Written by: Aryan Thagunna - 2022003, Grade X
Posted on: 08 November, 2020
Before the world's fastest commercial supersonic airliner was invented, the market was filled with subsonic airliners. Subsonic meaning that the planes would fly on the edge of the sound barrier (speed of sound) precisely 0.8 machs.
Our story takes place in 1958. An age of aviation where the american airspace was dominated by big dogs like McDouglas and Boeing. Boeing’s own subsonic plane the 707 and McDouglas’s DC-8 were pushing limits of speed while delivering reasonable range and efficiency. When American Airlines reached out to manufacturers to build a faster plane the leaders in the market declined. This was when one of the underdogs of the market Convair stepped up and agreed to build a faster plane for American Airlines. Convair decided on building 25 jetliners for American airlines with the speed of 1022km/H and even backed it up with a speed guarantee. Meaning that they would have to pay millions of dollars in penalty if the planes failed to deliver the promised speed.
Convair had a number of successes with propeller driven airliners and military aircrafts. But with the introduction of jetliners, the market as mentioned before was taken by newer airline manufacturers. Convair had their own jetliner named the Convair 880. Having no shot at the market of bigger and long range aircrafts, Convair had to compete in the market of small but fast airliners. This being the reason why they overtook such a difficult challenge. So to deliver their promise Convair worked on a new design based on their Convair 880 jetliner called the 990. Everything from the engine to the wings were changed to achieve the goal they had set. They added more fuselage to increase their range and on paper it looked as though convair had achieved their goal. Only on paper for now. When the first 990 took to the skies for testing, Convair found out that their plane couldn’t meet the speed requirement due to various aerodynamic problems. Turbulence near the engines, drag on the wing and other issues had kept Convair from reaching 1022km/H.
By 1961 American Airlines were in desperate need of the jets so they changed their order into 15 normal jets and 5 990s. They gave Convair more time to sort out their issues while Convair reduced their speed guarantee from 1022km/H to 958km/H. Eventually Convair worked out their issues and were able to deliver a plane reaching the new speed guarantee. But by the time their 990 took to the skies their plane was deemed very impractical. It basically decreased the plane's range and efficiency for a few extra kms of speed. Having no demands for such a plane in the market Convair stopped the production of the plane. They lost over half a billion dollars in total due to the development costs for the plane.
