@@FoundAndExplained As an Englishman whose Uncle was BA's chief mechanic on their Concorde fleet, I can be forgiven I think for loving our version on this side of the Atlantic puddle ~ a pond no more with these beauties. I agree that the Lockheed is better all round. How can you not‽ That aside, I have just watched a programme about Sir Frank Whittle, the jet engine and the de Havilland Comet, so please take this criticism of your masterful work in the spirit of admiration in which it is meant. "I only told you to blow the bloody doors off" also springs to mind, but I digress. I'm afraid that your version of today's commonplace exploded diagram was great in all but actual initial idea. Plane fuselages rapidly expanding took me right back to footage of the exhaustive pressure tests conducted by de Havilland and the British CAA, especially with the over-wing door shooting upward. Not a pleasant conjunction. Without these tests, metal fatigue would have been a further few fatal explosive depressurisations down the runway. Every cloud does indeed have a silver lining. Keep up the good work. Cheers.
The L-2000 was clearly the way to go. Perhaps cruising at such a high altitude, where the air is thinner, and hence drag is lower, the plane might have been more economical than Concorde, especially given a larger payload capacity over which to absorb costs. Good presentation. I enjoyed it. Thanks!
I personally think that the L-2000 should have been choosen it was more economical and cheaper and the first prototype could have been built in "no time"
Agreed. Boeing wasted two years and millions on the swing wing and other features. If L-2000 had be chosen, likely at least a few prototypes would be flying
Given that Lockheed had much more experience with supersonic aircraft than Boeing, it is surprising that Lockheed didn't win the contract. I would imagine there was a lot of political hanky-panky going on behind closed doors that tipped the contract in Boeing's favor.
And the engines were proven on a design that Lockheed also completed and had massive success with. That's a HUGE benefit for a project like this. All things considered I'm glad Boeing is suffering all these scandals now. Maybe Lockheed or even Northrop can have a go at the civil market again.
@@lucasokeefe7935 I would love Lockheed to go back to commercial aircraft once again, but ever since the development of the advanced L-1011 aircraft, and the bankruptcy of the engine distributor for that plane, Rolls-Royce, I think it is unlikely that will happen, as the L-1011 did not sell well in terms of sales. Maybe Northrop can have a chance.
I remember reading articles about the Lockheed vs. Boeing SST competition at the time. Even to a grade school kid with an interest in aviation, it was pretty obvious that the Lockheed entry was the better entry and that a lot of the bells and whistles on the Boeing entry just made it more complex and less reliable. Of course, when faced with a choice between something that is dumb, cheap and will work, and the whiz bang bleeding edge, expensive and untried, the Federal Government made their typical 1960s and 70s choice. Go with the whiz bang, and piss away tons of money trying to make a turd fly. I was actually shocked when Boeing won.
..the other matter was that Lockheed (and North American) had experience developing cutting edge aircraft from both a technological and high performance perspective which put them in a better position.
I wasn't. Boeing had a very powerful politician in Washington back then along with a well equipped Madison Avenue type lobbying firm. Plus Boeing was known 4 its airliners not Lockheed. Bells & whistles probably didn't hurt either & practically dosen't inter into gov subsidies. But boy it does with airlines. They might not have bought them. Ask yourself, how many bought the Concorde? Lockheed's largest SST version with its higher altitude & lower sonic boom plus its seat capacity would've been very attractive. Plus its cheaper.
Lol right! Lockheed had started their SST design long before Boeing too... Governments baffling choice, declaring Lockheed to be "Deemed too simple" SST was a cutting edge idea to begin with keeping it simple was the obvious choice. L2000 could have perhaps been flying still to this day
No. Its not when science and politicians meet, there are a lot of safety systems in aviation because of the politicians. Its when you let the lobbyist and the bean counters in the room when the scientist loose.
I always wondered about the Lockheed design, thanks for that! Also, you're good at animations. Until now we only had Mustard. Best of luck with your channel!
...the L-1011 while more advanced than it's McDonnell Douglas counterpart and even the 747, was sadly the victim of financial issues encountered by engine maker Rolls Royce delayed the project by over a year, giving it's rival the edge. The L-1011 employed quadruple redundancy on a number of systems and was overall a more clean and efficient design. The RB-211 was a three instead of two spool engine that offered better fuel economy and thrust than the GE CF6 or P&W JT9D turbofans used on the DC-10. An updated model of the RB-211 was originally chosen to power the Boeing 757-200 (all of Northwest and Eastern's initial 757s were powered with RB-211s), which along with the aircraft's long narrow fuselage, actually allowed it to exceed efficiency expectations and gave it an unparalleled rate of climb.
@@kingssuck06 The B-70 was an impressive aircraft but EXTREEMLY EXPENSIVE to build and operate. I can not see it being economically feasible in airline service.
@@scootergeorge9576 No doubt it does on a fighter, you outrun the other. But to advertise it as some incredible superiority it might not seem as big, I feel like the biggest downfall of the USA's SST was the ambition to make it crush everything else, instead of making a sensible "me too" there. No doubt if they went with the later, it would just be a small niche just like the Concorde, but in the end their choice just made it not be feasible.
Yeah! This is what I am waiting for! If the L2000 came into life I would be loving it! The plane is a really incredible concept and you really explained it well! Good job! 👍
Omg your efforts must be appreciated not only for this video but also for listening so much to your community/subscribers. I remember having a conversation about something related to this on another video of yours with some other subscribers or viewers and here there is a video on it today! Fantastic work, hope you get the growth you desire!!
Ironically the 747 was designed to do what the job the 2707 wasn't suited for economic Cargo carrier Juan Trip did the math and realized how profitable it would be
For real your videos are better then any documentary’s I see about the same subject. You know exactly how to make an interesting animation as much as the content. Thank you so much for your hard work.
I mean Boing are cool and they make some great planes, but if you were going to ask a company to make something that goes fast, its gotta be Lockheed, they were basically asking a company to make a slightly slower passenger carrying SR-71, that alone kinda tells you who should have made it.
There's I believe two different SST planes in the making currently. Technology has made leaps and bounds to where the old designs could be considered too outdated. - the big thing that comes to my mind are the control systems. That could be enough to where a complete redesign would be needed.
I honestly do not get why people are not subscribing to this channel. The way of presenting content to people is easy to understand while also being super informative and high quality. When I get my life sorted out I will gladly join patriot to help you create more videos!
Nice content on a favorite plane that I feel could have done well, in spite of the drawbacks you mentioned. Agree with the thesis that its design simplicity would have helped the program to progress relatively faster in a counterfactual to Boeing's efforts. Don't normally hear much in the way detail on the L-2000, so thank you for the video.
I do remember the L2000. My dad who was an engineering Professor told me that neither airplane made sense. Thus was a time when it was realized that unlimited budgets for military aircraft would bankrupt the country. That is why we did not build an SST. The XB70 never went into production for this reason. (Although the threat of the XB70 caused the USSR to build a whole new air defense system with cost being an ingredient of ending the USSR). The Europeans built Concord not because it could be operated as a profit, but because it was an important element of getting the UK into the European Union (and we know how that wernt). BTW the logic of building the SST was 1st you make an advanced fighter, then an advanced fighter, then an advanced transport. The military paid for the technology and airlines could operate the new technology airliner at a profit. The Boeing 707 was such an aircraft. The model did not work for the SST. Even the Russians who didn't pay for the development of their SST, could not justify operating it (they stole the Concord plans).
Any US certified aircraft must be able to descend from its max certified altitude to 25000 ft in 2 minutes. So this aircraft had to descend at 25750 feet per minute to comply with this regulation
I do remember some articles (probably Popular Science) in the 1960s comparing the two designs, but once Boeing's design was chosen, the Lockheed was quickly forgotten.
SST is such a wild badass and cool seeming idea! It's no wonder it always inspired humans to strive for the best designs. Too bad the were so expensive haha
the L-2000 offered more for less, the B2707 was worse in nearly every way but it just had a few more bells and whistles. The L-2000 was larger, could fly higher and faster, and even had a quieter sonic boom. It could have probably been modified in the late 70's to have advanced concorde features too to be quieter on takeoff and during fight too. And in the 80's there would have likeley been a redesigned engine to prevent ozone layer damage. Would have been a great world if Lockheed won that contest.
Speaking of supersonic, right now a new supersonic plane is being built by Boom supersonic and United airlines pre-ordered 15 of its new jets called the boom supersonic overture
Love to see a video on Douglas’ SST, which after several iterations went from looking like an XB-70 to finally also resembling the L-2000/Concorde designs... but Douglas immediately recognized the can of worms and dropped out as it preferred to focus resources on conventional aircraft.
The sonic boom is not created when the airplane passes the sound barrier. It is created as a supersonic aircraft flies over you. The altitude just lessens the strengths of the perceived shockwave but it's still there of course.
I think I once heard that when it comes make the perfect aircraft, Lockheed should build it, and Boeing should market it. All of Lockheed's designs were magnificent and almost flawless. They lacked the pizzazz and international recognition of Boeing however...
That it was, and that movie's director also directed "Airport '79: The Concorde," which used the Concorde that eventually crashed and ended the whole program.
@@jebise1126 I dont know any specific numbers about the J-58, but being a turboramjet (opposed to a just a turbojet) it operates most efficiently at high speeds (well beyond mach 2). At this velocity, the compressor and turbine stage would be very inefficient. But in the J-58 the ram air intake does 90% of the compression work. So basically most of the air bypasses the whole "engine" and is sent directly into the afterburner, which gives the J-58 a huge advantage at highspeed over conventional turbojets. There is a video about the J-58 that explains all its operations very detailed.
Not only NA’s XB-70 based design, Douglas also was in the game and also had a fixed delta wing design similar to L-2000/Concorde... but realized the complexities and potential spiraling costs, and unilaterally withdrew from the competition...
So why did the L1011 fail? I suspect that the trijet concept was flawed which is why the DC-10 also failed. The L1011 was not price competitive with Boeing aircraft. The latter I got from a Lockheed employee back in 1984.
@@scootergeorge9576 the L 1011 failed not because of technical reasons, but because of economical ones. It was very advanced for the time (technically better than anything Boeing and MDD had), but it was also relatively expensive. Lockheed was primarily a producer of military aircraft, which are built at the technical limits, unlike airliners which are built to be as economical as possible. MDD for example had already other airliners flying and a step in the door of the airlines, and offered a simpler and less expensive aircraft with the DC-10. Lockheed never made profits with the L 1011, and so they canceled it. Ironically at the end it was Airbus (with technically better aircraft) which were the last coffin nail for MDD, since they had an obsolete lineup at the end and not the money to develop new aircraft, Airbus took a lot of MDDs market share and sealed their fate. The trijet was a product of the 70s and 80s with strict etops rules, twin jets were not allowed to fly long distances over water back then. They have been replaced with twin jets when the 60 minutes etops rule was history.
North American also proposed a commercial passenger SST, the NAC-60, based on it's XB-70 bomber technology. At a meeting a senator asked what would happened if the outer wing panel became stuck in the down position. So ended the NAC-60.
Awesome video and very informative! But the American flag should face the other direction on the starboard side @ 6:09, as if it's moving in a forward direction.
Ok I've just been thinking about this a little more. In the early 70s Concorde had around 80 odd orders, which ultimately dried up with the oil crisis. If Lockheed had managed to win the bid, and build prototypes, and get orders, which would have been a given, it would have allowed for a market split between Lockheed and the Concorde of at least 200 aircraft, which would have meant that international airlines would be more than committed to sticking with their provisional orders. It would have been commercial suicide for anyone airline to pull out, knowing that they would have been committed to bettering with the future on supersonic travel especially internationally across large bodies of water. As the host of this video said at the end, the oil crisis might of been a verted with international aid, and airlines might not have been affected so much with subsidies, and in the full knowledge that other airlines would have been going through the same costs and inefficiencies during that few years difficulty, especially in the knowledge that it would blow over eventually. The market would have grown, then advances in technology would have progressed, with updates and then the Concorde 2 prototype would have gone into production, with advanced cockpit upgrade, and 170 + pax with a longer range, meaning that a slightly smaller aircraft with more efficient engines then the Mark 1 Concorde, might well have given airlines a smaller and slightly different proposition if they didn't all want the larger L2000. And then finally, the US wouldn't have dared introduce the overland bans on supersonic aircraft, and probably other countries too. This would have changed the whole perspective on supersonic travel. As he said, we might be living in a very different world today had the US government not been so impulsive and stupid in trying to order the bells and whistles of Boeing. So one decision, on one aircraft bit, and the whole world could have changed. Stoopit.
One issue that has never been mentioned is that this aircraft is flying above the Armstrong line of 63,000 feet. A blowout of a window or sudden depressurization of the aircraft would almost mean certain death for all on board unless they were wearing pressure suits. Never understood why Boeing was given the contract as Lockheed had an excellent lineage of producing cutting edge supersonic aircraft like the SR71. Boeing had never produced a super sonic aircraft and I believe there aspirations were to high. I suspect a lot of money passed under the table.🇦🇺
I didn't know Lookheed also made a full scale mock-up of their SST 3:23 . So far I have only seen the one of Boeings 2707. I think at least the cockpit of the 2707 is on display at a museum somewhere in the US. What happend to the Lookheed mock-up`?
Supposedly it was used in Fire Evaluation drills and it was destroyed sadly the SST Death Flight aka Disaster in the Sky used bits and pieces of the mock-up in the movie
Ironically Boeing never has never developed a supersonic production aircraft until today, the mitary jets they offer (F-15 and F-18) are former MDD jets and their XF-32 was a flop. They never had a single supersonic bomber or passenger aircraft in the lineup. Maybe the SST project would have been more successful with Lockheed, since they already flew Mach 3 with the A-12 back then and knew how to build a supersonic aircraft
Could you link to where you found information on the J-58. No records I’m looking at say that it was a turbofan rather than a turbojet engine. I don’t think that’s right because since it’s a turbo-ram-jet it has air bypasses that go right to the afterburner. That’s how the ram part works at supersonic speeds
Wow. This smart fellow absolutely missed the greatest feature of the Lockheed SST. It had a double delta design which caused higher lift at lower speeds. Then as the aircraft gained velocity the wind over the wing slowed down for efficient flight at very high speeds. That is the heart of the Lockheed design. But understand that Lockheed or Boeing or North American or M.Douglas- or even Convair wouldn't be able to fund the project alone. Either the government or a joint arrangement would be essential to proceed to a flyable prototype. It would nearly break the bank like Concorde did. And as I remember, North American wasn't a player. But Macdonell Douglass was. But I might be wrong about that.
Such a shame this beautiful bird didn't win. Lockheed was so underrated in the commercial market. The L-1011 was so much better than the DC-10. Boeing won with whatever the aircraft equivalent of vaporwear is.
With what Lockheed did with the L-1011, I would imagine this SST would have beat the crap out of the Concorde. The Lockheed L-2000-2 could have really been so good, that it would still be flying today.
Even if the L-2000 had gone nowhere, Lockheed had a winner in the L-1011. It was better and safer compared to the DC-10 in many respects. What killed them was relying solely on Rolls-Royce for the engines, which delayed the plane coming to market.
The top-view diagram you show as the Lockheed CL-823 is actually the competing design from North American Aviation, the NAC-60. The CL-823 had the same canard-less configuration as the L-2000, just somewhat stubbier, less elegant.
Great video really interesting I didn’t know a lot about the Lockheed Supersonic airliner, it’s a shame that the Americans didn’t picked the Lockheed design, but I do not think the American Government was very serious about building a supersonic airliner, If it had been they wouldn’t of picked the Boeing SST it was too complex and too expensive to build, but the Americans do like to reinvent the wheel every time they designed something, I personally think the reason why the American government Picked the Boeing Design had nothing to do with building a supersonic airliner it was to do with the 747, Which from my understanding had cost twice as much to build and almost bankrupted Boeing, Boeing may have had to cut back on jobs In Seattle and all over America, it may had gone bankrupt completely and may have to close down, but Boeing It knew how to Lobbying Congress and the government in general by promising them lots of new jobs and lots of new technology, even though they knew it was not very practical I also think the government knew this but realise it was a good way of getting money to bail out Boeing.
I think one major problem is due to high price of titanium, you can't really make a reliable aircraft that can cruise faster than Mach 3 without practically make the entire plane out of it. The technology isn't a problem, XB-70 and SR-71 were of the same technological level.
@@idknils2920 Even back then, instruments were already good enough that most of the flight, including takeoff and landing, can be done with flight instruments alone. I imagine that would be the piloting philosophy of planes like this so visibility was not considered a top priority
As I'm sure has been stated several times in the comments, it's sad the L-2000 wasn't chosen because it was essentially just a larger Concorde (which is to say, we know for a fact it would have been feasible to build even if it suffered the same economic fate as Concorde.)
It doesn't matter what could have been - what actually came to be is the one fact to write history: Concorde flew and had a successful career. Which literally none of the other attempts had.
US was busy designing bombers while euopre was designing supersonic passenger plane. In the end boeing killed concorde beacause landing gear piece fell on the runway and damaged concorde.
Personally, while i prefer the design of the Boeing 2707 with swing wing design (followed by Boeing Sonic Cruiser), the Lockheed L-2000 would be the second choice. Would prefer the latter, over the conventional delta wing design of the 2707 instead of swing-wing. Either go for extreme like Swing-Wing Boeing 2707, or much viable, cheaper and safer (while still look different) Lockheed L-2000. Latter should be chosen by the government for SST, while Boeing should focus on high-capacity 747.
My question is this are the F-4 Phantom J79s enough for the plane. If they built it now it would have used F-15E & F-16C/D Block 70 GE F110 in quad pairs. Concorde Engines are from Military aeroplanes of the 1960s Vulcan & TSR-2.
Shame they can’t revisit these designs and employ modern materials and build techniques to get one of these built and tested to compete against Boom and the new supersonic planes now in development
