Boeing Supersonic Plane

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 9

Boeing Supersonic Plane

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, June 16.

An American company yesterday unveiled a closelyguarded model of a supersonic plane designed to fly 300 passengers from New York to London in two hours and 40 minutes —five hours less than the present flying time.

The projected plane will be larger and faster than the Concorde supersonic aircraft being developed jointly by Britain and France.

Its designer, the Boeing Aircraft Company, said that it also would be cheaper to fly than the Concorde or any other plane now in service. Costing between 30 and 35 million dollars, it will be ready for commercial operation by 1974. Boeing, one of the two American firms engaged In a design competition sponsored by the United States Government, disclosed major specification changes from an earlier design. There was no change in its claimed Ability to fly at 1800 miles an hour compared with the 1450 miles an hour by the Concorde.

It also retains the variable sweep-wing—used on the Fill fighter-bomber which folds outward to look like a conventional wing for slow flight and folds back into an arrow-shape wing for supersonic speeds. But it has grown from an originally planned length of 271 ft to 298 ft.

Its passenger load has increased from 250 to 300, and

its operating costs are said to have dropped. Another change was the removal of its four superjet engines from under the wing to the tail. Boeing and its competitor, the Lockheed Aircraft Company, are to submit their designs to the Federal Aviation Agency by September 6.

President Johnson is expected to announce by the end of the year his choice of a contractor to build two experimental flight test models. The Concorde is due to go into service in 1971, but the Soviet Union is expected to beat its United States and Anglo-French rivals.