billion they are spending in chunks to get the first SST prototypes in the air. And all these fiscal arguments ignore a more basic objection: the right of Americans to live in their already-polluted cities...
...need to build a big, bumbling jet, he said, because the Russians and the French are building them. "The United States cannot afford to be a third-rate power in this kind of project." In pragmatic economic terms, the international-competition analysis suggests that the U.S. should quit the SST race. Since the French and Russians are at least two years ahead of the American SST pace, the tardy U.S. model would probably find few buyers in the international market...
...Concordes. Their break-even point is thought to be around 130 planes, and the manufacturers have in hand 74 options, all of which can be withdrawn by the airlines that placed them. Meanwhile, the Europeans have been anxiously watching as the U.S. designs and redesigns its own SST. When the U.S. plane finally flies, it will be much bigger than the Concorde and some 350 m.p.h. faster. Britons continue to fear that they will again be first-as they were in television broadcasting, jet engines and jet transports-only to run into difficulties and be overtaken by the Americans...