The answer to this contest: GD-Convair’s 1961 proposal to the FAA for a Mach-3 SST. Four Pratt & Whitney STF 102 H turbofans would power this airplane over a range of 3500 nautical miles, carrying 130 passengers. As with the similarly configured North American Aviation XB-70, the wingtips of the SST would fold down to generate compression lift at high speed. Span with the tips horizontal was to be 1379 inches. Convair suggested a market for 150 of these aircraft in the 1970-1975 timeframe. Cost was projected as $14.1 million per plane.
While the on-hand documentation for this plane is pretty lean, it appears that it has some family relationship to Convairs proposed B-58-derived SSTs (see here and here).
2 Responses to “General Dynamics SST: 1961”
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In my B-70 book, the SST direvitive has its engines in two seperate three-engine nacelles under the wings, This one seems to strive for as much commonality with the bomber as possible. Long way back Lindberg Models made a B-70 based SST model, but with only a single vertical fin. they then released a stock B-70 kit with airliner decals.
It had *no* commonality with the B-70. Completely different aircraft from a different company.