Aviation: Slowdown for the SST

Almost from the start, the U.S. effort to build a supersonic jet transport has been buffeted by technical, financial and political turbulence. The resulting delays have already set back development of the plane by at least a year. Last week the Johnson Administration let it be known that the SST faces a further slowdown, which will keep it from entering airline service at least until 1976 or ’77, instead of 1974, as originally planned.

Glitches & Goofs. The official explanation for the latest snag was continuing trouble with the Boeing Co.’s design for its swing-wing B-2707. There were hints of such problems last fall, when the company announced that it was stretching the 306-ft. craft by 12 ft. and adding a pair of stubby movable wings on the forward part of its fuselage. Goofs and glitches always creep into the early blueprints for any new aircraft, but lately Boeing President William M. Allen has been telling airline customers that engineering “miscalculations” were serious enough to send the SST “back to the drawing boards.” They involve questions of aerodynamics, air flow into the plane’s four engines, attitude control, engine placement and a considerable underestimate of necessary fuel space.

Worst of all, engineers have concluded that the plane would have a range of only 2,300 miles with 292 passengers, instead of the 4,600 miles that Boeing is contractually obliged to deliver. Allowing Boeing more time to revamp the plane to meet its performance pledge, said Major General Jewell C. Maxwell, SST Development Director of the Federal Aviation Administration, “will hasten the day when we will have a safe, successful and profitable SST in commercial service.”

Despite such assurance, aviation circles put a good part of the blame for the slowdown on politics. The program remains a prime target for a vociferous and growing minority. “A toy for the international jet set,” Wisconsin Democrat William Proxmire called it in a Senate speech last fall. In his budget for the fiscal year starting next July, President Johnson has already trimmed his request for SST funds to $223 million, an $80.6 million increase from fiscal 1968 but only half of the boost that the Administration proposed last summer. Slowing development further would mollify congressional economizers by permitting additional cuts.

Small Comfort. Such delay, however, could prove costly in the end by enabling the smaller and slower (1,450 m.p.h.) Anglo-French Concorde to snare more of the global SST market. At stake is a potential $40 billion in foreign orders for the U.S. plane, which would help the balance of payments. For the moment, the U.S. can take small comfort from delays abroad. Though the Concorde prototype was originally supposed to make its maiden flight next week at Toulouse, chances are that it will be another three months getting off the ground.