If the SST's are indeed restricted to subsonic operation over land, the greatly reduced efficiency will result in greater fuel consumption and greater exhaust pollution. Over-land operation by any supersonic plane should be prohibited entirely. It is significant that the SST proponents have never sought to produce sonic booms either over the Capitol here or over the Houses of Parliament in London. If the Air Force could be persuaded to render a couple of sonic booms over the Capitol, preferably while Congress is in session, also over the Department of Transportation and of course over the White House, the matter probably would be settled at once without the need for further debate. Operationally, the Mach 3 transport has been described as being more missile than aircraft, and will need to get landing clearance before it takes off. You can't stack a Mach 3. The havoc that will be wrought on conventional landing procedures is obvious. The hazards confronting supersonic operation will not become fully known until there has been considerable actual operational experience. The British lost four Comets until the cause of the metal fatigue was found. Four 727's were wrecked, most of them ascribed to "pilot error", until it was found that while there were no structural defects, the plane's high "sink rate" must be compensated for by restricted flap and high landing speed. British aviation experts reportedly have calculated that with the accepted crashes which occur during the learning phases of a new aircraft, only four Concordes will be lost during the first two million flying hours.* The FAA is discreetly silent on whether they expect to lose any SST's. However, generally speaking, the greater the speed, the greater the hazard. From an economic standpoint, the airline load factors (percent of capacity) for January-June, 1970, were 41.7 for Domestic Trunks and 46.6 for International. It does not seem that the airlines are in a good position to make substantial SST purchases to add to their capacity. While the expected $1.3 billion Federal share is modest compared with the TFX's $7.8 billion for 500 planes, 100 of which may be acceptable," the SST still may be an open-end commitment because of unforseen manufacturing and operational difficulties and a serious question of the marketability of a $20 million plane. We are acutely aware of the economic hardship that will result from curtailment of aircraft factory operations with the loss of the SST business. It is unfortunate that the Mach 3 program, first authorized by President Kennedy, ever got this far, and that joint participation with the British and French on the Mach 2 Concorde was disapproved by the FAA in 1963, which insisted that we go our own extravagant way with Mach 3.8 The Administration is saddled with this domestic problem not of its own making. The economic hardship should be alleviated by some other means than what amounts to a make-work project for a questionable product. Our transportation priorities are wrong. Not content with polluting the troposphere with auto exhausts proliferated by the Highway Trust Fund, we are about to pollute the stratosphere. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation is struggling along with $40 million. It appears to have legal troubles and isn't even incorporated yet. It would be socially and economically desirable to divert some of the money and talent now being lavished on motor vehicle and air transportation to advancing railroad technology and to improving rail passenger service. We ask that theSST appropriation be denied. It is asked that this letter be included in the record. 3 Electronic Design. December 20, 1962, p. 20. ALFRED S. TRASK, Chairman, Transportation Committee. Historic Air Disasters (1967), by Andre Lunay, p. 110. Aviation Week and Space Technology, August 31, 1970, p. 26. AWST, January 4. 1971, p. 7. 7 AWST, June 17. 1963, p. 40. 8 AWST, July 8, 1963, p. 28. FASST (FLY AMERICA'S SUPERSONIC TRANSPORT) DEAR SENATOR MAGNUSON: Enclosed is a copy of our testimony which was given before the House Subcommittee on Transportation on March 4, 1971. Since we cannot testify before the Senate Subcommittee we would appreciate it if it could be read before the Senate Subcommittee.. The Michigan Chapter of FASST was in Washington during the first week in March and we presented our case for supporting the development of the SST prototype to both Senators Griffin and Hart and to as many Members of the Michigan delegation in the House as time permitted. We would like to think that the two Michigan Senators will vote for continued funding but their stand against funding seem quite firm. Our appreciation in advance for reading the statement. Yours Truly, (The Statement follows:) MICHAEL W. HYER. Mr. Chairman, my name is David Fradin, National president of FASST. That's F-A-S-S-T, Fly America's Supersonic Transport. I am here representing a lot of young people who want the SST. We're the ones who know that most of the anti-SST propaganda you've been hearing is an exaggeration or an out-and-out misrepresentation. Young people want the SST because it's so closely tied in with our futures. We want it because the SST and the world of aerospace mean so much to the achievement of our dreams of world wide peace, a cleaner environment, and social progress. If the SST is killed here in Congress, you are going to be killing the hopes of a lot of young people. - Let me tell you about FASST. We started working right after the Christmas holidays, after the SST debates of December. We had little then just small group of us who had been following the SST actions in Congress and didn't like them. We got busy in a hurry. We now have over twenty chapters, at schools with a total of over one half million students. We have sent out our literature to every Congressman and Senator here in Washington. Several of our chapters have already prepared ads to run in local papers, supporting the SST. The Michigan Chapter alone has collected over 3000 signatures on pro SST petitions. And we've been taking our case to all students. A lot of them came to our discussions thinking that the SST was a bad thing. But a lot of them come away wanting to sign our petitions. Let me tell you one example. A liberalarts student, with a rather cynical look, came to one of our talks last week. As he sat there before we started, I could here htm muttering about "hidden social costs" of the SST. When we finished, he had a very serious look. He wanted to know why he had been reading so much bad press about the SST, and why he hadn't heard the true story up until then. And he signed the petition. We've seen a lot more like him. Our technical case for the SST is included in the documents presented to this Committee. I just want to tell you about the young people who support the SST, and why we want it, and why so many of our friends and fellow students are coming to realize that it's not inconsistent with their goals and ideas. We are members of the generation of Sputnik--and Vanguard. We were in course. We were inspired by the excitement, the adventure of flight and by the pilots who rode rocket planes to the edge of space and by President Kennedy who said: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade, .....not because it is easy, but because it is hard." It was with this same spirit that Kennedy initiated the SST program some nine months later. We know that before we were born, test pilots were flying the earliest jet planes at 600 miles per hour. Today the public travels at 600 miles per hour. This is the real jet set the American public. In our own lives we have seen supersonic flight and we have seen it first as a great adventure, a dangerous experience for brave men. Now it promises new advances in civil aviation--new comfort, new freedom from environmental contamination. We know that in terms of flight times, it will make the vast Pacific look like the North Atlantic--and the North Atlantic look like Chesapeake Bay. Who will travel on the SST? We will. This is the SST. But in a larger sense, this is aerospace--that which has grown out of one of man's greatest dreams and wishes--the dream of flight. The expression of this dream has uplifted men's spirits as well as their bodies-and is very much a part of the world we live in. It is this world which is the focus of the hopes of young people--of hopes which the SST and aerospace have helped arouse, and which they can help to realize. We all share a great hope--that our environment will be preserved. You have already heard how the SST is cleaner than any current mode of transporation. longer We also share the dream of peace, of international cooperation. It is the jet airplane which has joined the world together. Nations need no longer live in separate worlds of their own, for now they are linked by air transportation. Above those roads along which the American pioneers of the west spent months, the jet now makes its way in an hour. And what the jet has done for the Atlantic community of nations, the SST will do for the world. Yet there are those who would forestall this. They would kill the SST prototype program. They would then go on to kill many other aerospace programs, and sit back while our nation's aerospace abilities wither and die. Other speakers have noted the importance of the SST to the continued health of this vital industry and national activity. Now I will note that there is one more great dream which we young people share--the dream of social progress, that our social needs will be met in full. To realize our social goals will require revenues, and sufficient revenues come only from a strong economy. While we have lead the world in successful application of advanced technology on which our economic progress during the past two decades has been based, in recent years the competition from foreign countries has become intense. First our maritime industry lost its competitive position in the world. Our auto, electronics, and other industrial products have similarly lest ground, while other nations surged ahead. Now there are those who want this to happen to our aerospace industry. We are the serious students, we are the ones who go to class when others |