​Why was it that the Europeans (and even the Soviets sort of) had supersonic flight, but Americans did not? Did it perhaps all come down to the engineers and their ability? In this article I will consider such questions in more detail so we can better understand how various factors affect your engineering and your chances of success when taking on big challenges.

Some background
Depending upon the newspaper you read, you might have seen this recent article in The Telegraph about the history of the Boeing 2707: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/boeing-2707-america-lost-concorde. The Boeing 2707 is described in the article as “America’s lost Concorde”. Interesting words; how was it lost; circumstance; incompetence; tragedy; or is it about the loss of an engineering race? It leaves the reader wondering just how it is that America never had its own commercial supersonic aircraft.

The article argues that the Boeing 2707 did not succeed because of the following:

1. The Europeans got a headstart
2. The American design was too ambition carrying more passengers and being optimised for slower flight as well with swing-wings
3. Fickle political support
4. Potential for public backlash because of noise
5. Market realities – like those that saw the end of the Concorde

A global engineering lens
Would we reach the same conclusions if we look at this as global engineers? And, could we learn lessons from this consideration?

In my book, I cite another book (The Origins of Turbojet Revolution by Professor Edward Constant II) that compares the efforts to progress aeronautics in both Europe and America. Professor Constant noted that a lot of engineering in the U.S. was guided by commercial realities associated with longer flights (think New York to Los Angeles) carrying more people. This means larger planes with more comfort. In Europe, the focus was purer, and on fast efficient flights.

This offers potential insights into why the American design was too ambitious. There was still the notion of carrying a large number of people, which is congruent with large scale commercial operations. The swing-wing would increase efficiency during the slower portions of a flight – the beginning and the end. This is only significant for shorter flights such as domestic ones (that’s why they worried about people complaining about noise). Thus, it seems Boeing was making the 2707 a domestic and international plane – and thus increasing the potential for sales.

The Concorde on the other hand would get out of one country and stay at top speed until it reached its destination far away – disturbing no-one in between – a purest approach for a very specific (and small) market. Not very capitalistic at all.

Based on the above, we could argue that points 2 and 4 were ultimately more about culture overriding engineering decisions.

Points 1 and 3 can be combined. Indeed, the Europeans had a headstart, but so did the Soviets in the Space Race. The U.S. could have caught up and surpassed if they really wanted to. But there was no perceived national security threat as there was in the Space Race. So political support, being both delayed and then reduced, likely played a role.

And considering point 5, the U.S. government was probably overly spooked to support commercial supersonic flight in the first place, and wise to reduce support later on. Assuming it was all about direct commercial gain and there was no interest in the value of spin off technologies.

Lessons for engineers
Culture can cause you to create an engineering design brief that is not well aligned with the laws of physics. This can sometimes be through your commercial attitudes. Make sure you are realistic about your commercial goals and that they are aligned with engineering realities.
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And if they are not aligned, then accept that you will need something like government support to succeed. Failure is not a result of engineering skill – or lack thereof. Although it might be a result of engineers not challenging culture with sound engineering principles. You need, at times, to combine engineering and commercial reasoning to find the right direction forward – which might mean ceasing efforts.

So will America have a supersonic commercial airliner?
The Boom Overture, scheduled for release in 2029, has tried scale models already. It shows similarities with the Concorde – delta wings and fewer passengers. And the company seems to be focused on offering a speedier alternative to business class flights along long flights – showing a combination of commercial thinking with engineering thinking.

So yes, I do think there is a good chance that the U.S. will indeed have a supersonic commercial airliner.

But what do you think?

We think it shouldn’t; engineering should be governed by fact. But you have probably still encountered times when decisions, once made, seemed to be more politically founded than factually founded.
 
Why is that?
 
I am going to answer this question right now. It will be based on my experience, but informed by all the theory on engineering practice that I covered in my book. You can listen to a 10 minute summary of it here if you want a quick review of the main points – and get some context from what I am about to write next.
 
Attachment
 
The first big driver for politically founded decisions in engineering is attachment. That’s where someone simply likes an idea (often their own) more than others. It is this emotional motivation that drives them to champion an idea in a political manner.
 
Recall that attachment is like a form of fixation, but fixation is usually more cognitive: you just have an unconscious assumption in your mind, and it can only be undone when someone points it out. Once someone does point it out, you usually feel a sense of opportunity and creativity coming from the new perspective. But this is not so with attachment: because emotions are involved, people will become irrational – and political.
 
Therefore, to stop politics in engineering, you need to remind everyone (maybe yourself) about the importance of things like data, first principles and trials. Better yet, don’t let these be forgotten in the first place. When there are plenty of results from physical testing, calculation, simulations, analyses and so on from the onset, the information can either mitigate a person’s emotional tendencies or provide the solid basis others need to challenge someone else’s emotionally based notions pragmatically.
 
What stops people considering only the important facts?
 
Lack of shared situational awareness
 
I have seen times when the ultimate culprit was a lack of shared situational awareness. This is especially so when a person in a senior level does not have complete understanding of the issues at hand. They will then make decisions based on what they think are their amazing insights – AKA ideas formed in a state of ignorance. Given how “amazing” these ideas are, they naturally expect others to implement them straight away, and then expect to see results within a week. Others, who know the flaws in these ideas, but do not have the data on hand to support them, often then find they can offer only an opinion. As well informed as this opinion is, it is, until data is at hand, only an opinion. It then becomes a battle of seniority and rhetoric to see which idea comes out on top i.e. politics.
 
To confront this issue, you can put the effort into creating a document that summarises all key information. It might be a briefing document for a meeting, or it might be an ongoing log that all involved people are alerted to each time it is updated. The important thing is that people will review the content prior to formulating their ideas and putting them forward. Ensure that the document has the following:

• The context of the challenge so people can understand systemic issues and the goal
• Any analysis that has been conducted (numerical or analytical)
• Any test results from physical testing
• Records of all prior meetings on the topic
• Items that remain unresolved – this could be a risk registry

 
Then ensure that, before anyone starts giving opinions, they have been given ample time to go over this document.
 
The assumed need for an immediate solution
 
Another cause of attachment overriding fact-based thinking is the assumed notion that the final idea to be implemented must be identified straight away. Think about a time when you were in a meeting (formal or informal) discussing the solution to a problem and it was assumed that only one idea could be selected at the end of the meeting and that idea was the one that would be implemented. It’s likely not that hard. In fact, you have probably now realised that most meetings you have to come up with a solution to a problem are like this.
 
Make it a goal not come up with the idea that will be implemented, but to come up with a collection of ideas (not too many) to be evaluated further. The best one being selected later. This encourages the perspective that all ideas are selected based on facts – because they are tested further to collect evidence. Also, if there is any remaining attachment, then at least there is a greater chance, after this initial meeting/conversation, for anyone’s idea to be selected – and the motivation to push politically for an idea is reduced.
 
A general lack of first principles
 
The above points have likely implied the importance of first principles. Indeed, simply ensuring people always consider first principles from the onset, will help them become more objective.
 
An informal selection process
You have likely heard of a selection matrix. Where each option is rated against others along criteria that have been developed earlier for the respective problem. The option that rates the highest is the on that should be chosen.
 
When you use such an approach, people can no longer lobby (politic) for an idea as easily. Instead, all are involved in a more disciplined approach to select the preferred option.
 
Note, this is not simply for ideas to solve engineering challenges. It can be used for almost anything, and is the basic approach Daniel Kahneman proposed for selecting new employees.
 
A lack of evolution
 
A formal selection process can also encourage evolution. In The Global Engineer, I talk about coevolution being a major part of engineering – where our understanding of the problem evolves as we evolve the solution. This phenomenon, when accepted and then leveraged, can also help reduce politics in engineering.
 
If an option, after being put through a selection matrix does not come out on top, or, even if it does, but it has some weaknesses against some criteria, then there is an opportunity (if not an obligation) to evolve the design. This would focus on better satisfying the criteria with lower scores.
 
When you do this, two things happen:

1. The solution selected, which might not be the one that first came out on top, will be even better.
2. Each option will have had input (ideas) from others as they think of ways to improve it. This means each idea now has multiple “owners”, and that means it is less likely that one person will have only one option they are attached too – thus less need for politicking.

 
 
 
All of the above comes back to the way engineering problems are viewed and solved in a company. That in turn comes back to culture. If you are in a position to change the culture by mandating practices like that above, then the responsibility is yours. If you work for a company or manger that does not follow such pragmatic procedures for decision making, and politicking has become the norm, then it is probably time to find another place to work – you are unlikely to learn much in your current role and you are unlikely to be having a good time.