Second Thoughts on Supersonics

Abstract

AT the Society of Automotive Engineers' National Aeronautic Meeting held in New York at the beginning of April, Mr B. S. Shenstone, the Chief Engineer of British European Airways, presented a paper entitled ‘Supersonic Air Transports—An Airline Talks Back’. Nobody who heard this dissertation or read the summaries given by ourselves and our contemporaries can be in any doubt as to his feelings regarding the proposed Mach 3 airliner. Mr Shenstone says quite bluntly that to suggest that airlines can accept a 350 per cent increase in speed at one gulp and, in achieving it, deal with problems of a fundamental nature in structures, aero‐dynamics, operation and air traffic control without going bankrupt, is nonsense. He is concerned with the fact that it is the aircraft manufacturers who are applying the pressure for an immediate transition from the subsonic turbojet to the Mach 3 aircraft, whereas the airlines would be quite happy to see a less drastic progression that would give them time to accommodate the various innovations that these high speed aircraft will bring.