Boeing 2707 - too ambitious

hello aviation fans sky here and we returned to the supersonic era this age was no short-lived but bright and addressed it on the wings of two titans Concorde and 2:144 but in this family there was the third brother the most ambitious speed almost Mach three capacity more than 250 passengers and range over 4,200 miles or 8,000 kilometers this plane was superior in everything but it had one problem it never came to be Boyan to 7:07 a supersonic airliner or rather a project of a supersonic airliner developed by boeing in the 1960s being the most advanced aircraft in the class the Boeing to 707 turned out to be so complicated that even such a giant as the United States evasion industry was unable to pull it off and so back to the 1950s military aviation was beating speed records followed by the time of the civilian machines delivering to the PanAm its first jetliner the model 707 Boeing was a little behind its competitors but we have to admit their plane coming a few years later took note of the mistakes of the British and the Soviets and turn out to be much more successful for two decades more than a thousand planes were delivered since the early 1950s the topic of supersonic civilian aircraft was very interesting but the Americans like the Soviets treated it more like a curious distraction scientists were just doing research and testing small-scale models in wind tunnels however seen serious success in the United Kingdom and France in 1958 boring started paying special attention to this topic and formed a commission the task of which was to analyze data and work out perspectives for several years the Commission was working on many different variations of designs and concepts within the framework of the program that received the index model 733 most of the options had an ogive Alwyn such a wing and its modifications were considered promising and were taken as a basis in the development of both Concord and the tu-144 the American engineers turned their attention to the new design the variable-sweep wing also known as the swing wing this wing had an important advantage having special mechanisms is adapted to the speed of flight at high speeds the wing had a maximum sweep allowing the aircraft to break the sound barrier and at low speed its sweep was approaching the performance of conventional subsonic aircraft giving the airliner their advantages this concept in the early 1960s had a lot of supporters and was even implemented just at that time General Dynamics was creating the f-111 Tyrell jet after conducting research and competitions within Boeing it was concluded that this design is more promising that the ogreville wing now let's look at the picture a little wider in 1961 the administration of the newly elected President John Kennedy attended to the problems of development of the civilian aviation it's exponential growth was beginning to cause problems and the authorities were considering different solutions within a few months the US Federal Aviation Administration also known as the FAA developed two large-scale programs project beacon was supposed to support the modernization of ground infrastructure as well as optimize the air traffic control system project horizon had to support the creation of a new airliner generation which would ensure the growth of traffic and unload the infrastructure the task of the project horizon could be solved in two ways by increasing the speed of flights so that a smaller number of aircraft performing more flights could carry more passengers or by increasing the capacity of the airliners so that again a smaller number of aircraft flying at normal speeds could carry more passengers on each flight the FAA actively promoted the creation of supersonic airliners since it was believed that such aircraft would eventually dominate commercial passenger traffic however this concept in the United States was confronted with the opposition of wide-body aircraft concept supporters the idea was advancing slowly Air Transport officials did not have the support of the Kennedy administration for example Robert McNamara was frankly skeptical about SuperSonics believing that the industry is not yet ready for such machines the opinion of this man had wait after all he was the US Secretary of Defense the debate was continuing for a long time supporters of supersonic aircraft insisted on the speed advantages which would solve the problem of the overheating infrastructure opponents however were pointing out the potential environmental risks as well as the high maintenance and fuel costs but the Europeans put an end to this dispute in 1962 BAC and salvation' formed a consortium and the officially announced the program to create the first supersonic airliner the project had great support from both London and Paris and by this time the idea of prospects of supersonic flights became prevalent everyone was convinced that these aircraft would conquer the sky and the Europeans having created such an aircraft first could conquer the aviation market this fact worried the Americans who suddenly found themselves lagging behind and beside the news from Western Europe it turned out that the Soviets are making a supersonic airliner of their own falling behind not only the Europeans but also the Communists and this is after their first satellite not mentioning the fact that a year earlier they were the first to send a man into space that was too much just a few days after the announcement of the Concorde project the FAA sent letters to President Kennedy stating that if the US doesn't catch up with his competitors in the field of supersonic transport America would lose tens of thousands of jobs billions of dollars and many important future technologies in other words nightmare and drama usual for politics moreover aviation officials offered to create an aircraft that could reach speeds of up to Mach 3 more than that of the analogs but having a range of about 4,000 kilometers or nearly two and a half thousand miles the aircraft had to carry out domestic flights it was faster and cheaper and the BAC satiation consortium advanced so far in working out its aircraft that it seemed to be simply pointless to compete with the future Concorde on long-range lines another strong argument of this letter was the panamerican statement about the Concorde contracting plants who on trip being a very powerful person in the industry was although restrained but still a supporter of supersonic transportation and stated that nm cannot ignore this trend even if the American aviation industry doesn't make such planes eventually in 1963 President Kennedy announced the National supersonic transport program the work had started all major US aircraft manufacturers participated in the competition to create the future airliner lock it and North American immediately engaged in air and power plants were developed by curtiss-wright General Electric and Pratt Whitney studies has shown the potential demand for 500 aircraft before 1990 however the demand for medium whole SuperSonics appeared to be minimal so it was decided to create an aircraft not a step below the Concorde but a step above it a bigger and longer range aircraft there was a lot of excitement despite the fact that until 1964 it was not entirely clear what aircraft was about to be created many airlines had already signed memorandums of future purchases Lockheed and North American offered delta wing aircraft close to the Conchords but soon boeing came with its own quite developed project model 733 with a swing wing design in 1966 the project was renamed and received the official designation Boeing model 2 707 although in most internal documents it remains 733 unlike its analogues the boring - 707 had a tail a rather large fixed part of the wing installed along almost the entire fuselage and a swing wing in general the design is quite close to the rockwell b-1 lancer strategic bomber created a decade after the airliner scheme suggested the possibility of changing the length of the fuselage allowing in the future to vary the capacity from 150 to 227 passengers lockheed led its own project CL 823 which by design seemed to be an enlarged version of the concorde tail was planed with a delta wing and a narrow fuselage unlike the European airliner the engines of the boeing and lockheed aircraft were to be located in individual Nichelle's not in pairs in this case the CL 8:23 was the largest of the planned models it had 218 seats almost like two Conchords the third NAC 60 project led by North American was created using the technology of the xb-70 Valkyrie heavy bomber also developed by them the aircraft received a delta wing and canards due to the rather large tail the aircraft could maintain a minimal fly speed with a small angle of attack without lowering the nose the nose itself had more classical design which simplified the structure but limited the speed to Mach 2.5 the NAC 60 did not last long in the competition it was considered not very promising moreover it was assumed that North American would be busy with their bomber and they might have resources problems in the end their airliner left the race meanwhile the model 2 707 was increased to a capacity of 250 seats and the engines were placed under the enlarged tail section significantly enlarged tail section it was designed so that in maximum sweep mode the wing merged with the tail creating a single deltoid surface a gorgeous solution not realised in the end of course but still gorgeous after the final requirements publication the airliners went to redesign once again although a local one as a result in 1966 the 300-seat Boeing - 707 and Lockheed l 2000 participated in the tender both aircraft received full-size demonstration models with which representatives of the program Commission's could get acquainted as a result in 1967 Boeing was declared a winner a swing wing and advanced mechanization allowed their airliner to maintain low takeoff and landing speed which made it more flexible in operation and the engine thrust in these models could be kept lower which was very good for cities near airports boring - 707 was an incredibly breakthrough project even if it was not supersonic it would still be impressive even by its exterior the length of the airframe reached 306 feet or 93 meters against 65 metres of the 244 and 62 of the Conchords and the maximum takeoff weight exceeded its analogues by 30% over 675 thousand pounds or 306 tons oddly enough despite the requirements of aerodynamics for supersonic flights despite the fact that the plane had to have a speed of mach 2.7 the boring - 707 was one of the first wide-body aircraft and to improve aerodynamics the fuselage cross-section varied reaching 16 feet or 5 meters in its widest part the cabin received configuration of 7 seats in a row with two aisles according to the 2 + 3 + 2 scheme the cabin was planned to be equipped with onboard entertainment systems with retractable TV screens between the rows given that the angle of attack during takeoffs and landings was still quite high Boeing engineers went the same way as their overseas colleagues making a droppable low section however the nose was divided into two sections and while the main part descended similarly to concorde and to 140 for the front edge deflected upwards compensating for the lowering of the nose and constantly remaining in a horizontal position this made it possible to increase the angle of the nose dropping and improved the performance of the locator inside it the rest of the elements of course also must not fall behind the best avionics the most advanced control systems and automatics everything that the American industry was capable of should have appeared here the cockpit designed for three crew members was equipped with the first glass cockpit elements which later became the basis for all commercial aircraft the powerplant was supposed to use the new General Electric GE for engines they were specially designed for the airliner although the design was based on the General Electric YJ 93 military engines which were applied on the north american xb-70 prototypes with a maximum thrust of 281 kilonewtons the GE 4 was to become the most powerful in the class it was assumed that the assembly of the first prototype will begin in 1967 and test flights can be started in 1970 by 1974 the planes were expected to receive typ certificates however during the development process the company faced serious difficulties the main problems stemmed from the main advantages under the influence of supersonic flight the long and white fuselage was deforming greatly which reduced the lifecycle of the airframe an even bigger problem was the wing all of its advantages were compensated by the complexity and large mass of the mechanism even with it being manufactured from titanium the mechanism of each console waits several tons and had fairly decent dimensions with these parameters the achievement of the plan performance of speed and range was getting problematic as a result the engineers had to take a step back developing a new airframe with a delta wing and without a horizontal tail the fuselage also lost dimensions reducing the capacity to 234 seats the new aircraft received a Boeing - 707 - 300 index the creation of its functional mock-up and two prototypes began in 1969 with a delay of almost two years despite all the problems boeing was very optimistic about the project the company had formed a portfolio of orders for 122 aircraft from 26 airlines over the next year's the model - 707 was supposed to conquer the mainline transportation market with a range of about 4,300 miles or 7,000 kilometers well the Boeing 747 was positioned as a long-range commercial freighter aircraft however despite all the efforts of engineers neither boring nor its overseas competitors were able to solve the fundamental problem of supersonic flights the sonic boom in 1964 a number of tests was carried out in the city of Oklahoma to verify the impact from the flying aircraft to populated areas for some time near the city the xb-70 prototype made flights at supersonic speeds despite all the taken measures and the fact that the plane flew at a maximum height of about 16 miles local authorities received thousands of complaints from the public about the impact of the sonic shock waves breaking glass and destroying structures in addition I altitudes lights and exhaust emissions raised concerns about the risk of ozone depletion all these factors were acceptable in the case of only periodic flights of special or military aircraft but in case of the development of mass supersonic commercial aviation local inconveniences could easily turn into a serious problem delays in work deadlines and unresolved issues such as these have already put the project on the ah failure like this wasn't enough by 1971 the cost of development had increased so much that despite the support of the Richard Nixon administration the US Congress decided to stop the financing considering bowing to 707 not very promising and not justifying such expenses this caused an outrage among many enthusiasts and airspace industry experts and trade unions warned that the simultaneous closure of the Apollo space program and the supersonic airliner project would lead to a sharp increase of unemployment in the industry but politically the race for supersonic was already lost by the Americans the tu-144 took off in 1968 Concorde in 1969 and the Boeing to 707 by 1971 didn't even start ground tests finally it was stated that the creation of the first generation aircraft no longer makes sense and the United States should return to research in order to create the second generation SST in the 1980s or 90s as a result the project was closed the two prototypes that were being assembled at that time were never finished and boring faced serious financial problems due to cancelation of state funding for the project - 707 and difficulties in delivering the Boeing 747 to the market the company almost went bankrupt they eventually had to reduce staff by 60,000 people sharply increasing unemployment in Seattle and causing a massive population outflow since then the Boeing 2707 also became known as the airplane that almost ate Seattle nevertheless abandoning the project despite all the serious consequences was the right decision as the example of the competitors operations showed they did not achieve commercial success out of 150 Conchords planned for delivery only 14 aircraft were actually delivered with serious subsidies Concorde continued to flight right up to the beginning of the 21st century but almost did not bring profits to their operators and were more of a unique image accessories in the parks of British Airways and Air France the Soviet - 144 even with all the support from the government to be even less successful and only operated on passenger lines for several months given the complexity and cost of the Boeing to 707 in such conditions it would probably become the most expensive and enormous failure of the American aircraft industry and the consequences of this barely avoided failure hit the program participants very painfully so painfully in fact that despite all the statements about the prospects of the creation of second generation supersonic airliners neither boy nor other companies showed any interest in continuing this work in fact over the next few decades work on supersonic airliners return to the stage of basic research and was carried out mainly within the framework of scientific programs but despite all the progress at the moment the main problems of supersonic airliners first of all high fuel consumption and sonic boom still remain unsolved the economic efficiency of such aircraft continues to be significantly inferior to the efficiency of subsonic aircraft even the attempt of Boeing to create sonic cruiser transonic airliner was not crowned with success the planes were too expensive and the advantages of high-speed flights were quite doubtful going to 707 remained a project it's prototypes were not assembled and the mock-ups were transferred to the Asian museums the most ambitious project of the industry has become a lesson for the Aviators yes no matter how powerful the manufacturers are and no matter how much resources they have the plane can in fact be too ambitious this is the story of the beginning of the supersonic era one plane flew without much success the second plane flew just a bit and the third did not fly at all but this is the beginning and the thing about history is it is infinite and the future promises a lot of interesting news like the video and comment what you think about our today's hero fast flights and soft landings to you [Music] you

Channel: Skyships Eng

Views: 736,514

Rating: 4.8216686 out of 5

Keywords: boeing, boeing sst, boeing 2707, lockheed 2000, boeing supersonic, boeing 2707 documentary

Id: pRey6cJy4h8

Length: 20min 50sec (1250 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 18 2020