The Titanium Gambit
During the Cold War, Boeing execs got a strange call from the State Department: Would you guys mind trading secrets with the Russians?
- By Joe Sutter
- AirSpaceMag.com, April 01, 2013
Joe Sutter, winner of the 2013 National Air and Space Museum trophy for lifetime achievement, was the chief project engineer for the world’s first wide-body airliner, the Boeing 747. In the late 1960s, while Sutter and his team of engineers were designing the 747, another team at Boeing was at work on a supersonic airliner. Although the SST would be cancelled a few years later, in 1967 and ’68, Boeing was struggling with the design an airframe that would have to withstand the heat generated by high-speed flight through the atmosphere. As Sutter narrates in his book 747: Creating the World’s First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation, help came from an unexpected quarter…and help was expected in return.
As we designed the 747, an odd request arrived at Boeing from the U.S. Department of State. Would a delegation from Boeing be willing to meet with one from the Soviet Union for an open exchange of technical information?
Boeing President Thornton “T” Wilson didn’t know what to make of this request from high levels. The 1970s hadn’t yet hit, bringing with it the thawing of U.S.-Soviet relations known as détente. This was still the late 1960s; the Cold War was in full swing with rampant suspicions on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It was a ticklish proposition for T Wilson. He might well have politely declined except that here, unexpectedly, was a chance to get some badly needed help with a critical issue challenging our SST program.
The issue was titanium, a strong and light metal used in jet engines, missiles, aircraft, and spacecraft. Because titanium has a high resistance to heat, the Boeing 2707 SST was going to have a titanium fuselage. This ambitious airplane was to cruise at Mach 2.7 or more at extremely high altitudes far above the regular jet lanes. Despite the coldness of the very thin air at those altitudes, the 2707 would have to contend with supersonic “skin friction” that would heat its hull to many hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit. Titanium was thus an essential ingredient in America’s SST program.
The problem was that this metal is notoriously difficult to work with. While we used it in key places in our jetliners, we didn’t know nearly enough about titanium to feel we could manufacture an entire fuselage out of it at an acceptable cost.
The same was true of the British and French, who steered entirely clear of titanium for the Concorde. Instead they gave it a conventional structure, which limited Europe’s SST to a cruise speed of Mach 2.2 or so. Beyond that, skin friction would soften its aluminum hull too much.
In contrast, the Russians knew a great deal about titanium, which is found in abundance there. The Soviet aerospace industry was far ahead of the West in this regard. Accordingly, T Wilson accepted the State Department’s request for a meeting in “neutral territory.”
Comments (4)
So what was learnt about titanium fabrication and where was it applied after the cancelled SST program?
Posted by Brian Cavanagh on March 22,2013 | 10:30 PM
So what material was Concorde hull made from?
Posted by Anonymous on March 25,2013 | 05:40 PM
That is strange. The SR-71 Blackbird is made almost entirely of Titanium and was developed in the early 1960s. The knowledge could much easier be obtained from Lockheed than from the Soviets...
Posted by Lockhead on April 20,2013 | 05:32 AM
Typical aerospace aluminum alloys use a heat treating method (age hardening) that makes them susceptible to losing strength at high temperatures. The thermal problem referred to in the article is this issue. Titanium alloys do not use the this method but titanium is more difficult to work because of its reactivity. Thus, titanium alloys tolerate a higher temperature meaning higher aircraft speed.
Posted by Anon_Lurker on April 21,2013 | 03:34 PM