>>1776655>>1776640France already had the Mirage IV supersonic bomber since 1959, and the british used the v-bombers so another bomber project wasn´t needed.
The problem of air transport in the 60´s was that air traffic was growing beyond the capabilities of air traffic control, so both supersonic transport and jumbo sized planes were considered in order to carry more people in an set amount of time without congesting the airspace, so it wasn´t all about national prestige.
Supersonic aircraft had the advantage that they didn´t need special facilities to be handled, and were more affordable for an airline (less initial and crew costs). However Jumbo´s had the advantage of better fuel efficiency per passenger and increased range, so when the fuel crisis hit the fate of supersonic passenger transport was sealed. Thus the concorde went into service mainly to recuperate the investment made to build it, which it did - although it´s arguable if it made back the money invested in it´s research.
>>1776867The problem is that supersonic wave drag increases directly with the aircraft cross section, so doubling the cross section increases wave drag four times, as well as doubling parasitic drag like in subsonic aircraft. And that is true for flying wing or blended wing body designs.
>>1777082the antishock bodies in the convair did increase critical mach and thus maximum speed, the problem is that they failed to decrease drag as well as increase range. More modern aircraft instead changed the fuselage cross section to achieve the same effect, as well as carefully shaping the fowler flap rails for a similar effect.
