Existing comment:
Supersonic Dead End
The future of commercial aviation appeared to be the supersonic transport (SST), an airliner that could fly faster than sound. U.S. advocates hoped to build a larger and faster SST to compete with the British and French Concorde and the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144.
But concerns about huge development and operational costs, high fuel consumption, drastically high fares, and sonic booms and other environmental issues proved insurmountable. U.S. airlines placed no orders for Boeing's 2707 SST, Congress withdrew support, and the project died.
Concorde at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum
Introduced in 1976, the Concorde was the first and only operational supersonic transport. It could carry 100 passengers across the Atlantic in less than four hours, but its airfares were extremely expensive. All 14 Concordes that went into service were purchased by the British and French governments for their national airlines. Concordes stopped flying in 2003.
Braniff Airways briefly flew the Concorde in 1979-80 by temporarily purchasing an aircraft from British Airways or Air France for the duration of each flight. But flying subsonically between Washington, D.C., and Dallas-Fort Worth by Concorde proved more expensive and no faster than by conventional jetliners. This photo is an artist's impression, as the Concorde never flew in Braniff colors. |