Why You Never Got to Fly The American Concorde_ The 2707 SST Story

Go to http://audible.com/mustard or text 'mustard' to 500-500 to get a free audiobook and a 30-day free trial of Audible Special thanks to Periscope Film ( / periscopefilm ) for allowing us to use exclusive and rare footage for this video! Check out their YouTube channel for a huge collection of exciting historical footage. It was supposed to fly even faster than Concorde, at speeds approaching Mach 3. And even carry more passengers. It would have covered the distance from Los Angeles to New York in less than two hours. The American effort to build a supersonic airliner was an ambitious project spanning a decade and costing a billion dollars in government funding. But even an army of aerospace engineers and the latest aeronautical technology weren't enough to get America's supersonic transport (SST) off the ground. In 1962, the British and French announced a partnership to build the world's first supersonic airliner, Concorde. A few months later, the Soviets entered the race with SST plans for their own supersonic aircraft, the Tupolev 144. As America watched these programs turn into serious enterprises, leaders began to worry about America's continued existence in civil aviation. So, in 1962, President Kennedy announced that the U.S. government would help fund the development of an American supersonic transport. Manufacturers were invited to participate in a design competition. Design entries from Lockheed (L-2000) and North American Aviation (NAC-60) were reviewed. After years of evaluation, the Boeing 2707 was chosen as the winning design. But it turned out that building an SST much faster and larger than the Concorde would be extremely difficult, requiring completely new aviation designs and technologies. As the 1960s progressed, the Boeing 2707 program was plagued by technical setbacks and the program’s ambitious goals were not being met. An anti-OHS movement grew around opposition to sonic booms and other environmental concerns. When funding for the Boeing 2707 project was canceled in 1971, foreign competition and concerns about national prestige were not enough to offset political, economic, and environmental pressures. Public views of government programs and optimism about technology declined. During the 1960s, the world changed. Want to help Mustard grow?