Free Republic

Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner remains on schedule for its first test flight next summer and for delivery to airlines in 2008 despite the ongoing challenge to make it lighter, the new head of the company's commercial airplanes unit said Wednesday. Scott Carson told an investment conference in New York that Boeing has 435 firm orders for the new jet from 35 customers along with another 21 nonbinding commitments. The continuing demand makes it "the very strongest product launch in the history of this industry," he maintained.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — Saying that overloading may have contributed to a fatal plane crash this month in North Carolina, federal aviation officials announced today that thousands of passengers flying on small planes over the next month will have to tell ticket agents how much they weigh, or step on a scale, to check whether existing estimates of average passenger weight are accurate The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering all 24 airlines that operate the small planes to collect weight information from a sampling of their flights. Investigators suspect that a Beech 1900 that crashed on takeoff in Charlotte, N.C.,...