"It takes only two things to fly, airspeed and money." aviation saying
While not a war machine, the Supersonic Transport (SST) was nevertheless a product of Cold War era international competition. In 1961, President Kennedy committed the government to subsidizing the development costs for a civil SST with the understanding that it would be repaid as the planes were sold to airlines. The pressure was on as Britain and France worked to build the Concorde. Not to be outdone, the Soviets beat everyone to the air with the flight of the Tupolev TU-144 on December 31, 1968. However, the Concorde was the only SST to realize any sort of commercial success. The US SST program came under mounting criticism both for its cost and for environmental concerns. In 1971, government funding was withdrawn before the prototype was finished. The TU-144 was used briefly in passenger service, but overall the program was plagued by problems and suffered a serious setback with a catastrophic crash at the 1973 Paris Air Show. In the mid 90's, one TU-144 was temporarily reactivated for a series of joint Russian/US test flights.
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In 1966, Boeing was selected to build the prototype for the SST. It was designed to have a cruising speed of almost 3 times the speed of sound, a range of 4000 miles and the capability to carry 300 passengers. Today, the bulk of the prototype sits among tall weeds in a Florida junk yard. |
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Boeing's SST was to be over 300 feet long and was designed to cruise
at an altitude of 60,000 feet. Here its tail section sits on ground that
is just a few feet higher than sea level, going nowhere fast.
*Note: In early March 2000, a few months after I took these photographs, the airframe was sold at auction and scrapped. |
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