Douglas Aircraft Company's Model 2229 was a proposed supersonic transport (SST) originally started as a private study.
After studying the design, Douglas concluded that the SST would not work economically, and declined to enter the Model 2229 in the National Supersonic Transport (NST) program in 1963.
[1] This was not a concern for military aircraft, where speed was life, but an SST would require twice as much fuel to move a passenger, increasing operational costs.
To offset the operational costs, proponents of the SST concept suggested the lower trip times would command higher ticket prices.
[2] But in an era when progress generally meant faster, there was a widespread feeling that the SST was the next natural step in aircraft design.
[2] By early 1963 a number of forces were gathering to propel Bristol and Sud Aviation to consider merging features of their designs into a joint effort.
Although their estimates and financial predictions continuously demonstrated very poor operating economics,[6] political considerations overturned these concerns.
By the spring of 1963 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was well into the process of defining an SST development program, and the private announcement in May that Pan American Airlines had placed options on the Concorde overrode any remaining concerns.
[8] On 26 August, Donald Douglas Jr. wrote a letter to the head of the FAA, Najeeb Halaby, saying that they would not be entering the 2229 into the NST program.
In the letter, Douglas stated their main reasons were the problems involved in introducing new models of the DC-8 and DC-9, along with various military commitments, which left them struggling for development resources.