The Cost Barrier Has Not Been Broken

Nearly two dozen of the world's airlines, from Pan American to tiny Aeronaves de Mexico, have hopefully placed 140 orders for either an American or a British-French supersonic transport. Considering the SST's list of problems, that's quite a bit of hope. Rarely has the development of a new product been more beset by rising costs, clamor and competition.

The Anglo-French Concorde so far will cost the two nations 75% more than originally planned. This admission brought gasps from the House of Commons when it was made fortnight ago by Aviation Minister Julian Amery. He admitted that he and French Transport Minister Marc Jaquet had adjusted the cost to $400 million for each country after studying modifications that will be necessary to give the Concorde more passenger space, greater engine power and larger wing area--partly to make it more competitive with the proposed U.S. model.

The U.S. plane has so far got exactly nowhere. Now the big argument seems to be whether it is really practicable in its proposed form. Aviation Consultant William Littlewood recently told a Washington aeronautical conference that ground dwellers cannot adjust to the SST's shattering sonic boom, suggested "careful routing" of the planes at a cost in time and fuel. Last week Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, the Lockheed vice president who designed both the U-2 and the A11, said as he received an achievement award from the National Aviation Club: "I am very concerned about the sonic boom where the SST is concerned. Something must be done, or a technical breakthrough achieved to get the boom reduced."

As if that were not enough, Russia's General Evgeny Loginov, the head of Aeroflot, announced that Russia's planned SST "will be faster than the Anglo-French one," adding that "apparently we will not be late." Western experts do not believe that the Russians, who lean to conservative solutions of engineering problems, could possibly put out a competitive plane, but the appearance of a Russian plane before the West's would be a propaganda boon. A prototype of the British-French Concorde is not expected to fly until at least 1967, and a U.S. one not until well after that. What is worse, the price tag of the Concorde to individual airlines has jumped from $10 million to $14 million each.

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