CONCORDE — THE EARTHSHRINKER

[Music] every now and then someone comes up with an idea that affects the lives of everyone like the cranks who wanted to fly around the beginning of the century it wasn't long before the idea caught on and even if we couldn't own our own flying machine we could buy tickets on someone else's it wasn't the most comfortable way to get around but what sold the tickets was getting there sooner at 80 M an hour the 1930s 200 [Music] mph the 1940s and speeds up now to 320 [Music] mph and with the jet engines of the 50s speeds hit 500 mph now just under 600 mph by bringing Nations closer together a family of man has become a possibility but for 15 years aircraft have gotten bigger but no faster far far away places have stayed far away so if shrinking distances is what sold tickets before where next enter Concord the next generation of Passenger aircraft the supersonic age is [Music] [Applause] [Music] here [Music] [Music] a joint project by the British and French Concord will carry over 100 passengers at twice the speed of sound more than twice as fast as today's airliners the family of Nations becomes even more of the reality that's the promise of this soaring [Music] [Applause] [Music] shape 4 3 2 1 [Music] [Music] there's an old saying amongst aircraft makers and Pilots that if an aircraft looks right it is right and the aviation Community seems agreed that this Concord will take its place in the list of the centuries most beautiful [Music] PLS but it's not the speed or the Duty that matters what matters is whether travel is important and faster travel more important 100 years ago the world was a million small places separated by days most men spent their lives within 30 miles of home as Mark Twain wrote then travel is fatal to Prejudice and narrow-mindedness Broad wholesome charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime the ability to move around easily has changed our world and as each step towards faster travel has made the world shrink National boundaries have become smaller barriers scientists Statesmen businessmen and academics who need to cross those barriers regularly for the contacts that increase the world's understanding will become familiar with this new shape in the [Music] skies [Music] the shape wasn't dreamed up overnight early efforts to beat the speed of sound showed that new Wing shapes were needed to overcome the effect of the shock waves of sound generated by a moving aircraft in the ' 50s experiments showed that a delta wing could cope with the changes in the center of lift that occur when an aircraft goes supersonic this British fairy Delta 2 took the world speed record in 1956 at over 1,000 mph the delta wing shape has special aerodynamics in which the air flow doesn't stay attached to it but rolls across [Music] it the principle was put into practice in a succession of supersonic aircraft which showed astonishing control at all speeds but already British and French thoughts were turning to an airliner and in the early 60s joint design projects built special aircraft just to test the wing shapes that led directly to the Concord a dozen years after that little test machine the full scale model is a highly successful [Music] aircraft wheels down and Concord turns for home and land as the speed falls off that beak-like nose droops down to give the pilot a clear view of the runway [Music] with its wheel stuck out on Long Legs this Concord looks more than any other aircraft like a great bird reaching for the ground [Music] a brave and beautiful site but who needs it the answer is right here an international airport in its rush hour each Airline today is facing problems because of the very success of Air transport Year bye new groups of passengers want to travel but they all have different priorities the problem is that no matter what they pay or how urgent their need to travel they'll all go on the same plane at about 600 M [Music] hour no matter how much he pays no passenger can get there any faster than 600 mph [Applause] but there's a different future in store for tomorrow's Concord passenger returning perhaps from a trip to London in this simulation we can see what supersonic travel will mean to the fair paying passenger what at 10:30 in New York [Music] [Applause] Concord there'll probably be the same airline service and the same airport handling though there's bound to be a special excitement card flight will be called through shortly for the first time Concord traveler the slim fuselage with its four AB breast seating offers the comfort of the executive jet that's War Sir the big difference will really become noticeable when in the air for Airlines will once again be selling their favorite commodity not the snobbery of exclusiveness but the exclusiveness of speed our estimated flight time to New York will be 3 and 1/2 hours 3 and 1/2 hours instead of seven that's what Concord means it's as if someone chopped 1,500 miles out of the Atlantic position with a table in front of you stowed ready for takeoff thank you and if Airlines operating Concord use it to carry most of their first class traffic the existing slower Jets could carry the economy passengers with increased seating capacity and lower faes this would make better use of all the new wide-bodied subsonics and attract to a supersonic plane people prepared to pay the higher fairs if they're actually getting something extra for their extra money introducing an SST means rethinking the whole structure of international travel here are the sort of Time Savings that International Airline operators can offer and international passengers can use Time Savings that really are dramatic the fast line is Concord the slow one is one of today's Jets from New York to Rio De Janeiro cut from 10 hours to 6 and A4 Los Angeles to Tokyo shows an even more dramatic saving more of the route is over ocean so more can be flown supersonic cutting today's 13 hours to 6 hours and 15 [Music] minutes take two spots on opposite sides of the globe Sydney Australia and Paris France are nearly as far apart as you can get in a modern subsonic the journey should take 28 hours and 40 minutes and those last 40 minutes must seem like forever in Concord the journey will be slashed to 15 hours suddenly no two places will be more than 15 hours apart the right brothers would be quietly satisfied to see the Earth [Music] shrink arriving in North America from Europe will have one curious side effect Concord flies faster than the sun or rather a little faster than the Earth rotates and the local time is 9 a.m. so after a 3 and 1 half hour flight this man is arriving before he left you have all your personal belongings with you we hope you've enjoyed your flight and look forward to seeing you again thank you [Applause] to him that Atlantic Crossing isn't a journey anymore it's become just a short hop arriving in New York he gets to his office fresh and ready for a full day's work the man in a hurry could go to Europe and back in a day because a transatlantic flight would be no longer than many American domestic flights to some of us it would seem like a waste but the man paying first class does so for a reason a recent survey among American businessmen has shown a positive attitude to supersonic travel it indicated that the great majority of business Travelers would use it that many who travel economy today would pay a premium for faster travel and that they'd travel more well I'm here on business I flew in from Miami the flying time was about 8 hours I'm tired I've had about 2 hours of uh sort of cramped sleep and a mediocre moving and very good food if you could have made the journey in 3 and 1/2 hours even if the seats were more expensive what would your attitudes be to this sort of aircraft if I could make that trip in 3 and 1 half hours I make the trip quite often and if I could make the trip in 3 and 1/2 hours or any time getting close to that I would certainly take advantage of it there's a possibility that this aircraft might only fly a first class service does would that affect you at all no uh I think that we have to sort of determine the value of our time and uh the condition in which we are When we arrive here my day is almost completely shot now and uh I'll go to the hotel and I'll rest and maybe get some work done late this afternoon so then in effect I've used up almost uh 14 15 hours of time if I could do this trip uh in three and a half or 4 hours and be able to do some productive work when I get here then uh I think this would more than offset the increase heat cost well I'm uh on a business trip I'm a lawyer and uh been in the air for 6 hours plus and I'm feeling uh fairly groggy now on this journey you've just made how would you regard an aircraft that would have cut your flying time in half even if the seats were more expensive well I would have been very glad to cut my flying time in half how you feeling now tired how would you you how would you have uh regarded an aircraft on this journey you've just made that would have reduced your flying time to 3 and 1/2 hours even if the seats were more expensive I probably would take the the shorter trip you're speaking of the Concord no doubt no that what views do you have on this air concept it's beautiful would you do you feel inclined to use it with what off I think I probably would well of course the price would be a factor but I think any businessman traveling the quicker you can get from point A to point B I think that it' almost be foolish not to go along with the system even if it's more expensive uh if it were more expensive but to a point of how much more expensive I think that would have to be a consideration time is what uh I think would be the most important selling point uh I I don't travel first class on the normal flights because I don't think it's good value uh if you go on the conquer and you go in half the time you're getting something for your money we have a uh plant here in England and uh we have meetings here once a month uh I think that I would probably make every meeting if it were possible to do it uh a little more conveniently as it is I maybe make every other meeting so that uh I'm I'm sure that uh a shorter travel time would increase the number of trips that you would take they'd have more more chance to get around I uh normally when you make that long of a Crossing you don't turn around and come back that same night but I'm not too sure under supersonic flight that Mia uh could be a happening and that kind of happening will help more than just the world of Industry Andy Commerce personal contact between the world's leaders must help to improve the prospect for the future of us all from New York Bruce M UPI correspondent at the United Nations in my 25 years around here at the United Nations many things have changed one thing that remains constant is that this is the world's greatest forum for diplomats to meet and confer and talk things over things that have changed in the last quarter Century I believe most of all all it would be Transportation it used to take a week or more for diplomats to come from their capitals to talk here I recall many years ago they used to say that the diplomats would hang around until the last hoot of the queen that of course meant the last sounding of the whistle or the Horn of the old Queen Mary or the Queen Elizabeth that would get the diplomats out of New York and back to their home country in time for Christmas now of course they don't have to rely on Telephone or on cable to get instructions for their home offices with supersonic transport and actually almost less time than the clock tells they can have the actual papers they need they can have the instructions they they they require from their Prime Ministers or from their heads of state to discuss things here of course as speed of Transportation increases so will the fluency and the frequency of top level consultations which should bode well for the world of Peace in factories in Britain and France Concords are being built already 16 aircraft are at some stage of construction all along design has been within the state-ofthe-art the airframe is basically a familiar aluminum [Music] alloy the engines themselves are developments of a proven design which were tested endlessly on the ground and in the air even so the high technology needed in so Advanced an aircraft have made made it the European equivalent of the Space Program the big British and French government investments will be repaid in research and development spin-off for decades to come Concord like any major new development has attracted critics the automobile and flying itself both Drew complaints in their time people said automobiles would frighten horses and they did in this environment conscious age criticism must be taken seriously prototype Concords made everyone shudder at the amount of smoke they belched out but the early engines were designed purely for [Applause] thrust the production models have redesigned combustion Chambers making the engines a lot cleaner than many regular aircraft flying [Applause] today airport noise is a big issue today supersonic engines cannot easily be quietened but work is being carried out to bring Concord airport noise down to the level of today's 707s in dc8 for example and there'll be more of those than Concords flying around for some years to come and sure Sonic Boom can be unpleasant it's an inevitable feature of SuperSonic flight but just because Concord can fly supersonically doesn't mean it must so its roots will be chosen to avoid disturbing people with the Boom it's just a question of organization one of the more complex criticisms was that the oxides of nitrogen released from the Concord engine exhaust into the stratosphere at crew's height would combine with the oxygen in the ozone layer destroy it and let huge amounts of damaging ultraviolet rays through to the surface of the Earth from Imperial College London and a former visiting professor of meteorology at New York University Professor Richard lorer the atmosphere is a very robust system and H bombs and thunderstorms and other uh violent phenomena of the weather have introduced large amounts of oxides of nitrogen into the stratosphere and there is no evidence whatever that these have any effect on the amount of ozone in fact the natural variations are so large that nobody has ever been able to detect any artificial effect on the ozone and I'm quite sure that there is no need to worry about what a few airplanes will put in by comparison with what nature is already doing so Concord shrinks the [Music] world Athens when the legendary Icarus flew too near the sun it melted the wax that fixed his feathers to his arms and he fell to his death the heat remains and didn't bother Concord when the Prototype arrived there on the first leg of a major rootring Voyage around the world in [Music] 1972 Beirut which is an important Crossroads for all the world's [Music] Airlines [Music] Bombay India Monsoon [Music] time Singapore the route was testing out all manner of climates and runways and revealed another important Concord feature she uses existing airports and handling equipment so the big program of Runway extensions that was needed for the last generation of big subsonic Jets won't have to be [Music] repeated [Music] [Applause] [Music] Tokyo Japan in 1952 just 20 years ago only 30,000 Americans went there in a year today with the help of the jet 10 times that number meet the Japanese in their own country when Tokyo is just 6 hours from San Francisco by Concord how many more will travel there and finally Sydney Australia is a huge land still unfamiliar to most of the world when Concord cuts the Pacific in half Australia will become a near neighbor in 1975 Concords will go into Airline service on that blue ribbon transatlantic route and already the experts are extending a welcome Mr Gordon Bennett f fa representative in London the United States Federal Aviation Administration has been following closely the development and testing of Concord in our view this is a tremendous technological achievement and will contribute significantly to the future of air transportation we've also been following the certification of Concord in the United Kingdom and in France United States certif ification of Concord should follow closely the certification abroad as this new supersonic transport becomes ready to enter the world air transportation systems we must all be ready to review our rules and our procedures to be sure that this aircraft can be accommodated appropriately in the world's airspace we and the FAA join the aviation Community throughout the world and congratul ating the British and the French on this significant contribution to the future of world air [Music] [Applause] [Applause] transportation [Music] oh