3 ms·
> I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms. Or, if you're more cyn
by lmm 3y ago
> I thought Concorde failed commercially because it couldn't get approval to fly over the US elsewhere over land because of sonic booms.
Or, if you're more cynical, because the US' own supersonic airliner failed and they wouldn't let those Euros show them up.
- philwelch 3y agoThe American SST was cancelled because of the sonic boom problem.
- lmm 3y agoIt was cancelled because Boeing were late and over budget; by the time they started work on a prototype, Concorde was already being shown at airshows, and the US Senate voted to stop throwing more money at them. Sonic booms were at most one contributing factor among many to that senate vote.
- philwelch 3y agoConcorde was also late and over budget. And until Congress defunded the 2707, it had more pending orders from more airlines than Concorde did. Sonic booms weren’t the only reason for the cancellation but they were probably the single biggest reason. Also, Concorde wasn’t even the first supersonic airliner—that was the Tupolev Tu-144.