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planes. Whatever is learned from the development of large supersonic commercial transports should be readily convertible into military design. This is the reverse of the traditional process, but there is no reason why the sauce that was served with the goose should not now be served with the gander.

It is strongly my opinion that the time is much too early for us to risk letting our pre-eminence in airplane skills and experience start to run down; or for us even to consider allowing our dominant presence on the world air routes to go by default. I am wholly in favor of our developing a U.S. supersonic transport, and of our processing at all deliberate speed toward leadership in the new technology. If we stand back other will get the business, the foreign exchange, and the prestige.

The Cut-off in Military Experimentation

In saying this, I realize that the question of how best to process with a U.S.-built supersonic transport presents all of us - the government, the airplane builders, and the airline operators - with a serious quandary. The job will be a novel one in that for the first time the development of a commercial airplane will demand technological breakthroughs no already achieved by the military. Heretofore, the process of development has bene the other way around - first the military advance, then the commercial. The continuing military experimentation with larger, faster, longer-range craft underwrote, for the most part, the research and development costs for succeeding generations of commercial transports. Indeed, it must in fairness be acknowledged that most of the cost of developing our subsonic transports, from the piston class through the jets, has been borne by the Federal government. Had the large military jet machines, such as the B-47, the B-52 and the KC-135, not been developed, the airlines would still be operating piston-engined airplanes and jet air transportation would still be for the future. The know-how that made possible the Boeing 707 and the DC-8 was bought in principal part by military appropriations.

Now, except for the limited investment in the RS-70 bomber, military experimentation in aircraft susceptible of conversion in important measure to commercial operations has come to a stop. There is nearly none on the subsonic side and the RS-70 project is the sole endeavor on the supersonic side. But there appears to be limited enthusiasm for the RS-70 and how long that project will continue to go forward is not at all certain. On the supersonic side, the commercial transport will have to make the breakthrough.

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