
The American Concordes that never flew - yitchelle
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160321-the-american-concordes-that-never-flew
======
gefh
The 2707 was the reason behind the naming of the Seattle Supersonics, and the
cancellation of the project led to Boeing laying off 60000 people, leading to
the famous "will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the light"
sign. Wikipedia says the full scale mock-up is currently being restored at the
Museum of Flight, I'll be in line to see it when it's ready.

~~~
walrus01
The 2707's cancellation being the reason for Boeing laying of 60,000 people is
a huge exaggeration. There was a general downturn in ALL airliner sales at
that point in time in the 1970s, affecting the volume of existing subsonic
airplane production.

[http://old.seattletimes.com/special/centennial/november/ligh...](http://old.seattletimes.com/special/centennial/november/lights_out.html)

Read more history about the 1970s oil/energy crisis.

~~~
gefh
The SST contract was cancelled in March, and the sign went up in April 1971,
the same month that Boeing's workforce reached the nadir of 38,690. The energy
crisis didn't really bite until 1973. [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s_energy_crisis#/media/Fil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s_energy_crisis#/media/File:Nominalrealoilprices1968-2006.png)

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protomyth
I remember as a kid in the 70's having a book from Scholastic that had all the
fantastic SSTs and vacuum, magnetic trains that would get us across the world
in record time. It was amazing all the speculation about that and how little
speculation there was about computers.

~~~
xenophonf
Those were the Usborne books, right? They were great. I had two or three of
them and spent hours reading and re-reading them. When Hyperloop was
announced, I'd assumed that it was that in-vacuum maglev train you mentioned
finally getting built. :-)

~~~
TallGuyShort
I remember reading about bullet trains and supersonic jets in this one:
[http://www.amazon.com/First-Questions-About-Transport-
Faulkn...](http://www.amazon.com/First-Questions-About-Transport-
Faulkner/dp/0340329041?tag=duckduckgo-d-20). Recently moved back to my home
state and am thoroughly enjoying the slow process of stealing all my childhood
books from my parents house.

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ribasushi
Obligatory recap of the same piece of history by Maciej Ceglowski (0:58 ~ 9:50
) [https://youtu.be/nwhZ3KEqUlw?t=59](https://youtu.be/nwhZ3KEqUlw?t=59)

------
dba7dba
Another unexpected irony due to the supersonic jet. Boeing had put their A
engineers on the supersonic jet project while B engineers worked on 747.

Today there are documentaries celebrating the PM and engineers of 747. None
for the cancelled project.

~~~
yardie
So you're a hot shit engineer and you come into work for the Monday meeting
where the PM goes, "we've got 2 projects coming up: one is a supersonic jet,
the other is an extra wide passenger jet that kinda resembles a whale."
Somehow I don't see the best engineers, overwhelmingly, volunteering for the
later.

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zocoi
Apparently, there is a Denver startup with a Mach 2.2 that wants to make
American Concord a reality. [http://boom.aero](http://boom.aero) HN
discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286)

------
nickff
The SST project has another interesting legacy: the Space Shuttle.

Quite a few sources say that the reason Nixon approved the Space Shuttle was
to appease voters who had been negatively impacted by the cancellation of the
Boeing SST project.

------
wahsd
Isn't there some jet or jet like propulsion engine that was developed in the
UK a couple years ago that may offer far more efficient and even harder thrust
that could revive high speed air travel?

Is that what that boom.aero post was about? Sorry, I wasn't able to read into
it.

Either way, when these things come up, I am always curious what happened to
the realization that air travel is a multitude worse than any other type of
air pollution because it essentially directly delivers harmful particles right
into the highest strata of our atmosphere. Is that no longer a concern with
the jet-setting, globe trotting liberals? Or is it too inconvenient to their
lifestyle and therefore will simply be ignored? Or maybe scientists were
totally wrong about fundamental research?

~~~
ceejayoz
> I am always curious what happened to the realization that air travel is a
> multitude worse than any other type of air pollution because it essentially
> directly delivers harmful particles right into the highest strata of our
> atmosphere. Is that no longer a concern with the jet-setting, globe trotting
> liberals?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation#Total_climate_effects)

"The IPCC has estimated that aviation is responsible for around 3.5% of
anthropogenic climate change, a figure which includes both CO2 and non-CO2
induced effects. The IPCC has produced scenarios estimating what this figure
could be in 2050. The central case estimate is that aviation’s contribution
could grow to 5% of the total contribution by 2050 if action is not taken to
tackle these emissions, though the highest scenario is 15%."

So, it's a concern, but far from the largest. There have been pretty
significant advances in fuel efficiency, lighter aircraft, stuffing more
people into a single plane, etc.

~~~
wahsd
I think the question is the proportionality, i.e., is that 3.5 or 5% impact a
disproportionate one. The absolute percentages of even just 3.5% means nothing
without seeing it in relative terms. If that 3.5% is caused by 0.0001% of
activity then that seems rather significant. I don't see air travel being
anything even remotely close to 3.5% of all human climate affecting activity
so it strikes me that it really is actually a rather significant matter.

