Free Republic

It's a fairly small aircraft, with a length of just 21 meters (68.8 feet). But after a tough year for the airline industry, it symbolizes a big step forward in aviation history as the first privately built supersonic aircraft. Every other supersonic aircraft up to this point — the European Concorde flown until 2003 and the Soviet Tu-144 flown until 1999, as well as many fast military aircraft — was funded by billions from state coffers and built with government mandates. Startup Boom Supersonic from Denver in the US is different. It unveiled the first privately manufactured supersonic jet last...

The carrier announced Thursday it’s buying 15 planes from Boom Supersonic with the option to purchase 35 more at some point. Boom’s first commercial supersonic jet, the Overture, has not been built or certified yet. It is targeting the start of passenger service in 2029 with a plane that could fly at Mach 1.7 and cut some flight times in half. That means a flight from New York to London that typically lasts seven hours would only take 3½ hours. Earlier this year, United took a stake in eVTOL start-up Archer Aviation while partnering with Mesa Airlines to order 200...

American Airlines has agreed to purchase 20 supersonic Overture planes from Boom Supersonic...Boom says the Overture jet will fly as fast as Mach 1.7, or 1,304 mph...Boom will build the jet at a new manufacturing plant in North Carolina and expects to roll out the first model in 2025, with the first flight in 2026...Overture will enter commercial service by the end of the decade.

The world hasn’t seen commercial supersonic travel in nearly 20 years since the Concorde was retired in 2003, but all that is about to change with the development of a new, environmentally friendly airliner. Meet Overture – the world’s fastest airliner that was developed by Denver-based Boom Supersonic. With 26 million hours of designing and testing, Overture will run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as it flies at Mach 1.7 over the ocean, shuttling between 68-80 passengers up to nearly 5,000 miles. The updated design features four engines that will keep weight and temperature balanced, which will also lower...

Virgin Galactic announced in May that it would be partnering with NASA to work toward high-speed, high altitude point-to-point travel for commercial airline passengers. The plan is to eventually create an aircraft that can fly above 60,000 feet (the cruising altitude of the Concorde) and carry between 9 and 19 people per flight, with a cabin essentially set up to provide each of those passengers with either Business or First Class-style seating and service. One other key element of the design is that it can be powered by next-gen sustainable fuel for more ecological operation. In some ways, this project...

South Korea's Lee rebuffed North offer to meet: report Wed Mar 5, 2008 3:59am EST SEOUL (Reuters) - New South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who has pledged a tougher policy in dealing with North Korea, rebuffed his communist neighbor's offer to meet in January, a news report said on Wednesday. The proposal was made through South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) "for responsible officials from the two sides to meet," the conservative Dong-a Ilbo newspaper quoted an unnamed government official as saying. "But President Lee demanded clarification on the purpose of such a meeting, and the North subsequently suspended attempts...

Afghan court resists Karzai's overture to spare Christian's life By Tom Coghlan in Kabul (Filed: 26/03/2006) The ultra-Conservative supreme court of Afghanistan is threatening to resist President Hamid Karzai's attempts to spare a man who faces execution for converting to Christianity. In a move that could scupper Mr Karzai's efforts to resolve the crisis, the judge handling the case said he would brook neither presidential interference nor objections from Kabul's Western backers. Abdul Rahman: Converted "We [the judiciary] have nothing to do with diplomatic issues," Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizada told the Sunday Telegraph. "We will do our job independently." The judge's...

The media giant’s search marketing business wants to be numero uno in the field it helped create. Yahoo Search Marketing’s getting an extreme makeover. Earlier this year, Yahoo re-branded its online marketing unit. What was once called Overture became Yahoo Search Marketing in a move to more closely identify the group with its corporate parent. Next step: the unit moved from Pasadena, California, into fancy new offices in Burbank, California, home of Walt Disney and other high-profile media companies. Its executives are launching an aggressive assault to regain some ground lost to search leader Google in an area they had...

Korea Experts: U.S. Spurned '02 Kim Effort1 hour, 35 minutes ago WASHINGTON - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, in a previously undisclosed message to President Bush in November 2002, said the United States and North Korea "should be able to resolve the nuclear issue in compliance with the demands of the new century," according to two private U.S. Korea experts who delivered Kim's message to the White House. "If the United States makes a bold decision, we will respond accordingly," Kim said in a written personal message to Bush that he sent through Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --  Online search engines are built to find information in seconds. But most leading sites appear to be taking their time meeting a federal request for more transparency on how money influences their display of search results.</p>