A little more involved than this Short lets on. Bottom line is: Like the very early days of jet aviation, a successful supersonic transport program required direct government support. That by itself was not necessarily a deal killer; after all, the Boeing company got its help up into the jet age via first a Department of Defense contract for what would later be called the 707, which is what ultimately brought regular ‘affordable’ jet transport to the world. (It’s success is then what fueled Boeing to create the smaller transports: the 727, and 737 – in that order, I think. And, finally in the late ‘60s, Boeing ‘bet the company’ by completely self-funding the 747 program- which while it had teething pains, ended up being a huge success). The UK was the first kid on the block in the jet transport age with the Comet- but, unfortunately, that de facto died after a fatal accident early on. Once Boeing showed there was indeed a market for fast international air travel, Douglas/McDonnel Douglas got into the act with the DC-8, and later the smaller DC-9. Convair ALSO got into the act- but focused on making the single fastest of all the jet transports. However, with competitors already flying at fairly decent high subsonic speeds, paying a lot more for a plane that flew just a tad faster was not worth it economically, and Convair ended up dropping out of the business for good. The US DID, at first, fund its own SST – the Boeing 2707- but it didn’t survive. Concerns about the effect on the environment of an SST twice the size of the Concord and Soviet TU-144 were one major issue; sonic booms were another. BUT, the coup de grâce was really the American system- direct government funding of a commercial vehicle program is anathema to the American system, and as costs increased- and Boeing refused to put significant internal funds into its own program- the government pulling its support of it thru a vote in Congress de facto killed it. The US then immediately implement a ban on supersonic commercial flights over the US- de facto killing the Concorde as well.
The booms should just be limited to mid day. It’s not that big a deal when it’s up high. I think it would be cool to get lunch time booms from coast to coast.
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A little more involved than this Short lets on. Bottom line is: Like the very early days of jet aviation, a successful supersonic transport program required direct government support. That by itself was not necessarily a deal killer; after all, the Boeing company got its help up into the jet age via first a Department of Defense contract for what would later be called the 707, which is what ultimately brought regular ‘affordable’ jet transport to the world. (It’s success is then what fueled Boeing to create the smaller transports: the 727, and 737 – in that order, I think. And, finally in the late ‘60s, Boeing ‘bet the company’ by completely self-funding the 747 program- which while it had teething pains, ended up being a huge success). The UK was the first kid on the block in the jet transport age with the Comet- but, unfortunately, that de facto died after a fatal accident early on. Once Boeing showed there was indeed a market for fast international air travel, Douglas/McDonnel Douglas got into the act with the DC-8, and later the smaller DC-9. Convair ALSO got into the act- but focused on making the single fastest of all the jet transports. However, with competitors already flying at fairly decent high subsonic speeds, paying a lot more for a plane that flew just a tad faster was not worth it economically, and Convair ended up dropping out of the business for good. The US DID, at first, fund its own SST – the Boeing 2707- but it didn’t survive. Concerns about the effect on the environment of an SST twice the size of the Concord and Soviet TU-144 were one major issue; sonic booms were another. BUT, the coup de grâce was really the American system- direct government funding of a commercial vehicle program is anathema to the American system, and as costs increased- and Boeing refused to put significant internal funds into its own program- the government pulling its support of it thru a vote in Congress de facto killed it. The US then immediately implement a ban on supersonic commercial flights over the US- de facto killing the Concorde as well.
The booms should just be limited to mid day. It’s not that big a deal when it’s up high. I think it would be cool to get lunch time booms from coast to coast.