Jet Zero’s blended‑wing aircraft just got a major boost from Washington: a $3 billion preliminary deal to help start production. The U.S. government is swinging behind a fledgling startup’s moonshot bid to dislodge Boeing as America’s only major maker of commercial airliners.

The aircraft that Jet Zero wants to do it with is no less radical than its ambition. It looks more like a manta ray than the tube‑with‑wings blueprint that has been the default for over 70 years. If Jet Zero can cross the line, the blended‑wing aircraft would mark the biggest shift in passenger‑jetliner design since the supersonic Concorde.

Forget one or two aisles; this one has four and is set to fly about 10 000 feet higher than today’s airliners. Initial designs replace passenger windows with digital screens and, to compensate, a skylight in the ceiling to flood the cabin with natural light. Each seat, the company says, has its own overhead luggage compartment, and each toilet has a dedicated waiting space.

Jet Zero, based in Long Beach, Calif., last week reached an early deal with the U.S. Export‑Import Bank as part of its Make More in America Initiative for as much as $3 billion in loans and guarantees that the company needs to build its first factory. The preliminary agreement is helping Jet Zero’s chief executive answer a question that has been plaguing him for years: Is this thing even real?