The next generation of aeroplanes are on their way and they sound seriously space age.
Aeroplanes haven’t changed much in the last few decades – but give it 10 years and flying is set to become at least 100 per cent more fun than today’s sardine-can experience.
Forget squinting at terrible films on itty bitty screens and sheilding yourself from the high power air-con with a scratchy hospital-esque blanket – the future of flying is seriously hi tech.
The idea is to get rid of ALL THE WINDOWS on the plane. Digest that for a second. At first thought it doesn’t sound too appealing – sitting in a tin can miles above the ground with no view out and no fluffy clouds bouncing by.
But instead of windows, boffins are working on replacing them with something even better – responsive screens that can show whatever you want – from the clouds outside the plane to interactive websites.
It’s starting to sound more appealing, but the idea doesn’t actually come from making flying more fun, it’s (of course) a business reason. Slim screens would mean the plane could be much lighter – because the plane body wouldn’t need to be reinforced to allow for window panes.
The company behind the designs, The centre for process innovation , reckons it could help airlines save huge amounts of money by getting the weight of the planes down – to reduce fuel needs.
“We had been speaking to people in aerospace and we understood that there was this need to take weight out of aircraft,” said Dr Jon Helliwell from the CPI.
“Follow the logical thought through. Let’s take all the windows out – that’s what they do in cargo aircraft – what are the passengers going to do? If you think about it, it’s only really the people that are sitting next to windows that will suffer.”
Once you’ve got over the weirdness of the idea of not being able to see any natural daylight for your entire five, 10 or 20 hour flight, this actually sounds like the best thing ever.
After all, the flying environment isn’t a particularly natural experience as it is, with the recycled air and cartons of food that taste of cardboard. So why not embrace it and create a completely immersive flying experience that passengers can enjoy?
If you want to sleep you’ll be able to switch your environment to night mode and if you want to see what’s happening on the ground below, you can zoom in on particular landmarks and find out more about them.
The company also believes that getting rid of the windows and slimming down the fuselage will mean more room inside for passengers – which sounds alright to us!
Would you fancy a trip on the windowless plane? We are first in line.
Source : Yahoo
