I thought the same.

But, it's an interesting thought, and in line with a very interesting thread that kragen brought to my attention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32009925

FedEx likes to buy out Boeing facilities so that they're not "completely reliant" on Boeing for anything, see https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/102874-fedex-to-take... "Air cargo carrier FedEx Express (FX, Memphis Int'l) is to take over the lease of Boeing's Dreamlifter Operations Centre at Paine Field, Everett, quashing any hopes of a return of the B787 Dreamliner production to Washington State."

I wonder why more airlines don't choose to do similar things.

Yes these are "non-binding" commitments that are just marketing. Very deceptive but standard practice in aerospace. For example only a fraction of the Concordes that were committed in this way were actually purchased.

Until the plane is actually flying in the air you should just treat any announcements as misleading (they announced that their test airframe was ready, what, 3-4 years ago?).

It's not really deceptive, it's just that many people have a poor understanding of the accounting difference between LOIs, contractual bookings, and recognized revenue. These LOIs would not appear on an income statement, balance sheet or P&L... and no one ever suggested otherwise. It's just one signal (of many) that indicate market demand for high-capex products with long lead times.

> When reading the original title, I had the impression that the company was going to be acquired by AA.

Same... at least they should put an S to aircraft... but then again maybe they hit the strict character limit...

The plural of aircraft is still "aircraft".

Putting "up to 20" in the title would work.

Could go with "airplanes" which has a more conventional plural form and is much simpler and clearer in cases like this where we know full well what specific type of aircraft we're talking about.

Or aeroplanes!

sometimes I don't get English...

It's an artefact of where English gets the word "craft" from. In general in English the plural of uncountable things is the same as the singular. For example, the plural of sugar is sugar (sugars in English implies a group of different types of sugar). The word craft comes to English from Germanic (kraft). The meanings of these two words (English craft vs German kraft) diverged over time. In English the word has a meaning similar to that which is made or the manner in which it is made. Whereas in German it means the means by which something is made (i.e. power, in both the physics and non-physics sense). For example Kraftwerk in German means power station.

Since the "means by which" is uncountable (craft) then the plural should be the same as the singular; i.e. one craft, many craft. This also applies in English to older agglutinates like aircraft. Newer agglutinates (for example laptop) are far less likely to follow this rule; one laptop, many laptops.

English, due to its muddled heritage and well intentioned but half informed linguists over the years, is a very messy language.

I wonder how the craft word was adapted to mean the boat object.

I think for river travel it was common to build a boat/raft to make a journey and then break it up at the destination. In that context maybe the object of the boat was secondary to the act of making the boat. And at some point boats became more personified and thought of as things in their own right.

A couple other suggestions, although still not certain:

> Use for "small boat" is first recorded 1670s, probably from a phrase similar to "vessels of small craft" and referring either to the trade they did or the seamanship they required, or perhaps it preserves the word in its original sense of "power."

https://www.etymonline.com/word/craft?ref=etymonline_crossre...

I'd never even though about this, so thanks for that.

I suspect it was a shortening of watercraft. According to wiktionary the use of the word for water vessels was originally used for smaller loading craft. So using the older Germanic meaning of "by means of", the phrase "it got here by watercraft" could be translated as "it got here by means of water". One could assume that it wouldn't take much for the word to go from preposition to noun; especially in the context of agglutinates and abbreviations.

The English word "boat" comes directly from German; "das Boot".

The grammar is easier then German

Same here, regarding the misperception of Boom being acquired by AA

Totally agree about the wording of the title comment and other commenters in this thread.

But "Boom Supersonic is transforming air travel with Overture, the world’s fastest airliner, optimized for speed, safety, and sustainability. Serving both civil and government markets, Overture will fly at twice the speed of today’s airliners and is designed to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Overture’s order book, including purchases and options from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines stands at 130 aircraft. Boom is working with Northrop Grumman for government and defense applications of Overture. Suppliers and partners collaborating with Boom on the Overture program include Collins Aerospace, Eaton, Safran Landing Systems, Rolls-Royce, the United States Air Force, American Express, Climeworks, and AWS."

This^ is significant support they already have. So they could operate for 10+ years, which seems like they will (even if they are just in R&D and burning cash). In a way, it is viable to the employees and suppliers, if they get paid for such a long time haha.

The deposit could be $1 for all we know and fully cancelable with no commitment to buy or deploy. The press release is basically fluff.

It says non-refundable. But agree it could be as low as a buck.

> Good luck to Boom, but I am unconvinced this is a viable company and a viable business.

Same. I think their timelines are too aggressive. I want to be proved wrong though!