Aviation: SST Price & Progress

When the first supersonic jet trans port takes off on a commercial flight, it will leave a contrail of money behind it. For SST development costs have far outdistanced early estimates. In 1962, U.S. planemakers figured that it would require $1.5 billion to bui’d an SST.

That figure now stands at $4.5 billion, and a few cost-conscious Congressmen insist that the U.S., rather than pay that price, ought to withdraw entirely from the SST race. Asks Wisconsin’s Demo cratic Senator William Proxmire: “Is this the time to spend federal money on this jet-set frill?”

As for the Anglo-French Concorde, the British Air Ministry recently revised cost estimates upward from $450 mil lion to $1.4 billion, and critics claimed even that was much too low. “Lies. Damned lies,” said London’s Sunday Times. Said the Daily Mail: “The final cost is likely to be $2.1 billion.”

Nonetheless, work on the SST con tinues in Europe and the U.S.:

> The British and French hope to fly a prototype Concorde in February 1968, test a second prototype in the summer of ’68, and have their SST operational by 1971. The British Aircraft Corp. is building the nose and tail sections for the 1,450 m.p.h., 140-passenger Con corde. Britain’s Bristol Siddeley is mak ing the engine. France’s Sud-Aviation is responsible for the wings and midsection. To break even, the builders will have to sell about 140 Concordes at $16 million each; already 60 are on order, including eight for Pan Am, six apiece for TWA, United and American airlines, three for Continental, and two for Eastern.

> The U.S. SST is still on the drawing boards, but rival airframe and engine makers have submitted plans to the FAA for approval later this year. Competing for the airframe contract are Lockheed and Boeing; for the engine job, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney. Lockheed offers a double-delta-wing design. Boeing proposes a swing-wing configuration. Both companies promise a plane capable of carrying 300 passengers at a cruising speed of 1,850 m.p.h. at 70,000 ft. The U.S. SST will sell at $35 million, and 250 planes is the break-even point.

A third entry in the SST race—Russia—is staying silent about the price and progress on its TU-144. Chances are that the plane is costing the Soviets a lot more than they anticipated. But like the U.S., France and Britain, the U.S.S.R. undoubtedly knows that it cannot turn its back on an aircraft that offers a potential $50 billion market by 1980.