GREENSBORO, N.C. (NEXSTAR) – Aviation was born in North Carolina in 1903 when the Wright Brothers lifted off the sands of Kitty Hawk. Now, the way your children and grandchildren travel in the air won’t be like we have, the last 120 years and that innovation is, again, being driven in North Carolina. “We want to make travel much, much better than it is today – not only faster, but more comfortable,” says Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl. “We want to make trips around the planet something you don't even have to think about.” Boom is trying to revive an almost forgotten form of travel: supersonic. People over 30 remember The Concorde, the first supersonic plane that took civilian passengers across the globe faster than the speed of sound. The problem was, the sonic booms it created were more than people on the ground were willing to deal with so, on April 27, 1973, the Federal Aviation Administration essentially banned the practice. Scholl’s company, Boom, which is building its passenger plane, the Overture, in a plant on the campus of the Piedmont Triad International Airport says his company has solved that issue and a presidential executive order lifted the ban on supersonic travel in June of 2025. “Half a century later, we've got great new technology. We can make supersonic flight 75% less expensive than it was on Concorde, a much more comfortable experience, and way better for people on the ground because we made sonic booms a thing of the past,” says Scholl. “This is going to take 60 to 80 passengers at almost twice the speed of sound in great comfort,” says Scholl. “This means you could leave the East Coast and be in Europe for three and a half to four hours later. This means a trip from the U.S. to Asia is cut in half.” And Boom isn’t the only company revolutionizing air travel at PTI. JetZero is building its new plane there, as well, called the Z-4. It has been referred to as, “A flying wing.” It uses half the fuel as traditional jets and the all-wing design creates a much more comfortable environment for everyone inside the plane. “Inside of a cabin, what do people want? They want a little wider seat, they want a dedicated bin space,” says JetZero co-founder and CEO, Tom O’Leary. The other big plane manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, have 10-years or orders for new planes which keeps them from being innovative. “We're effectively taking three technologies: the arrow, the flight controls and the structures, and then marrying up with the existing system. So that helps us come to market faster. But on the other side, we're building a clean slate company,” says O’Leary. This won’t just be a civilian endeavor – both Boom and JetZero have significant investment from the US Military that exceeds $300 million. “Aviation is basically commercial and military,” says JetZero’s O’Leary. “On the commercial side, the Z-4 can be a jetliner or be a freighter. On the military side, it can be a tanker or transport, you know, a logistics aircraft, so that's dual use.” The other big manufacturers will eventually come around to this, says O’Leary. “Physics always wins, don't bet against physics and so we're basically just taking the plane that nature would design,” says O’Leary.