I haven't waited in a security line at an airport for more than 30 minutes in years. When lines get long they drop the security theater and start letting people through very quickly. I imagine people who are willing to pay for SST would also pay the troll toll and spend comparatively very little time in security lines.
For context, I fly (usually coast to coast) about a dozen or more times a year.
This is not typical, but it does still happen even at the airports you mentioned.
The X-ray scanners with the naked images have all been removed. The RF backscatter machines do not produce full body imagery, they highlight areas of concern on a cartoon figure.
Turn around after you go through and you can see exactly what they see. There are no back rooms with naked images connected to the RF scanners.
So you aren't literally being seen naked by people 10 feet away any more, but you're still being photographed through your clothing and if the TSA has any reason to check their archives at the time you were passing through the passport (ie checking if someone snuck something onboard, or validating the machines by hand), people will be looking at you in your birthday suit.
And for the record, I am not a nut about this stuff. There's no health issue with them, or even with the backscatter machines. It seems slightly puritanical to be outraged over it, and I personally am only slightly more indignant than I am about having all of my stuff X-rayed. If it was actually justified I'd be less bothered by the scanners than I am by getting naked for my doctor. However the TSA is a ridiculous imposition and the leadership is every bit as insane as the leadership of MADD or the NRA. They actively believe they're entitled to this kind of thing and were actively trying to extend their domain to other kinds of transport, sports arenas, public buildings etc. The TSA is fucking awful and its often more practical to assume the worst about anything they're doing until proven otherwise.
[1]: https://epic.org/open_gov/foia/TSA_Procurement_Specs.pdf
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mmw_large.jpg
[3]: https://gizmodo.com/5690749/these-are-the-first-100-leaked-b...
https://www.nap.edu/read/24936/chapter/4
https://www.nap.edu/read/24936/chapter/15
Also the Gizmodo video showing the leaked mmw images matches up with that fairly well;
https://gizmodo.com/5690749/these-are-the-first-100-leaked-b...
But then on L3’s site you see this for their SafeView product:
http://www.sds.l-3com.com/advancedimaging/safeview.htm
But then for the version TSA uses:
http://www.sds.l-3com.com/advancedimaging/provision-2.htm
Interesting.... I believe the difference may be “active” vs “passive” millimeter wave scanners, where the active type can provide a higher resolution image?
Passive can also do high resolution[1]. It depends heavily on the wavelength being measured. Your second link is talking about far infrared (300+ GHz), or close to. Those waves are blocked more by clothing compared to the <100 GHz (30 GHz?) that Brijot and the current scanners use. The high frequency stuff will show a dark spot where something may be hidden, but is very dim compared to active scanners. They have similar resolution but are much blurrier.
Passive scanners at 30 GHz are by necessity lower resolution at the same price point, because the human body doesn't emit too much around there. However since all the waves are coming from the body, anything hidden under the clothing will block the waves completely and show up as an obvious dark spot. You don't need detail because of that.
Active scanners on the other hand are super detailed, again by necessity. That wavelength goes straight through clothing but since waves are being produced by the machine, anything besides metal will look basically the same as skin. You need to be able to make out the shape and texture to identify it, so the sensors are very high resolution. They need to see the trigger of a gun to know it isn't just a weird rectangle, so that means they can also see your foreskin.
[1]: http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/sites/default/files/...
Which airports? US domestic flights? Because internationally I've never seen this happen.
Generally, security rules are made and enforced by USA authorities. Any airport which doesn't fly to the USA only needs to follow local rules of the country they are in, which while typically are as strict as the USA rules, are typically not enforced.
Some airports for example only xray one in 10 bags at peak times, or none at all if the machines broken.
Source: Personal experience only, but I've been to a lot of airports.
I fly very frequently, and JFK is (unfortunately) my home airport.
For all my complaints about how awful security at JFK is, it's relatively fast. With pre-check, it's always under ten minutes from the moment I step in line to the moment I have my bags in hand on the other side.
Without pre-check, it is slower, but nothing close to 30 minutes, unless you get pulled aside for secondary and/or detained (at which point there's no predicting how long things will take).
For what it's worth, security at JFK tends to be a bit slower than other US airports that have pre-check, but still noticeably faster than most other airports that I've been to globally in the last few years.
A car collects you at your house and drives you to the airport. You are checked on to your flight whilst still in the car when you arrive, and your suitcases are taken out of the boot of the car. You then walk through security and passport control and into the lounge. I don't recall any queuing at all.
I'm not saying the aggravations you discuss don't exist, but at the price point for SST planes (which I imagine would be predominantly business class tickets), they are dramatically reduced.
Also you can get to SFO from SF in about 30 minutes with an uber, and get through the lines fairly quick with pre-check & global entry. These flights would be godsends for the apple engineer that has to get on a flight to china asap for some factory issue.