In 1969, Nixon approved the American SST, which existed on paper as the Boeing 2707-200. Most of us thought it was about time. The Russkies had already beaten us to it — their TU-144 SST first flew in 1968. Déjà vu; it was Sputnik all over again. (You young folk will never fully understand the agonizing horror that Sputnik represented to America. It turned our world upside down; we were no longer master of all things. Could it be possible that God was not on our side after all? Now, with the SST, we had done it again. The Russians had it and we did not.) The English and French were close behind with the Concorde.
To my utter disgust and amazement, Congress actually killed the American SST in 1971. The country of the Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, Doolittle, and the moon shot had abdicated the throne! What was the world coming to? I hung my head in shame and complained mightily. “Oh,” lamented I, “we will be so sorry in a few short years when all the world travels supersonically on aircraft made by Russia, England, and France.” Well, I was wrong.
In the first place, Congress didn’t really kill the airplane, but just killed any guvmint subsidy thereof. That was before I became leery of any project not funded by greedy investors on the free market. I have since learned that lesson well, and have become suspicious of business people who want the guvmint to pay up-front costs (or bail out airlines).
As it turned out, the SST had problems from day one. The Russians crashed the TU-144 at the 1973 Paris Air Show, ceased production not long thereafter, and retired the airplane in 1983. In what became known as the Battle of New York, The Big Apple forbade any SST until 1977, when — begrudgingly — they finally allowed Concorde operations.
What was worse, it soon became apparent that despite enormous guvmint subsidies the Concorde would never — could never — break even, much less turn a profit. That, of course, was the beginning of the end. The much-publicized Concorde crash outside of Paris was another deep blow, despite the Concorde’s otherwise good record over the years.
Still, it was mostly the sin of unprofitability that brought down the Concorde, and rightly so. Faced with increasing maintenance costs for the aging aircraft, France and England have finally cried uncle, and who can blame them?
Richard Branson, of Virgin Atlantic fame, tried to buy the Concorde, but the Brits said, “Jolly bad show,” and the French cried, “Non, non,” as the French are wont to do. Methinks they feared the brash fellow might have made it profitable, and they couldn’t have that, now, could they? (Me also thinks Branson was lucky they turned him down, but who knows?)
