joint venture: the development of a supersonic jet airliner, the Concorde.  This ambitious enterprise was more than an economic investment.  The Concorde was the response of two proud nations to the growing American domination of the international aircraft market and a symbol of the era of European cooperation that then appeared at its zenith.


9
The developers of the Concorde were well aware of the importance of minimizing noise.  Their hope was to develop an engine that would produce no more sound than the noisiest of the subsonic planes.  Accomplishment of this goal would be a formidable technological achievement, because the engines of the Concorde required an enormous potential thrust in order to drive the aircraft at speeds faster than sound.  The English and Frenchspent more than $100 million just to moderate the noise of the Concorde, and over a period of 13 years a total of almost $3 billion has been expended on the plane's development.


10
The United Kingdom and France have thus staked immense capital and even greater national pride on the success of the Concorde.  This success, our allies maintain, must remain an idle dream unless the supersonic airliner is permitted to land in New York, the principal gateway between Europe and the United States.  The operators of the Concorde urge that their plane can meet the 112 PNdB standard that the Port Authority applies to other aircraft and desire merely to prove, by actual experience, that the airliner will not cause an intolerable deterioration in the noise