FORTY years ago, some people in the plane-making industry believed that supersonic transport (SST) was inevitable. Supersonic aircraft (SSTs) would soon fly at twice the speed of sound or more-between 2200 and 2900 kilometres per hour. Sales of hundreds, even thousands of SSTs were predicted. Governments in Britain, France, the US and the Soviet Union gave aircraft manufacturers vast sums of money to pursue this fantasy.
Britain and France signed an agreement for the Concorde project in November 1962. Four development models and 14 production aircraft were built at a cost to Britain of 拢1 billion plus an equal amount in francs. Sixteen airlines had taken 74 options to buy Concordes. But when it came to the crunch, no airline wanted Concordes. Not one was sold, in any normal sense of that word. To save face, the two governments gave their state airlines the cash to 鈥減urchase鈥� a total of nine planes-for whose development and production costs the governments had already paid. In 1979 the production lines were closed.
In the US, Boeing began two SST projects in the 1960s. By 1971 both had been cancelled. The Soviet Tupolev SSTs, after the crash of one at the 1973 Paris Air Show, soon disappeared.
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Why did all these projects fail? As has often been remarked, if we do not understand the past we cannot make proper sense of the present or of the future-and aircraft manufacturers in several countries are now planning future SSTs (鈥淪on of Concorde鈥�, New 杏吧原创, 7 June 1997, p 40, and Letters, 19 July 1997, p 53). Could they succeed?
In June 1962, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) produced a list of ten requirements for supersonic airliners-what became nicknamed its 鈥渢en commandments for SST鈥�. Some were eventually met by Concorde. Four were not. Of these, two concerned operating economics: the SST must be 鈥渞easonably economic鈥� at subsonic speeds, and its 鈥渟eat-mile costs鈥� must not exceed those of competing subsonic passenger planes. These economic criteria were unrealistic, (and unless people were prepared to pay more for halved journey times, what was the point?). The other two commandments concerned environmental matters: that there should be no increase in airport noise, and that the sonic boom must not be too loud for the SST to operate over land by day or night. Both criteria became increasingly significant.
Did IATA believe any of this was achievable, or were its ten commandments warning shots, implying that SST should not be attempted? Aviation veteran Bo Lundberg, director of the Swedish Aeronautical Research Institute, had a hand in drawing up these commandments, and from 1960 onwards he had made the case that the sonic boom would preclude supersonic operation over land (鈥淪hould supersonic airliners be permitted?鈥�, New 杏吧原创, 23 February 1961, p 460). He also showed that the operating costs for SST would be far greater than for competing subsonics.
Those inconvenient commandments, and Lundberg鈥檚 continuing efforts to publicise the facts, were ignored or discounted by advocates of the SST. But the message was getting through to informed public opinion, and two action groups were formed. In Britain, the Anti-Concorde Project was created in 1966, and in the US the Citizens鈥� League against the Sonic Boom was formed in 1967. In an highly effective campaign, these made alliances with each other, with Lundberg and with groups and individuals in many countries.
The first big success came in 1971, when the US Congress stopped funding the American SST. The case against it applied equally to Concorde, which was increasingly seen as environmentally unacceptable and commercially disastrous-a technical triumph, but to no purpose.
What of the future? In so far as anything is predictable, the case against supersonic transport is unanswerable. Under modern airport rules, son of Concorde, twice its size, must emit only 1 or 2 per cent of its noise energy. The sonic booms from SSTs will not be tolerated over land, which excludes them from most of the world鈥檚 major routes. Dissipation of energy in the boom and in aerodynamic heating means that their fuel consumption will be far greater than that of subsonic aircraft. And their much greater complexity will mean much higher development and production costs. Unless these are again paid by governments, which seems unlikely, they will further boost the purchase price and operating costs of SSTs to grossly uncompetitive levels.
If anyone still believes in SST, can we please have some explanations?