Concorde 2.0? Boom Supersonic’s Engine Tests Just "Weeks Away"

It has been over two decades since the iconic Concorde retired, leaving a massive void in the world of commercial supersonic travel. But the dream of transatlantic flights in under four hours is officially heating up again.

Boom Supersonic, the American aerospace startup aiming to bring back supersonic passenger travel, is reportedly just "weeks away" from a monumental milestone: the first live tests of the core of its new jet engine.

If successful, this could be the definitive step toward making their flagship aircraft, the Overture, a commercial reality by the end of the decade.

Testing the "Sprint Core"

While Boom proved they could build and fly a supersonic jet with their successful XB-1 demonstrator flights, the Overture passenger airliner requires a completely bespoke propulsion system.

The company is preparing to fire up the "Sprint Core," which is the critical heart of its custom-designed Symphony engine. Boom founder and CEO Blake Scholl recently shared the aggressive timeline on a podcast, stating: "We're a few weeks away from that thing running for the first time. And we've got a lot of work to do to turn it from one prototype engine to many that are certified. But it's pretty clear it's going to work."

The engine testing will take place at the Colorado Air and Space Port, bringing the company one major step closer to its goal of passenger service in 2030.

What the Overture Means for Travelers

Often dubbed "Concorde 2.0," the Overture is being designed to cruise at Mach 1.7 (around 1,300 mph) over water, which is more than twice the speed of today's conventional commercial airliners.

For the modern traveler or business executive, time is the ultimate luxury. Here is what Boom is promising:

• Slashed Travel Times: The Overture aims to fly from New York (Newark) to London in just 3 hours and 40 minutes, a journey that currently takes around eight hours.
• Accessibility: Unlike the prohibitively expensive Concorde, Boom hopes to align ticket pricing with standard modern business-class fares.
• Capacity: The jet is expected to carry between 60 to 80 passengers in an all-business-class-style configuration.

Major Airlines Are Already On Board

The aviation industry is taking Boom's aggressive timelines seriously. Major international carriers, including American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines, have already placed non-refundable deposits or secured options for dozens of Overture aircraft.

The upcoming Sprint Core test is the biggest hurdle Boom faces right now. If the engine fires successfully and proves it can handle the intense pressure, airflow, and extreme heat of supersonic travel, the countdown to 2030 will officially be on.

Imagine leaving New York after breakfast and landing at Heathrow in time for an afternoon meeting. The supersonic revival is getting closer every day.

Toyota-Backed SkyDrive Air Taxi Hits 100 KM/H in Major Breakthrough

The race to conquer urban air mobility just found its fast lane.

SkyDrive, the prominent Japanese developer backed heavily by automotive giant Toyota, has officially announced that its flagship compact eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft, the SKYDRIVE (Model SD-05), has successfully hit a crucial flight speed milestone of 100 km/h (62 mph).

In the high-stakes world of electric aviation, this milestone isn't just about showing off speed—it's the critical technical benchmark that brings the aircraft one massive step closer to commercial type certification and a targeted public launch by 2028.

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Why 100 KM/H is a Game Changer

When engineering a revolutionary class of wingless multicopters, scaling up the speed dial changes everything. High-speed forward flight alters aerodynamic forces, amplifies structural vibrations, and tests the limits of onboard flight control systems.

SkyDrive's engineering team confirmed that the aircraft's high-speed stability, controllability, and structural integrity performed flawlessly under real-world loads, matching the exact mathematical predictions from their earlier wind tunnel trials at JAXA (Japan’s space agency).

For civil aviation regulators like Japan's JCAB and the US FAA, this flawless alignment between computer simulation and real flight data is the exact empirical proof required before granting commercial airworthiness certificates.

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A Minimalist Philosophy Built for the City

While American competitors like Joby Aviation and Archer are focusing on complex, fixed-wing designs with tilting rotors meant to carry larger passenger numbers over longer distances, SkyDrive is betting big on a streamlined, ultra-compact approach:

• The Setup: The SD-05 is built entirely around a minimalist, wingless structure powered by 12 independent rotors managed by an advanced central flight computer.
• Capacity: It is designed to cleanly transport a pilot and two passengers.
• The Mission: This aircraft is built exclusively for intra-city hops—skimming right over heavy ground congestion to complete short, rapid commuter routes.
• Range: The current battery payload covers a practical 15 km (9.3 miles) per charge, with SkyDrive actively working to expand that window to 30–40 km as energy density metrics improve.

By skipping hyper-complex mechanical pivots and massive wings, SkyDrive yields distinct advantages: a significantly smaller footprint for urban vertiports, easier maneuverability in tight city skylines, and drastically reduced maintenance overhead.

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The Road to 2028 Commercial Debut

Production of the SKYDRIVE aircraft has already been underway since early 2024 at a dedicated manufacturing facility owned by official production partner Suzuki Motor Corporation.

While technical validation is checking out beautifully, the final hurdle will come down to a bureaucratic sprint. Regulators globally are taking an intensely cautious approach to integrating eVTOL platforms into existing national airspaces. However, with solid manufacturing pipelines and empirical high-speed data officially locked in, SkyDrive has established a clear, predictable flight path toward its 2028 commercial goal.

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Would you swap your morning highway gridlock for a three-person commute through the clouds? Let us know what you think of SkyDrive's compact design in the comments below!

Two Hours New York To Tokyo? Japan Just Successfully Tested A Mach 5 Hypersonic Jet Engine

Imagine boarding a plane in New York after breakfast and touching down in Tokyo just in time for an early lunch.

For decades, crossing the Pacific Ocean has meant enduring a grueling 11- to 14-hour long-haul flight. But the dream of shattering that time barrier just took a massive leap closer to reality. In a milestone event for aviation history, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has quietly stepped onto the supersonic stage, conducting a successful Mach 5 combustion test of a revolutionary hypersonic passenger jet engine.

Traveling at Mach 5—which is roughly 3,800 mph or five times the speed of sound—means a punishing 6,730-mile journey from New York (JFK) to Tokyo (NRT) could theoretically take just 1 hour and 45 minutes. 1 Here is a closer look at what went down during the test and what it means for the future of global travel.

What Exactly Did JAXA Test?

The trial, which took place at JAXA's Kakuda Space Center in Miyagi Prefecture, wasn't a standard aircraft runway takeoff. Instead, a collaboration of engineers from JAXA, Waseda University, the University of Tokyo, and Keio University subjected a compact, experimental aircraft model to a simulated Mach 5 flight environment.

The test focused on solving the two greatest engineering hurdles of hypersonic travel: propulsion and extreme heat.

1. The Hydrogen-Powered Ramjet Standard commercial aircraft use complex turbofan engines with thousands of moving parts to suck in and compress air. At Mach 5, however, the incoming airflow becomes completely unstable.

Instead, Japan is testing a hydrogen-fueled ramjet. This air-breathing engine has zero moving parts. It relies entirely on the vehicle’s incredibly fast forward motion to "ram" and compress incoming air before mixing it with hydrogen fuel for thrust. The result? A mechanically simpler engine that thrives at extreme velocities.

2. Defeating 1,000°C Temperatures

When an aircraft travels at 3,800 mph through the sky, the friction from air molecules is intense. Airflow around the nose and leading edges can easily reach temperatures exceeding 1,000°C (1,832°F)—an extreme thermal load capable of melting conventional aircraft structures.

Crucially, JAXA’s advanced thermal protection shield passed the test with flying colors. The specialized heat shielding managed to keep the interior of the aircraft near normal operating temperatures, ensuring that sensitive onboard electronics and flight control systems could function without frying.

Hypersonic vs. Supersonic: How It Compares

You might have heard of companies like Boom Supersonic, who are aiming to revive faster air travel with their "Overture" aircraft. However, what Japan is building belongs to an entirely different class of physics.

To put the raw speed into perspective, look at how the upcoming hypersonic tech stacks up against aviation legends and modern projects:

To truly appreciate the raw velocity of Japan’s hypersonic concept, it helps to look at how it stacks up against standard and historical aircraft. While a conventional commercial jet cruises at around 35,000 feet at a modest Mach 0.8 (~550 mph), requiring roughly 14 hours to fly from New York to Tokyo, supersonic alternatives significantly cut that time down. The legendary Concorde historically flew at 60,000 feet reaching Mach 2.0 (~1,350 mph) to complete the journey in about 6 hours, while modern projects like the Boom Supersonic Overture aim for a similar profile at Mach 1.7 (~1,300 mph) with a 5.5-hour flight time. Japan’s hypersonic concept, however, leaves them all in the dust by climbing to a staggering 90,000 feet and piercing the sky at Mach 5.0 (~3,800 mph), shattering the cross-Pacific travel time to well under two hours.

When Can We Book a Ticket?

While the test is an incredible breakthrough, you shouldn't pack your bags just yet.

Because ramjets cannot operate from a complete standstill, a hypersonic passenger jet requires a multi-stage propulsion system to get it off the ground and up to supersonic speeds before the ramjet can take over. According to the research team, the next phase of development will involve mounting the experimental vehicle onto a suborbital sounding rocket to test its aerodynamics during a real Mach 5 flight.

Experts and curators behind the project estimate that scaling this technology up safely into a commercial, passenger-ready vehicle will take roughly 20 years, targeting a commercial launch in the 2040s.

It’s a long-term vision, but by slowly and methodically solving the physics of extreme heat and hydrogen propulsion, Japan is laying the groundwork to change how humans connect across the globe forever.

National Geographic Travel: National Geographic Travel Announces Best Of The World List #BestTrips2017

National Geographic Travel Announces Best of the World List

Annual list features 21 must-see destinations for 2017

National Geographic Traveler magazine announced its annual Best of the World list,

 which highlights 21 must-see places to visit in 2017. The destinations were all chosen by the

 Traveler editors and fall into one of three categories- Cities, Nature, or Culture. The full list can

 be found in the December/January 2017 issue of Traveler magazine, available on newsstands

 nationwide starting November 29, and online now at NatGeoTravel.com/BestTrips2017.

"This special issue takes readers on a globe-spinning journey to 21 of the world's best destinations,"

 said George Stone, National Geographic Traveler editor in chief. "We think this year's list represents a

 carefully curated selection of forward-leaning places that reveal the bright future of travel. This list

 is all about exploration and discovery. It's not just about where to go, but why to go now and how

 to make 2017 a year of enlightenment through travel."

The 2017 Best of the World destinations are (in alphabetical order):

• Anchorage, Alaska, USA
• Baja California National Marine Parks, Mexico
• Banff, Alberta, Canada
• Canton Uri, Switzerland
• Cartagena, Colombia
• Central India's National Parks
• Chengdu, China
• Cradle of Humankind, South Africa
• Ecuador's Cloud Forests
• Finland
• Georgia, USA
• Guadeloupe Islands
• Hamburg, Germany
• Kauai, Hawaii, USA
• Madrid, Spain
• Malta
• Marrakech, Morocco
• Moscow, Russia
• Papua New Guinea
• Seoul, Korea
• Via Dinarica, Western Balkans

The online hub includes an immersive visual experience with 360 videos along with helpful tips

 and facts for planning trips to each locale. Visitors will also find inspiring illustrations to download

 and share. National Geographic Travel will be hosting a Best of the World-themed Twitter chat on

 Friday, November 18, from 2-3:00 PM EST. Join the conversation with @NatGeoTravel and #BestTrips2017.

National Geographic Traveler (six issues per year) is the world's most widely read travel magazine and

 has 15 international editions. The National Geographic Travel digital group shares its inspiring

 and authoritative digital content such as trip ideas, photo galleries, blogs and apps with

 its @NatGeoTravel community of over 20 million.

To learn more about each destination, visit: NatGeoTravel.com/BestTrips2017

National Geographic Partners LLCNational Geographic Partners LLC, a joint venture between National Geographic Society and

 21^st Century Fox, combines National Geographic television channels with National Geographic's 

media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National

 Geographic Studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children's media;

 and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, catalog,

 licensing and e-commerce businesses. A portion of the proceeds from National Geographic Partners

 LLC will be used to fund science, exploration, conservation and education through significant ongoing

 contributions to the work of the National Geographic Society. For more information,

 visit www.nationalgeographic.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, 

Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.