BOH

The folks at BAC and Aerospatiale (the original UK and French manufacturers of Concorde pre-Airbus) always hoped the Boeing 2707 would go ahead and make it into service.

Whilst it certainly would be a head on competitior to Concorde, they predicted that if the USA did not have a competing supersonic pax plane in service, both public and political opinion over there would turn against the European plane and whole concept of supersonic travel. And they were completely right......if the timeline is examined, the USA were initially very pro-supersonic travel whilst the 2707 was a reality. But only after their own SST cancellation did the protests against Concorde then seriously ramp up over the pond regarding noise levels, potential ozone layer damage etc....this largely coming from the FAA, Boeing etc whose technological pride and ego must have taken a huge dent with the cancellation of the 2707.

In one of the ironies that still makes me smile, the noise profile of Concorde on take-off from JFK was a heavy focus with much protesting and doom mongering taking place. The NYC mayor and Port of NYC (and many others) formally stated that unless Concorde could repeatably demonstrate maximum noise would be below a certain amount, it would absolutely NOT be permitted to operate into JFK under any circumstances. All sorts of medical experts were also wheeled out to explain how noise above this level would be detrimental to health etc etc.

But amusingly, after trials took place with a specific departure profile and with lots of high-tech noise measuring equipment installed at JFK and in the NYC suburbs close by, Concorde was shown to be easily capable of operating at some dB below this maximum level. However the same measuring equipment also showed the Boeing 707s and McD DC8s that had been routinely operating for around a decade out of JFK were frequently exceeding this noise level....the very level that the port authorities and medical "experts" were saying must not be exceeded under any circumstances!

Much egg on faces resulted over the pond and BAC / Aerospatiale mischieviously enquired as to whether the 707's and DC8s (the pride of the USA civil aircraft industry at the time) would of course now be immediately banned from using JFK? After all, the noise level they were generating had been clearly stated as being very detrimental to the health of the folks underneath the departure route...so surely this rule must equally apply!! Of course it didn't though...

The rest is history and after a struggle, Concorde eventually was allowed to use JFK.....but the world of supersonic travel would probably have been very different if the competing Boeing 2707 had made it into service. And pretty much all aircraft historians agree that Concorde would probably have sold many more frames too if there had been a competing USA plane in service.....