The Insanely Bigger Faster American Concorde Failures

this video is sponsored by nordvpn [Music] in 1962 the british and french governments announced the world's first supersonic aircraft the concorde to compete the most advanced civilian plane in the world president john f kennedy issued a request for proposal to build the first american supersonic transport mired in political turmoil spiraling costs and environmental protests the selected design boeing's 2707 became one of the most ambitious aircraft projects in history [Music] just like american russian and western european aircraft vary in style and configuration streaming service content also differs from country to country to unlock the full potential of all your streaming services use mordvpn with nordvpn and their user-friendly software you can switch your ip address to a location anywhere in the world and watch content you wouldn't be able to find with only your internet browser enjoy endless country killer entertainment at a fraction of the price folks at nordvpn are on a journey to make the internet a safer place for their customers by protecting your ip address you also protect your online identity right now dark skies viewers can get a 73 discount off nordvpn's two-year plan plus four additional months for free this way you pay only three dollars eighteen cents per month that's just about the price of your daily coffee to redeem this incredible offer and obtain all the benefits the best vpn service on the market has to offer go to northbpn.com dark skies or click the link in the description below the future of aviation shortly after taking office in 1960 john f kennedy the 35th president of the united states commissioned the federal aviation administration to create a report including the nation's aviation goals for the next decade upon delivering the document one month later najib palabi the federation's new director suggested the supersonic transport or sst a civilian aircraft that would transport passengers faster than the speed of sound like many other aviation experts at the time halabi believed that this type of transportation was the future of non-military aviation halabi also indicated failing to join this market would be a setback for american-built aircraft however the report was met with skepticism from president kennedy vice president lyndon johnson and secretary of defense robert mcnamara then in november of 1962 the french and british governments announced their joint plans to build a supersonic airliner the aircraft dubbed the concorde would be the most technologically advanced civilian jet in the world the announcement caused a wave of panic in other countries as the europeans now had a significant advantage in the race for supersonic civilian aircraft in addition there was also talk that the soviets were working on their own design at the time of the concord statement three days after the concord announcement halabi wrote a letter to kennedy urging him to start the sst effort not wanting to be left behind the president caved in and rose to the challenge america would have their own passenger carrying jet capable of flying faster than the speed of sound despite many vocal opponents accusing the sst effort of being too technologically advanced and negative reports about its economic viability the project was soon backed by the private aviation industry and the federal aviation administration this organization estimated that by 1990 the us would have a market for 500 supersonic transports finally on june 5th 1963 president kennedy introduced the national supersonic transport program in a speech at the united states air force academy request for proposal on january 15 1964 the government received preliminary designs by boeing lockheed and north american for the airframes and curtis wright general electric and pratt and whitney for the engines private aircraft manufacturer boeing had its headquarters in seattle boeing's entry for the request for proposal was identical to model 733 and was nicknamed model 2707 the airframe was similar to the future of b1 lancer bomber and also included optional fuselaw stretchers that increased seat capacity to 227 a down selection of the submitted models pitted boeing and lockheed against each other and both companies were asked for more detailed proposals to select one in addition president kennedy assured them that the government would pick up 75 of the program's cost if either could produce a worthy opponent to the concorde by september of 1966 both companies delivered their final proposals with full-scale mockups and a lengthy report after a thorough investigation that showed the lockheed model's performance was subpar to the 2707 boeing was proclaimed the winner a new year's day seattle throughout the 1960s and 1970s boeing participated in several groundbreaking projects such as the newly introduced airliner 737 747 jumbo jet and the space program still supersonic transport was the top priority at boeing seattle facilities and the company predicted that the official construction of the models would begin in 1967 with an expected first flight in early 1970. the 2707 supersonic passenger airliner was a swing wing design powered by four general electric turbo jets projected to give the aircraft 281 kilonewtons of thrust which would help it reach speeds of up to mach 2.7 and a range of 3 500 nautical miles after winning the contest belvin refined their design to begin production on schedule and the engineers added a set of canards behind the nose to add extra weight however the technician soon encountered insurmountable problems with the cumbersome heavy and inflexible swing-wing mechanism boeing was now under massive amounts of pressure as a representative of national pride and was determined to make it work the designers then switched to a delta fixed wing in october of 1968 providing a smaller design and almost a year later the company began to work on a full-size mock-up and two prototypes however even with the delta wing shape the plane was still too heavy and wasn't achieving the needed range to reach mach 2.7 speed in addition although gas was cheap when the 2707 was being designed the aircraft used so much fuel that it couldn't reach transatlantic flights without a refuel the airplane that almost ate seattle according to kit mitchell the principal scientific officer at the royal aeronautical establishment in the 1960s the boeing 2707 program tried to do too much with little available technology quote when we were building concord we were pushing technology as far as i could possibly go at the time they were pushing for something that was just too difficult as the 1971 recession broke out the boeing facilities faced a crisis situation once one of the region's largest employers the company now had no choice but to let go of over 60 000 employees as a result of the massive layoffs and a total company restructure the failed american concorde was referred to by seattleites as quote the airplane that almost ate seattle another letdown the experts that believed that supersonic aircraft was the future of aviation were wrong in the end the airliners proved to be too expensive and too noisy for their own good and in 1972 the federal aviation administration banned all commercial supersonic flights over land although estimated sales almost reached 200 models only 14 concordes were ever completed for commercial service however the few operational aircraft had quite a long flight life until the infamous crashed in 2000 they were then officially put out of service after low demand in the aftermath of 9 11. the concord soviet counterpart the tupolev tu-144 was even less successful as it operated only 55 passenger flights before it was permanently grounded due to insurmountable issues a supersonic future even after the failure of the 2707 project supersonic transport projects still persevered but they faced a similar problem they were not economically competitive however after almost 50 years in limbo supersonic flight is back on the american agenda lockheed and nasa have partnered to design the x-59 out of scavenge space parts because of this it is known as the supersonic frankenstein in addition the x-59 quest or quiet supersonic technology is being produced with the iconic skunk works development program team it's expected to cruise at mach 1.42 speeds and make much less noise than its predecessors the project is expected to conclude in 2021 after which lockheed martin will run flight tests for one year perhaps in the years to come an american built supersonic airliner will finally take to the skies but this time with no european rival in its way thank you for watching our dark skies video please leave a comment below if you'd like to see a specific aircraft featured on our channel don't forget to subscribe to this and all our other seven channels and hit the bell icon to be notified of all our newest content you

Channel: Dark Skies

Views: 310,892

Keywords: Boeing 2707, NordVPN, aircraft, airplane, aviation, aviation history, boeing, concorde, dark docs, dark skies, dark sky, dark skys, fail, failed, forgotten, history channel, mach, mach 3, super sonic, supersonic

Id: a4BiQLRappI

Length: 8min 28sec (508 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021