I agree that we have taken a step backwards.

My "view" as to why it was not allowed to fly across the states supersonic is that the sonic booms damage properties etc. THey were not allowed to fly across any land (that I can think of) super sonic.

I was reading the skunk works book and they said when an sr71 "flamed out" they had to lose altitude to re-start the engine. When it fired back up and they went super sonic over some state of america, they damaged MULTIPLE buildings, knocked over a chimney stack of a factory and two people died from the falling rubble. Can you blame them for not wanting that day in day out?

Concorde is unreal and the ones I know of - Heathrow, Manchester and one in east fortune air museun south of Edinburgh.

Cheers

RW