Boeing 2707

Hello hope you’re doing great! To day well be looking at the Boeing 2707!

In the 60s the French were looking at supersonic commercial airliners. They weren’t the only ones though. The British were too they decided to join forces instead of competing. In the early 60s Boeing decided to compete against the French and British.

They looked at it like something small, they just tested models. When the Europeans announced that they will be building a supersonic aircraft Boeing looked at this new type of plane closely. They started looking at wings and engines. Instead of a design like the Europeans were intending on using, they looked at the swing wing. This wing extended to reach supersonic speeds.

This wing would be pulled back when high speeds were reached. They had to be extended out for landing because they had the flaps attached to that part.

By 1962 the British and French announced the Concorde. People predicted that these supersonic aircraft would conquer the sky’s. The Americans didn’t like that they were behind not only Europe but Russia too. The Federal Aviation Administration predicted that if America didn’t catch up with the rest of the world they would lose billions and many people would be unemployed.

Soon they anodised the project would be started, the Boeing 733. Reaching speeds of nearly Mach 3, 250 passengers and a rage of 4,200 miles.

The orders were low for short range supersonic planes, so Boeing stepped up to design a plane that would have a longer range than the concord. 26 airlines put their orders in for the new supersonic aircraft.

Boeing added a nose that would fold down an back to minimise drag.

Even though these ideas were great, they were just to advanced. The wing mechanism was to heavy so Boeing had to go for a simpler wing. This wasn’t the only problem, the supersonic boom was unsolvable.

The XB-70 flew over some populated cities to see the impact of the supersonic boom. People were unhappy because the boom caused glass to smash and damage to infrastructure.

In 1971 the price for the aircraft was so high even the financing from the Richard Nixon Administration wasn’t inuf. In 1968 the tu-144 took off, a year later the concorde and the 2707’s prototypes were never even finished.

The project was closed in 1971 and the tu-144 was grounded 10 months after it was released. The concorde was grounded in 2003 and only 7 entered british airways fleet and another 7 for Air France.