Name: Why You Never Got to Fly The American Concorde: The 2707 SST Story
Uploaded: 2021-05-31T12:49:16.000Z
Duration: 12 min
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It would've flown nearly three times the speed of sound and carry more than 250 passengers

the distance from New York to Los Angeles in under two hours.

Its development was backed by a billion in U.S. government funding and

This, would've been America's answer to Concorde.

The 1960's was a decade marked by relentless optimism for the future.

Laser beams, satellites, and moon landings.

This was a decade in which the world was changing quickly.

In just a few short years, propeller driven aircraft had been replaced by sleek new jetliners.

And while this new jet age was exciting, many were expecting an even bigger leap forward.

Air travel, was about to get a whole lot faster.

A 1950's propeller driven airliner could take 15 hours to fly from New York to London.

In the 1960's, a jet made that same flight in around seven hours.

But many were expecting that by the 1970's, supersonic transports would begin

And they would fly two or even three times the speed of jetliners.

And that would cut a New York to London flight down to under three hours.

By the end of the 1970's, hundreds of these supersonic transports were expected

And nearly every major American aircraft manufacturer was dreaming up plans for them.

But these were still very much, just plans.

Because actually building a supersonic transport was an enormous challenge.

The technological hurdles alone, were daunting.

But supersonic transports wouldn't just need to fly fast, they'd need to be economical

And these same airlines were already buying American made jetliners.

U.S. manufacturers had the commercial aviation market, pretty much cornered.

So there wasn't the will to invest the massive sums of money needed to get any of these plans

But across the Atlantic, the British and French weren't waiting around.

In 1962, the two countries announced a partnership to build Concorde, and this marked the first

serious effort to actually build a supersonic airliner.

And a few months later, the Soviets also jumped into the race with their Tupolev 144.

The Americans had been keeping an eye on the Concorde program well before 1962.

Over the years, they watched the program transform from a concept to a serious enterprise.

And that began to worry American officials.

Because if the British and French would be the first to open up the supersonic transport

market, and do so uncontested, well, that could seriously threaten America's lead

Thousands of aerospace jobs could be at stake.

A future American President might one day be forced to fly around in a foreign built

And airlines, were now also beginning to show interest.

Pan American World Airways, at the time the largest American international carrier, even

announced its intention to buy Concordes.

President Kennedy announced that the U.S. government would help fund the development

Manufacturers were invited to participate in a design competition which outlined an

Develop an aircraft considerably faster and larger than Concorde, with economics comparable

Just as ambitious were the design proposals from the three participating American manufacturers.

But after years of evaluation, it was Boeing's design that was ultimately chosen in 1967.

And this was Boeing's design entry, the 2707.

It would fly considerably faster than Concorde, and that introduced a whole slew of technical

challenges requiring some pretty radical solutions.

Like all supersonic transports, the Boeing 2707's shape was highly streamlined.

But it also featured something unheard for a plane it's size.

During landing and takeoff, the 2707's wings would be pivoted forward to allow for lower

During supersonic cruise, its wings would be swept back to counter the massive aerodynamic

drag it would experience as it approached three times the speed of sound.

The 2707 would be powered by four Turbojets fitted with afterburners.

To counter the heat they generated, they were uniquely positioned under the aircraft at

And that meant the 2707 needed an extra set of landing gear.

Because it would cruise considerably faster than Concorde, atmospheric friction would

heat the 2707's exterior to several hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

Temperatures hot enough to soften regular aircraft aluminum.

So Boeing would need to build the fuselage out of titanium, with components and systems

all specially designed to withstand the enormous heat.

And it would fly much higher than a typical jet, which meant more pressurization.

Hence the tiny cabin windows which were only six inches.

Luckily for passengers, the 2707 would feature an advanced in-flight entertainment system

Boeing was confident that the 2707 could enter service with airlines, by the mid-1970's.

But this plane was pushing 1960's technology way beyond its limits.

To start, the titanium alloy needed for the 2707's airframe was expensive and difficult

The swing-wing mechanism was complex and enormously heavy.

It wasn't going to work, and eventually, Boeing was forced back to the drawing board, designing

a plane with a more conventional delta wing, like Concorde.

But even as Boeing struggled to work through massive engineering hurdles, there was an

At supersonic speeds, aircraft generate loud sonic booms that can be heard along the entire

A Boeing 2707 cruising at 60 thousand feet would produce a sonic boom heard as much as

It was estimated that a single transcontinental flight would produce sonic booms heard by

And to see just how tolerant people were, in 1964, the good people of Oklahoma City

were to subjected six months of daily sonic boom testing by the FAA and Air Force.

With supersonic jets regularly flying overhead, booms cracked windows on two of the city's