Word: sst
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...will be the richest and most prestigious contract in the history of U.S. commercial aviation, and last week the nation's leading planemakers lined up in Washington to declare whether they wanted to bid for it. At stake was the contract to build a supersonic transport (dubbed the SST) to compete against the 1,500-m.p.h., delta-wing Concorde that an Anglo-French combine is building and plans to test...
Snail-Like Pace. Beyond that, each of the three had special reasons for shunning the SST. General Dynamics was not in much of a gambling mood after having lost $425 million on production of its Convair 880 and 990 jet liners; besides, it recently won the rich and controversial TFX fighter contract, and would be quite unlikely to bag two in a row from Washington. Douglas is preoccupied with its new short-range DC-9, for which it has only a disappointing 18 orders; in addition, President Donald Douglas Jr., 46, who has become the active manager of the company...
Though worried about the heavy cost, and concerned because the Government has frittered away three years while the Anglo-French combine got a head start, three other U.S. planemakers were still determined to submit bids and specifications for the SST before the Jan. 15 deadline. The three: North American, Lockheed and Boeing...
...Lockheed has never built a big supersonic plane but gained experience and repute with its highly successful F-104 Starfighter. President William Allen's Boeing has the most passenger jet experience as builder of the 707. It has also spent $17 million of its own on SST research, designing a plane with birdlike "variable-sweep" wings that would be extended for take-offs and landings but tuck in for supersonic cruising...
...airlines to ensure them a place in line for the Concorde, and their down payments will be returned if the Concorde does not meet the promised specifications; but that is little solace for U.S. airframe makers, who are now in high confusion over American plans for an SST...