Free Republic

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...

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...

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...

Known as the Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD), this X-plane is scheduled to make its first test flight as early as 2021 and "would open a new market for U.S. companies to build faster commercial airliners, creating jobs and cutting cross-country flight times in half," the White House budget request states.  The goal of supersonic aircraft like LBFD is to make commercial airplanes that can fly faster than the speed of sound without generating a loud and obnoxious sonic boom, an ear-splitting noise associated with shock waves generated by an aircraft as it breaks the sound barrier "Future supersonic aircraft seeking...

Supersonic passenger travel, which died out with the Concorde's demise in 2003, will make a comeback by the mid-2020s if three entrepreneurial U.S.-based companies can make jets quiet and efficient enough to win over buyers and fliers. Fifteen years ago, Boeing Co canceled plans to build the near-supersonic Sonic Cruiser, the last big attempt by a major manufacturer to speed up commercial travel. Now Japan Airlines Co Ltd <9201.T> and Virgin Group are backing one of the three U.S. supersonic projects, Denver-based Boom Technology Inc, which plans a 55-seat all business class jet. Lockheed Martin Corp is partnering with Aerion...

Flight times from London to New York could be slashed to just 3 hours 15 minutes by 2025, thanks to a $10 million (£7.45 million) investment from Japan Airlines. Boom Supersonic is developing a 55-seat passenger plane that it says will halve flight times and will be faster, quieter and more affordable to fly than Concorde. As part of the deal Japan's number two carrier has the option to purchase up to 20 Boom aircraft and will provide its knowledge and experience as an airline to hone the aircraft design and help refine the passenger experience.

On Monday, NASA revealed a project as part of its newly-introduced New Aviation Horizons initiative that awarded Lockheed Martin a $20 million contract over the next 17 months to create a jet that uses quiet supersonic technology (QueSST). It is the first in a series of ‘X-planes’ for the initiative. NASA said it conducted studies across the country to learn more about acceptable sound levels. The finished product will fly at supersonic speeds, and create a "heartbeat" in place of the disruptive "boom" that is currently associated with supersonic flight.

The engineer behind the Skreemr jet has unveiled another radical, much faster design for future air travel. Charles Bombadier latest concept jet is capable of reaching Mach 24 - more than twice the speed of the Skreemr and 12 times faster than Concorde. Dubbed the 'Antipode', it can carry 10 people up to 12,430 miles (20,000km) in under an hour, allowing it to travel from London to New York in just 11 minutes.

Airbus has won a patent for a hypersonic passenger plane, but Concorde’s hydrogen-powered successor is unlikely to leave the drawing board any time soon. The proposed aeroplane would cut the journey time from Paris to Tokyo from 12 to under three hours. The idea, first published in 2011, is to use three different kinds of engine power to jump above the atmosphere while still using regular runways for takeoff. It has now won approval from the US Patent Office. The concept comes as commercial space companies such as Virgin Galactic pursue plans for low-level space flights. Airbus’s proposed plane has...

New jet could cut flight time from London to New York to just one hour The new jet could fly from London to New York in an hour - opening up the possibility of a transatlantic return journey in a day. Concorde 2 would be capable of flying more than four times the speed of sound – or more than 2,500mph, according to documents lodged with the US Patent Office by the aerospace and defence group The filings refer to an “ultra-rapid air vehicle” and “method of aerial locomotion” for the aircraft, which would cruise at an altitude of more...

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a brief self-congratulatory trip to Tripoli, Libya, in October 2011 -- with U.S. military assets lurking offshore in case they needed to rescue her -- she joked, in the presence of then-Ambassador Gene Cretz and Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, that they had not-so-long-ago been worried that the ambassador might end up the target of a murderous Libyan assault. "As Gene and Assistant Secretary Feltman and I were walking through here, they were talking about how the last time Jeff was here was when we were very worried that Gadhafi and [Libyan...

Original Title:American Supersonic Airliners: Race for a Dream Boeing-2707 SST: a Supersonic Marvel, Largely Forgotten Today Capable of transporting 296 passengers across the ocean at 2900 km/h, developed 40 years ago, in 1968... The Sixties (or for that matter, the Fifties) were truly amazing years when it comes to development of fascinating - and often futuristic - technology. The automotive industry, for example, entertained public imagination with powerful full-size cars, a true embodiment of the "American dream" and sheer optimism of the times. In space exploration, we reached all the way to the Moon; in air travel, the dream of...

In an often heated congressional hearing Wednesday, lawmakers and witnesses alike pointed to State Department official Charlene Lamb as the person most directly responsible for rejecting multiple requests for increased security at the U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya prior to the Sept. 11 attack. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) excoriated the State Department for rejecting requests from the U.S. Embassy in Libya for an extension of temporary security forces that were withdrawn in the months prior to the attack that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In a dramatic moment at the hearing, Issa released unclassified...

A number of media sources have fresh looks at the Obama administration's handling of security in the weeks before the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi drove us out of eastern Libya and killed four Americans, including US Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens. First, Fox News reported yesterday that the State Department decided to stick to its schedule of rotating out a 16-man Special Ops team assigned to diplomatic security in Benghazi, just weeks before the attack in August. They were joined in their exit by a six-man security team from the State Department itself:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO...

PARIS (AFP) - – A French court fined Continental Airlines Monday over the 2000 Concorde crash in which 113 died, but did not jail anyone for the disaster that effectively ended commercial supersonic air travel. The court found the US airline criminally responsible for the Paris crash, caused by a piece of metal that fell from a Continental DC-10 and later shredded the supersonic jet's tyre, which led to a fire in the fuel tank.

If you're ever lucky enough to fly a Quiet Supersonic Transport between New York and Los Angeles, you'll have just enough time to get through a movie -- a short one. Instead of the usual six hours, it will be a 1,100mph, two-hour hop. The QSST, as the proposed luxury private jet is known, could be the first civilian supersonic plane approved for overland routes, thanks to aerodynamics designed to muzzle its sonic boom. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has been developing the project for six years under a $25-million contract from Supersonic Aerospace International (SAI), founded by Michael Paulson, son...

SEATTLE - Malcolm Stamper, a Georgia Tech graduate who became president of The Boeing Co. after spearheading the development of the 747 jumbo jet, has died at age 80. An active civic leader who started a children's book publishing company as soon as he retired, Stamper died in his sleep in his Seattle home Tuesday after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer, his family said Thursday. Born in Detroit, Stamper grew up poor. His father supported the family by painting cars on the factory floor for Ford Motor Co. A hardworking and gifted student, Stamper graduated high school at...

NEW YORK - British Airways' last Concorde flight for fare-paying passengers landed in New York on Thursday, a day before scheduled supersonic service ends. Most passengers who walked off the plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport described the flight as wonderful but said it marked a bittersweet end to a great chapter in aviation history. "I feel like we are kind of taking a step backward technologically today," said Dennis Toeppen, 39, a freelance pilot from Champaign, Illinois. "It's kind of like a railroad that has been torn up to make a carriage path." For David Winslow, 42, an...

German museum experts are preparing to start reassembling a "kit form" Concorde which travelled from France by air, river and road. The Air France Concorde was stripped of its wings, engines and tail section for the journey to the museum in Sinsheim. The last trip, on land and water Thousands of Germans lined motorway bridges in the middle of the night to wave and cheer as a giant truck bearing the Concorde body drove past. Thousands more were at the museum to greet the Concorde, which will be displayed on a giant stand above the existing museum roof. The aircraft...

CONCORDE'S days are numbered because it is not making enough money, it was revealed yesterday. British Airways is said to be considering retiring it early. The famous drop-nosed jet has struggled to attract passengers for £8,000 return flights to the US since an Air France Concorde crashed in Paris killing 114 people in 2000. Only five of BA's seven Concordes are in service. Now the 15 Concorde captains and nine first officers have been told they will be rostered for other flights. Bosses have informed ten of 22 senior engineers they will be redeployed on other planes or have...