SSTs Become Popular

Delta Force

Banned
I am considering writing a timeline about SSTs replacing most subsonic jets in the 1970s, at the very least for transoceanic flight. I would love to have them replace subsonic aircraft for transcontinental flight as well, but that would require making the issue of sonic boom regulation go away, which seems to be the major thing killing SSTs, apart from short range. What could be done to make SSTs not only a reality for the 1970s, but the dominant form of passenger transportation on long haul flights, with subsonic aircraft flying the shorter routes and 747s relegated to the role of cargo aircraft?
 

Riain

Banned
They`d have to be in large scale service before the 1973 oil crisis, and before widebody airliners drop the seat price right down.
 
No oil crisis. The concerns about noise could be overcome with measures like those BA and Air France devised for operating at JFK, throttle back after take off and turn out over the sea. There was also the proposed Concorde B that could have had quieter engines, no overland supersonic flight isn't that much of a problem, there's plenty of transoceanic routes and lots of merchant bankers and celebrities to make it profitable. But after the oil shock no one was going to buy a plane that burnt 2 tonnes of fuel just to get to the start of the runway.
 

Archibald

Banned
I am considering writing a timeline about SSTs replacing most subsonic jets in the 1970s, at the very least for transoceanic flight
I'm eagerly waiting your timeline.
Concorde B would have been a marked improvement.
The Lockheed L-2000 or the 2707-300 sounds the best designs for an american SST - the swing wing was way too heavy.

The mach 2.7 speed allows more rotations between Europe and America on a daily basis. Similarly, 250 passengers stands better, economically, than Concorde 140.

It might works - of course no oil crisis should help, too.
 

Riain

Banned
The problem with cruising above mach 2.2 is the need for special materials to withstand structural heating. The Mig 25 used nickel-steel and weighed a shitload as a result, the SR71 was made of titanium, cost a bomb and used to leak like a sieve on the ground. The question is; is the massive extra cost and difficulty worth the extra mach .5 when mach 2.2 is over double the existing airliner speed and a few extra rotations as a result? I know what my answer is.
 
Certainly you'd have to avoid the oil crisis.

But the economics are really marginal, especially for a Concorde type plane. If they could have gotten the Concorde B out, as some suggested, it might have stood a chance, but the Concorde was just too small and expensive to work.

The other problem is that its range was way too short (again a problem with those thirsty engines). If you could do a transpacific flight, that would help with your economics a lot.
 

sharlin

Banned
The 'no supersonic flight over land' thing always struck me as a big can of derp. the USAF went supersonic all over the US in the 60s, 70s and 80s and that didn't cause any problems. Was that ruling basically because the US got arsey because the English and French beat them to it?
 
The 'no supersonic flight over land' thing always struck me as a big can of derp. the USAF went supersonic all over the US in the 60s, 70s and 80s and that didn't cause any problems. Was that ruling basically because the US got arsey because the English and French beat them to it?

Could be, all you need to do to solve the noise problem is require the airplanes to go over a certain height when they go supersonic.
 
This thread is severely underestimating the noise issue (it isn't solved by altitude, only reduced... and the SSTs generated rather large booms)... and hasn't even discovered the exhaust issue (SST exhaust at high altitudes can do nasty things to the ozone layer).

Sharlin -
USAF planes are smaller than SSTs, so they generate smaller booms. Plus, they aren't flying regular routes crossing over major cities; they're flying exercises.
The US conducted multiple experiments in the 1960s with USAF planes 'booming' major cities regularly at low altitudes to simulate SSTs (though only during daytime) over the course of months; generally, about 25-40% of the population said that they'd never learn to tolerate the noise and the damage to houses.

Dathi -
You'd have to avoid both the oil crisis and the emergence of the jumbo jet. The 747 had such strongly superior economics to the SST that it's almost laughable.
 
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Sonic booms get more intense with both increasing speed and increasing mass.

Thus a jet fighter doing Mach 1.5 can be passed off as the "sound of freedom!" But when you have a seriously scaled transport plane, in the 100-200 tonne or more range, cruising at Mach 2, the damages get to be more serious.

Also, if SSTs are truly successful as OP specifies, there will of course be lots and lots of them.

I suspect what really killed the SST was not protests against the booms so much as sheer economics. As pointed out above, the first cost of a viable SST involves engineering with all manner of highly advanced and expensive materials--clearly the problem is worse when one can only make a few planes, because each airplane bears its share of the research and development cost, which are massive going into this unexplored realm of flight. The more successful the project, the cheaper those costs are per plane (and of course the easier it is to design new versions of an SST).

So there is some hope there might have been a "cost barrier" to be broken and it might have been clear sailing after that in a world of thousands of SSTs flying.

But actually I doubt it; the materials the planes were made of have to meet very demanding requirements, as do the engines; the aerodynamic design of the Concorde for instance was a compromise between the needs of subsonic and supersonic flight. Don't blame the environmentalists for the former--an airplane has to take off and land, you know!

So even with economies of scale that come from selling lots of units, and with improvements in the light of practical experience with lots of flights, the sticker price and maintenance costs are high.

And quite aside from first costs, I suspect the real issue is the draining economics of fuel costs. The fact is, supersonic flight is pretty energy inefficient! The ratio of passenger/cargo mass moved over a given distance to the fuel burnt doing it is lower than for other modes of travel, significantly lower than subsonic jet transport which is nearly as fast.

Given that Concorde never inspired any successors, I suspect it is now time for designers to eat a bit of humble pie and go back to a suggestion made by Barnes Wallis in the 1950s; we should design an SST to cruise at a very minimal Mach number. Specifically--the "sound barrier", the "transonic region" more properly called, is a range of Mach numbers where the parameters go kerflooey--drag doubles, lift drops, in the transition right around Mach 1 the airflow patterns are changing drastically so there is a lot of flutter and vibration. Cruising at Mach 1.01 would be a disaster. However, if we press and keep accelerating, the parameters come down to something reasonable about IIRC Mach 1.15-1.25. It so happens also that in this range of speeds, the shock heating of the atmosphere is just intense enough to offset the deep chill of stratospheric air, resulting in shocked air that is just about as warm as typical surface air temperatures.

So, Wallis proposed that the first SSTs be designed to operate in that range, allowing them to be constructed out of standard materials, and with their maximum Mach speeds in such a modest range, the compromises between performance there and decent performance for takeoff and landing would be minimal.

His idea in the '50s was of course that such planes would merely pioneer the new age of SSTs that would soon eclipse such modest beginnings, and his fellow designers were eager to get on with that, so they didn't bother with the "easy" step.

I wonder if it's time to actually take it.
 

Delta Force

Banned
I am having trouble finding what a low Mach (1.2 or so) aircraft would look like. The research I have done thus far indicates that while low Mach aircraft were considered, everyone just skipped right over them in order to go straight to Mach 2.0+ designs. I am considering having Convair make transonic aircraft and am wondering if I can use Convair 990s as stock photos, or if transonic aircraft would have delta wings and other high speed design features.
 
I am having trouble finding what a low Mach (1.2 or so) aircraft would look like. The research I have done thus far indicates that while low Mach aircraft were considered, everyone just skipped right over them in order to go straight to Mach 2.0+ designs. I am considering having Convair make transonic aircraft and am wondering if I can use Convair 990s as stock photos, or if transonic aircraft would have delta wings and other high speed design features.

The B1B's top speed is about mach 1.25, although the swing wings are a bit heavy for civilian use I imagine, plus short take off performance isn't an issue.


No, a Convair 990 would probably not work. Delta wings would be pretty normal also you can expect a pointed sonic nose. Also no horizontal stabilizer, all the control surfaces would be on the wing.

Also high or low trans sonic? The more mixed flow you get in the lower regions may be problematic.
 
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I love the idea, but there are a few issues to overcome.

You can wave away the oil crisis of the early 1970s, but widespread SST usage is going to butt up against the far more efficient and economical twin engine subsonic designs like the 767 in another decade as powerful high bypass ratio engines become more advanced. I just don't see how you get around the economics of this, unless you have a sort of two-tiered system in place where high end travelers use SSTs and budget travelers are on ETOPS twins. I'm rather skeptical of that concept, though it might be more workable with low fuel costs. But, to get sustainably low fuel costs, you have to rewrite a large chunk of the recent history of the Middle East and retard economic growth in a lot of emerging economies to reduce demand for oil. The other part of the issue is range; the Concorde was barely able to make it from DC to Paris. Longer range means carrying more fuel, which means a bigger and heavier airplane. How big would an SST need to be to make it from LA to Sydney? Even the early versions of the 747 didn't have that kind of range and an SST that needs to stop between New York and Tokyo is going to take away a good part of the time advantage of going supersonic.
 

NothingNow

Banned
To make it work, you'll have to dodge the Oil crisis and have sanity reign long enough that no-one approves Operation Bongo II, so there isn't grassroots opposition to the whole concept. After that, something like the 2707 was forecasted to be more profitable than a low-supersonic design.
 
I am having trouble finding what a low Mach (1.2 or so) aircraft would look like. The research I have done thus far indicates that while low Mach aircraft were considered, everyone just skipped right over them in order to go straight to Mach 2.0+ designs. I am considering having Convair make transonic aircraft and am wondering if I can use Convair 990s as stock photos, or if transonic aircraft would have delta wings and other high speed design features.
That's because the coefficient of drag greatly decreases between Mach 1 and 2. A Mach 2+ aircraft would be proportionately more efficient than one that was left in the low Mach 1 range
 
Cruising at Mach 1.01 would be a disaster. However, if we press and keep accelerating, the parameters come down to something reasonable about IIRC Mach 1.15-1.25. It so happens also that in this range of speeds, the shock heating of the atmosphere is just intense enough to offset the deep chill of stratospheric air, resulting in shocked air that is just about as warm as typical surface air temperatures.

So, Wallis proposed that the first SSTs be designed to operate in that range, allowing them to be constructed out of standard materials, and with their maximum Mach speeds in such a modest range, the compromises between performance there and decent performance for takeoff and landing would be minimal.

Hmmm... Doubling speed/halving the time would be worth a lot to some people. Increasing speed by 25%? You'd have a heck of a time charging the necessary increase in fare, IMO.
 
To mostly reiterate what's been said, if you get rid of the oil crisis the economics improve enough that Concorde B is very likely to happen (solving the aircraft's range though not economic problems) and making it reasonably plausible for an American SST to appear. That said, the economics are still pretty awful when compared to conventional wide bodies, and more so against large twins. That said, if you delay the oil price spike long enough I expect you can generate a meaningful and globe spanning niche for SST, though not replace most conventional aircraft as the OP asked for.

My best guess is that without the oil crisis and aiming for maximum SST penetration you get Concorde entering service much as OTL, but with significantly more airline enthusiasm. I'd guess that well over a hundred would be sold between the A and B models, and that with strong Concorde sales, still reasonable earning potential with more 60's like oil prices and proven customer demand the American program goes ahead, and enters service around 1976 (could be later, although I get the impression that thing were starting to come together around the time of cancellation). In any case, Concorde would be quickly outmoded and ends up being a successful type, but still questionable financially.

Whether the Concordes are replaced quickly or not has a lot to do with how well the 2707 or whatver the American aircraft is called actually lives up to it projected performance. My best guess is that it will end up with reduced payload and increased weight, fuel burn and operating costs and while enough of a financial improvement that few airlines are going to keep ordering Concordes its not going to demand their immediate replacement either (I'd also guess that Concorde could well retain a military and civilian business jet like market). Between the two aircraft I would expect major over water intercontinental destinations from Europe to have SST service, as well as most major trans-pacific routes, but that penetration into other markets is at best limited.

The real butterflies start at this point in terms of where Airbus goes with a successful Concorde program to build on. My best guess is that the A300 goes ahead much as OTL, but I wonder if the transition to it being an ETOPS aircraft ever happens. With most intercontinental destinations from Europe served supersonically a widebody SST to compete with the American aircraft seems like something Airbus is going to want quite badly, but ultimately I suspect given the large demand and lack of overlap with the supersonic market the A320 would go ahead much as OTL, if anything the SST market might accelerate the narrow body project, eliminating the demand for the A310. Certainly the A330/A340 program seems unlikely to go ahead as OTL, Airbus would very likely go ahead with a next gen SST instead.

I think the 767/757 would happen much as OTL (bearing in mind the original mission of the aircraft as an A300 for the Americas and a 737 replacement), but delayed a few years by the financial and technical impacts of the SST program, but into the 90s and 2000s things get less clear. I could easily imagine reduced sales leading to a 747 modernization and earlier and better marketed 767-400 replacing the 777 and major upgrades (at the same kind of scale as the upgrades the 737 between the classics and NGs) to the 767 killing the 787 (ETOPS would exists by this point, but the SSTs will reduce the size of the market, which would IMO reduce the market for a very large twin like the 777). I'd guess that in the same time frame (or a few years sooner with the reduced number of all new airframes being produced) as OTL's 787 Boeing would build the Sonic Cruiser as a true SST with much improved performance over the 2707.

My guess is that in all this the big losers are actually going to be McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed, for whom the trijets will become unmitigated disasters (arguably not much of a change for the L1011). Early sales would probably come through much as OTL but follow-ups would be very limited if the SSTs find their niche IMO, and the much reduced number of aircraft would mostly be seen in American domestic service and with various charter operators in all economy configurations. McD would certainly TRY to produce an SST in the 70s and 80s but I doubt that they would have the financial ability to do so, and I suspect that the company would be bought by Boeing much as OTL, but having never pursued the MD-11 instead losing what financial capacity the company had left under the weight of a serious attempt to build an SST to compete with the 2707 in mid 90s (that said, if the company instead worked to turn the DC-9 airframe into the first of the smaller RJs they might do much better than OTL, but that would require a pretty big shift in terms of the company's perception of its place in the market).

In broad terms I would expect that todays industry would probably leave SSTs in something of the same position as the smaller regional jets... Financially undesirable in most cases, but for many a cost of staying competitive, and one that is already sunk on the capital side. SST service is probably a well established business oriented product on the Pacific, North Atlantic and between Europe, the Middle East, Southern and Eastern Asia and Australia. I doubt that supersonic overlflight of populated areas ever does happen between the noise, damage potential, persistent feelings that the SSTs are for the rich and the environmental problems associated with the aircraft, but the odds of getting permissions for central Australia and the Canadian north seem decent. Russian overflight for eastern Asia to Europe could conceivably happen in the post Soviet world, but I think by the time that would become a realistic political possibility the economics would make airlines less than eager.

Perhaps the most interesting butterflies here, other than some very cool airplanes being in service are where this leaves Airbus. While I don't think the consortium will disappear, this TL suggests to me that they may remain something of a regional supplier, continuing to cater to Europe first and formost with limited penetration in the rest of the world. While a long range A300 would seem likely eventually, I doubt that it would happen until the 767 creates the ETOPS market if the SSTs are seen as the true future of long distance travel through the 70s. A major upgrade might happen in the same general era as teh A330 was developed to keep the aircraft generally competitive with the 767, but an Airbus competing against 767NGs with A300 NGs is going to pretty strongly emphasize the age difference in the underlying airframes (though the A300 is certainly a better cargo aircraft the the 767 OTl, and this could have an effect).

All in all, this makes the A320 Airbus' big chance to break out globally, and while things could stay OTL if you assume the A320 is OTL's aircraft I wonder if that would be the case. If the lack of an A310 program were to move the program forward a couple of years I could imagine a less advanced aircraft more tailored to replacing existing European designs emerging in the mid 80s. While this would be by no means a bad aircraft it would not necessarily be such a 737 Classic/727 killer as in OTL. I doubt that European sales would be much affected, but with less of a clear benefit I wonder if it ever would break in to North America (although a lot depends on what Boeing does with the 757 as well, if they start pushing it when airlines really want an improved 737 we might still see A320s in the Americas).

tl;dr You can make SSTs common, but you aren't going to replace conventional aircraft. The resulting industry is different IMO, but defintiley recognizable, and while the butterflies exists and are interesting they also don't seem particularly large outside the immediate corporate structure of aviation and related industries.

PS:
Someone asked about low mach designs, and while I agree that there aren't a whole lot out there the proposed Aerion Supersonic Business Jet would fit the profile.
 
The 'no supersonic flight over land' thing always struck me as a big can of derp. the USAF went supersonic all over the US in the 60s, 70s and 80s and that didn't cause any problems. Was that ruling basically because the US got arsey because the English and French beat them to it?

That is a big misconception. I was in flightline maintenance on F-15s from 1976-1981 Our planes only went supersonic in some very restricted training areas. On the east coast all transonic and supersonic flight was done in the ACM (Air Combat Maneuvering) areas off the coast. There were several ranges out in the 'great American desert' in Eastern California, Nevada, and Utah. Even then there were areas where it was restricted. During exercises like Red Flag (ongoing training) and Gallant Eagle (big joint operations effort involving ground and air ops in multiple training areas like Ft Irwin, 29 Palms, etc) there were areas especially in Death Valley where going supersonic would cause a phone call from 'Ranger Rick' (our generic name for the US Park or Forest service or the equivalent California park official) that a plane had 'disturbed the delicate desert environment' They would sometimes provide aircraft model and less often tail codes. And unit commanders took those calls seriously.

Back in the '50s USAF planes had large BUZZ NUMBERS on them to make it easier for ground observers to report pilots flying low and fast

After I got out I worked in a building under the flight path of Dulles Airport. We were a little over a mile from End of Runway (EOR). I never heard louder takeoffs than when a Concorde overflew us. I've been right off EOR when F-106s, F-4s, F-105s and other high performance A/C have taken off in multiple plane formations and nothing not even 4 F-106s bolting out of alert barn in full AB compared to the Concorde leaving Dulles. And it was even worse when there were heavy low clouds (common in the spring)
 
I have heard it said that senior Boeing officials were (decades later) VERY glad that the SST project was cancelled on them, as the company had a heck of a job surviving with the expense of 747 development, and an additional new airplane at the same time would have sunk the whole company.
 
I have heard it said that senior Boeing officials were (decades later) VERY glad that the SST project was cancelled on them, as the company had a heck of a job surviving with the expense of 747 development, and an additional new airplane at the same time would have sunk the whole company.

Definitely. In fact, according to High-Speed Dreams, Boeing officials, in 1970, informed the Department of Transportation that they wouldn't be building anything more than the prototypes if funding were approved - they had given up on the project, as it wasn't economically feasible.
 
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