U.S. supersonic project set-back

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32560, 20 March 1971, Page 17

U.S. supersonic project set-back

(N.Z.P A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, March 19. The House of Representatives has delivered a possible death blow to the American supersonic airliner programme. The House yesterday voted 218 to 204 against providing further funds for the controversial project and then reaffirmed its decision by 215 to 204 on a roll call.

The decision, though not Congress’s final word, was a grave and disheartening setback for the project to build a 300-seat rival to the AngloFrench Concorde and the Soviet Tu-144. It reversed the House decision of last year which was the administration's main lever in keeping the project alive in the face of Senate opposition. The Senate will vote next week, and the momentum built up by the House vote appeared to make it unlikely that the upper chamber would reverse its 52-41 stand of last December against the project. If the two Houses of Congress should go in separate directions as they did last year, the issue will be fought out in a joint conference committee.

FUNDS RUNNING OUT A temporary financing compromise emerged in the closing days of the last session of Congress in which funds were provided only until the end of this month. The House of Representative yesterday voted on the administration’s request for SUSI34m to continue Government spending on the plane to June 30, the end of the financial year. The new appropriation, coupled with temporary funds approved in early January, was to have brought spending for the fiscal year up to the full SUS29Om originally requested by the Government. The vote was the first test of sentiment in the new Congress after one of the most intensive lobbying campaigns in recent years. Some 56 new members were elected to the House in last November’s elections and right up to the vote noone was confident which way the decision would go. PRESTIGE ARGUMENT Supporters of the project based their arguments heavily on American national prestige, pointing to the needs to maintain dominance in world civil aviation and to prevent further unemployment in the aerospace industry, which is already suffering a recession. Opponents said a fleet of supersonic aircraft would damage man’s environment, having an effect on the upper atmosphere that could cause more skin-cancer cases

because of an increase in ultra-violet radiation. They also drew attention to the problem of sonic booms and said they doubted official claims that the plane’s airport noise levels would meet prescribed standards. Several leading economists, including the Nobel Prize winner, Mr Paul Samuelson, gave testimony opposing the project, calling it an economic folly.