Originally Posted by bigred93
Basically they're making a big hooptie do over investing about $5.5mm over three years. (That's million, not billion). That wouldn't buy the paper clips needed to support a project to design a working 300 pax supersonic plane. This is a PR stunt, nothing more.
I missed the chance to fly Concorde and would like to believe that I'll have the chance to fly supersonic in my lifetime... at this moment however my the highest likelihood of that being possible is through a ride on SpaceShipOne, not this work of fiction.
Or it could simply be research that will eventually lead to product development. I do not think it is pure fiction or a PR stunt. I do not think the likes of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are so stupid to believe £1.01 million will lead to development of any aircraft, let alone one capable of supersonic speeds.
Originally Posted by BBC
Companies from the countries will split an annual investment of $1.84m (£1.01m) for research over the next three years, Japan's trade ministry said.
Originally Posted by CNN
The three-year agreement to study a next-generation supersonic jet...
So basically, some people are studying some ideas. If those ideas bear fruit, the research may or may not lead to product development. Boeing R&D has lots of ideas that never go beyond the idea stage, so does Airbus I imagine...
Because it involves a supersonic aircraft with maybe some real possible future, and Concorde is our only reference point, and it was special, of course the media will pounce on it, and people will lap it up.