PRIORITY POSITION

I believe that if the airplane is built, it will be built here, and it will be accepted by all the other countries as the best of them, but it is just something that I don't think enjoys a proper priority at this time.

INDUSTRY CAPABILITY

Senator PROXMIRE. You think that if it is to be built, it will be built here, on the basis of private capital? Do you think this is practical and possible in view of the tremendous amount of money required? Is this a practical solution?

Mr. GODFREY. I think when Americans want an airplane like that, they will finance it themselves; yes, sir.

CONCERN OF PRIOR WITNESSES OF U.S. AIRCRAFT LEADERSHIP IN 1980's

Senator PROXMIRE. Now let me ask Mr. Soucie: You had some very impressive statistics and you responded to the Chairman when he asked your interpretation of their significance in saying that they showed, in your view, that the United States is pretty sure to dominate the aircraft manufacturing industry, internationally, in the 1970's.

Now I think the point that Mr. Magruder and Mr. Halaby made well this morning, and that other witnesses made, Mr. Halaby, is that they are worried about the 1980's. This is going to go into operation in 1978, 1979-or production, I should say, in a big way, and we have to look ahead to the 1980's.

Now what is your answer about that problem?

QUIETER AIRCRAFT IMPERATIVE AND SHORT TAKEOFF AND LANDING AIRCRAFT Mr. SOUCIE. Senator Proxmire, the way I got started on these figures at all is that yesterday morning, I attended a meeting of the President's Aviation Advisory Commission. The way these figures started coming to me is that we were discussing the problem of aircraft noise, and what can be done about it, and something has got to be done in a hurry. We were talking about the composition of the fleet, and the projections for the fleet for 1975 and 1980. The reason any of these figures started developing at all was to show that we are going to the quieter airplanes. In other words, the DC-10, the Lockheed 1011, the Boeing 747, are all relatively quiet airplanes, and so the marketplace alone is going to begin quieting down the aircraft fleets.

And then when they said, "Well, beyond 1980," then the discussion went to short takeoff and landing aircraft. That is the 1980's. Senator PROXMIRE. The STOL, or whatever they call it?

Mr. SOUCIE. Yes, sir.

Senator PROXMIRE. The plane that would permit the commercial competition by aircraft between Providence and New York, as Senator Pastore said this morning, that kind of plane.

Mr. SOUCIE. The STOL has been, a step and a half better than a pipe dream for the last 10 years. It hasn't worked out for several good

reasons.

No. 1, the most limiting factor has been the price of real estate. How can you afford to buy the property where you need it, if you are going to fly city center to city center? That is one.

No. 2, the existing STOL planes have a serious shortcoming in terms of the noise. Their footprint, their noise footprint, is still too wide to get that close. If you can't get that close because of noise, then you have already lost half the advantage of having STOL.

So you have a combination of problems which have so far prevented STOL from really happening.

But there is an absolute saturation point that is going to be reached relatively soon, in terms of the big air carrier airports, because there aren't many built. In fact, over at the meeting yesterday, which represented every facet of the aviation industry, the Airport Operators' Council agreed that at least 75 percent of the airports that are going to be in use in 1985 exist today. There aren't going to be that many new airports, and that is why they are looking to STOL.

New York City and Philadelphia are next month beginning a test operation between those two cities of STOL craft, using no STOLport, but the water. In other words, the New York City STOL-port is going to be the East River.

INABILITY OF AIRLINES TO PURCHASE AIRCRAFT

Senator PROXMIRE. Yes, but I am still concerned. I think I was left a little bit up in the air on what is going to happen in America's competitive situation in the 1980's, if we aren't prepared to compete with the SST on the assumption that there may be a demand for SST's in the 1980's.

What is your answer to that?

Mr. SOUCIE. If there is going to be this demand, aircraft planning being what it is, then all of that is underway now. We are in 1971. No one has ordered an SST. The airlines can't afford to say they would like to have them done. They are not being asked to put up any money.

Senator PROXMIRE. They put up money for the French Concorde and the American SST.

Mr. SOUCIE. For delivery positions. I understand that Mr. Halaby, this morning, answered that he would not, at this point, buy any Concordes for Pan Am, even though, according to BAC, he is going to have to make a decision pretty soon. If supersonic aviation is viable, and perhaps it is, I don't think it will be done this way.

What we are seeing now is kind of a supersonic version of the de Havilland Comet going around. You have the inevitability of technology. Someone says that if you can fly military airplanes that large, Mach III, if you put in seats you have a passenger plane.

The same kind of thing happened with the development of the de Havilland Comet. As you pointed out this morning, we went through a minor variation of this very argument in the Congress in the late 1940's, about how we had to develop a jet passenger plane to

compete with the Comet. The Comet was built first. It was the only commercial jet airliner in the world, and I think they sold seven or 16 of them.

NONNECESSITY OF PROTOTYPE FOR DETERMINATION OF IMPACT ON ENVIRONMENT

Senator PROXMIER. I just have one final question.

A strong argument was made this morning by the proponents of the SST that it was necessary, to build two prototypes in order to determine effectively and comprehensively what impact the supersonic transport would have on the environment. What is your answer to that, inasmuch as this is a principal objection to the SST?

Mr. SOUCIE. I have been trying to get to the bottom of this and have had numerous discussions with people quite close to the program; namely, Dr. Arnold Goldberg, Boeing's chief scientist on the project, and Mr. Lockett, who is the chief of the technical operations division of the Office of Supersonic Transport Development, with Bill Magruder and others, trying to find out how they are going to do this research program.

In terms of the atmospheric pollution, which is the big question mark, it will be done chiefly by balloons, by the use of LIDAR, which is optical laser radar, by the use of the RB-57-F, perhaps some piggyback missions using the U-2, R-71, and other ground-based telemetry. The two prototypes, while they will be instrumented, will not gather any new data.

In other words, in the words of Dr. Goldberg, of Boeing, they will confirm

Senator MAGNUSON. What is his name?

Mr. SOUCIE. Goldberg.

Senator MAGNUSON. What is his position?

Mr. SOUCIE. Chief scientist of the SST project.

Senator MAGNUSON. Goldberg?

Mr. SOUCIE. Yes, sir. He was representing Boeing in a discussion about the possible effect on the stratosphere.

Senator MAGNUSON. I thought I knew everyone out there.

Mr. SOUCIE. They must have 104 people for you to know, sir. Dr. Goldberg and Mr. Lockett have told me that in terms of the atmospheric pollution, they will get the answers from these other methods, and that at any rate the two prototypes will only have flown 100 hours total. Much of that time will not be at supersonic speed, and not in the stratosphere. And yet a production decision must be made in the summer of 1973 so they can't really use those two prototypes to get any information about this.

NOISE SUPPRESSION

They will be useful, however, in noise suppression because I think they can demonstrate and bring down the turbine noise and the approach noise.

Senator PROXMIRE. Can't you do that without building prototypes? Mr. SOUCIE. You can do it. I heard yesterday of an experiment which I think McDonell-Douglas did and they theoretically should

have had a 3.6 decibel decrease but they actually had a 1 decibel increase. So, I think their arguments that they could use the flying prototypes to test the noise problem is valid. I think they can learn more than in hard-stand testing, although hopefully, by 1973, we will be sophisticated enough to make better predictions.

Senator PROXMIRE. Thank you.

Chairman ELLENDER. Senator Magnuson.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM AIRLINES SUPPORTING DEVELOPMENT

Senator MAGNUSON. Of course, we can only base our judgments on the opinion of airlines, by what they communicate to us. We have letters, of course, from every airline in the United States, and some foreign airlines, supporting the SST and putting money on the line to buy it. That is the best information we have. I hear these stories. I know some airlines, and you do, that because of their present condition may want to delay.

This is the problem of Boeing today with the 747. They all are going to buy it but they just want to delay delivery a little bit. High interest rates were one big reason. American Airlines, to keep their position, floated a bond issue about 6 months ago and they had no takers at 101⁄2 percent.

Now, the situation is a little better. So all we know is that all airlines have said they supported it. We have communications from all 16. Mr. Halaby this morning said that his statement was cleared by every airline involved. So that is our best information from the airlines and that is all we can go on.

MILITARY SUPERSONIC FLIGHTS OVER UNITED STATES

You mention that there have been some other supersonic flights. That is true. I understand they are different than this. They are military flights. But close to 500,000 hours have been flown supersonic as of about 2 weeks ago. I suspect there is an SST right over us now. I wouldn't make a bet on it, would you, that there isn't one?

Mr. GODFREY. There could be; yes, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. There could be.

PROTOTYPE FLIGHT MILEAGE PRIOR TO PRODUCTION DECISION DEADLINE

What you say, Mr. Soucie, is you always talk about the 100 hours. This is true, the contract states 100 minimum. Isn't that right?

Mr. SOUCIE. I am not sure what the FAA regulation is.

Mr. MAGNUSON. I think this was their rule of thumb. But that doesn't mean that they can't fly them 200 or 300 or 500 hours if they need to.

Mr. SOUCIE. May I respond to that?

I tried to find out from the Office of Supersonic Transport Development what their test profile was. It hasn't been designed yet. Their plan is to test-fly the two prototypes something close to 4,000 hours, but, in fact, the yes or no decision on production-for them to stay on schedule and to compete with the Concorde and all the arguments we are familiar with-must be made in the summer of 1973. At that time they will have flown the prototypes, if everything stays on schedule, 100 hours.

Senator MAGNUSON. My point is that the 100 hours is not a fixed figure. It is flexible, isn't it?

Mr. SOUCIE. I don't think it is very flexible in terms of when the production decision must be made.

Senator MAGNUSON. By 1973 it could be flexible. It is just a rule of thumb.

One more thing. We heard a lot about technology today, and about our superiority and things of that kind. We sell 82 percent of all the airplanes in the world.

Mr. SOUCIE. I think it is something like that; yes, sir.

JET AIRCRAFT: SPINOFF FROM GOVERNMENT-DEVELOPED B-52

Senator MAGNUSON. A lot of those are jet airplanes. But I think we have to keep in mind that the jet airplane would have never come along this far if it hadn't been for the Government building the B-52. It was a spinoff from the B-52, the first commercial jets. This is the sort of thing, when we talk about using the technology, one against the other, that we are concerned with. We still appropriate money for supersonic planes. When we were having this argument about the SST in the Senate, a defense bill went through at the same time with millions in it for supersonic planes. Nobody said a word about that.

Chairman ELLENDER. Are there any further questions?

Senator Hruska?

SECURITY DURING DECADE OF U.S. AVIATION SUPREMACY: PROJECT

LEADTIME

Senator HRUSKA. Mr. Godfrey, in your testimony you stated that, with the subsonic equipment now in use the position of America in world aviation leadership is secure for another decade.

I presume you mean by that the consumer position, because it will be the use of the present type equipment that is assured for the next decade, and, therefore, we are secure in our world leadership.

My question is this: There is a minimum leadtime, of 10 years, as I understand it. It will be more than that if we sacrifice much of the technological advancements that will occur in the next decade. Many of the personnel will be missing from the picture because if the demand for their services ceases they will not stay in the business.

If we defer the matter of developing the SST for 10 years, that means it will be 20 years before we will be in the production of SST's if it is needed at that time.

Do you think it is worth the chance?

GREATER PRIORITIES

Mr. GODFREY. Yes, sir; I do, because of the other things which in my humble opinion have greater priority.

For example, there are 2 billion people on the earth today who are hungry every day. There are some 200 million Americans; there are projected to be nearly 300 million by the 21st century. That is half again as much as what we have that will be needed, and what we have already is not enough. There are so many things, to my mind, which