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<< Previous   of   Next >> Boeing Co. photo  (click to enlarge) The Sonic Cruiser design was for a jetliner that could fly at near the speed of sound. The economic slump after Sept. 11, 2001, doomed the jet, but its technology was incorporated in the 787.   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, July 8, 2007 Never-built jet blazed trail for 787 By Bryan Corliss, Special to The Herald Its only flight came in September 2001, when then-Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Alan Mulally tossed a balsa wood model across a Renton school room. But some analysts say that Boeing would not be rolling out its revolutionary Dreamliner today, had it not been for the never-built Sonic Cruiser. "Out of that Sonic Cruiser research came stuff that went into the Dreamliner," said Scott Hamilton, with Leeham Group in Issaquah. "A lot of the composite engineering and interior concepts they came up with went into the 787." The Sonic Cruiser was a futuristic jet-transport design proposed by Boeing engineers at a time when the company seemed to have turned its back on new aircraft development. It's hard to remember now, but in the first years of the millennium, Boeing was largely regarded as a company whose time had past. "We were no longer the innovators," said Scott Carson, the new leader of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes business, during a recent speech at the University of Washington Business School. "We stumbled." Hamilton attributed that to a change at the top at Boeing. Following the merger with McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, Boeing began to adopt McDonnell-Douglas' cautious, profit-maximizing mentality. The company stopped investing in expensive new planes in order to squeeze every last ounce of profit out of existing jets by building derivatives such as the 767-400ER. Boeing's industry-leading engineers "took second place to shareholder value," said Hamilton. "Boeing was so dominated by the McDonnell-Douglas mentality," he continued. "It's just so fortunate that the engineering spirit didn't die under the thumb of the McDonnell family." Carson said the problem was the result of Boeing arrogance. The company had sold more planes than it could produce in the late '90s, and disappointed too many customers. As a result, Boeing was no longer seen as a company "creating wonderful new products and opportunities for the aerospace industry," he said. "People started talking about how Boeing would never reinvest." In fact, the smart money said Boeing was getting out of the commercial jet business, to focus on its profitable defense business - like McDonnell-Douglas had. But then came the Sonic Cruiser. With its swept-back delta wings and forward-mounted smaller wings, it was a fighter jet masquerading as a 225-seat passenger plane. Boeing said it would be built of carbon-fiber composites and use state-of-the-art engines that would push it 15 to 20 percent faster than existing jets - just under the speed of sound while burning the same amount of fuel. This faster jet, "this sonic cruiser," would shave hours off trans-ocean flights, bypassing bigger hubs, an ebullient Mulally said in March 2001. "This new airplane could change the way the world flies as dramatically as did the introduction of the Jet Age." To that point, it had been designated the 20XX, but the Sonic Cruiser tag caught the industry's imagination, and the name stuck. Boeing announced the plane during a time of turmoil. It had endured a bruising 40-day strike by engineers and technicians the year before, and had just announced it was moving its headquarters out of Seattle. It later selected Chicago as its new home. In France, Airbus had just launched the A380 superjumbo, and was picking up launch order commitments from customers that were rejecting Boeing's proposed 747-X, which was officially shelved the day the Sonic Cruiser was announced. The Sonic Cruiser "was all they had," Hamilton said. The response was electric. Within weeks, Sir Richard Branson publicly committed his Virgin Atlantic Airlines to ordering the first six. Other airlines praised the concept. Mulally took a lot of ribbing in the aerospace community for constantly calling the Cruiser "way cool." Skeptics - particularly at Airbus - called it a "paper airplane," suggesting that while it looked good on the drawing board, the engineering challenges of operating a passenger transport at those speeds were too great. Yet it wasn't the engineering challenge that doomed the Sonic Cruiser. The Sept. 11 terror attacks sent airlines into a tailspin. Carriers falling into bankruptcy had no money to spend on jets, let alone revolutionary ones. Airlines backed away from the Sonic Cruiser. Branson began calling the A380 the future of aviation. In the summer of 2002, Boeing began asking airlines whether they'd be interested in a conventional airplane that used Sonic Cruiser technology to burn 20 percent less fuel while flying at normal speeds. Executives started talking publicly about a Sonic Cruiser "reference model" and a "super-efficient new aircraft." Airlines expressed modest interest, saying a cost-cutting jet made more sense than a speedy new one. A crestfallen Mulally announced just before Christmas 2002 that Boeing was going to drop the sexy Sonic Cruiser in order to pursue the more-efficient option. It was widely seen as a defeat and retreat for Boeing - at least until April 2004, when All Nippon Airways ordered 50 of Boeing's efficient new jets - then called 7E7s - marking the start of what was to become Boeing's most-successful new-jet sales campaign. Instead of revolutionizing the airline industry with speed, Boeing has done it with efficiency, Hamilton said. The 787's technology already has spawned a modestly successful 747 successor, the 747-8, and Boeing is looking at using it to further leapfrog Airbus with 21st century replacements of the 737 and 777. The new 787 assembly process of joining big sections made all over the world will likely become the industry standard. "All that flows out of the 787 and to some extent, it flowed out of the Sonic Cruiser," Hamilton said. The Sonic Cruiser "was an important part of the innovation cycle," Carson said. "We began exploring new ways to build airplanes, and we did that with a team that understood where it was that we need to be going and what we thought was possible." "More power to the Sonic Cruiser," Hamilton said, "even if it was an iffy concept or just a PR ploy." Bryan Corliss is a senior writer at Washington CEO magazine.

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