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Emirates Planes Could Be Going Windowless (abc.net.au)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In the future, you could find yourself booking an Emirates flight without a real window seat. The airline has just unveiled a new first class suite on board its latest aircraft that features "virtual windows" instead of real ones. The President of Emirates, Tim Clarke, is hoping it will pave the way for removing all windows from future planes, which he says will make them lighter and faster. "What we may have [in the next 20 years] is aircraft that are, and I hate to say this to a number of passengers, windowless," he told the BBC. So there's no windows on the outside ... But Mr Clarke says on the inside there will be "a full display of windows," which will beam in the images from the outside. This will be done using fibre-optic camera technology. So, instead of being able to see directly outside, passengers will view images projected from outside the aircraft -- which is almost like the real thing.
They want to take away the ONE THING I love about flying? Seeing the world from above the clouds is beautiful and helps make the hellish experience of commercial airline travel bearable.
What the hell is wrong with these airlines?
Scotty gave you the formula in 1986 where is it!
selling ad space
Why?
While the Cockpit would need windows, the rest of the plane doesn't. We can still have exit doors, and most of the other things can probably be done via video feed.
Being lately we had a few issues, with Windows failing on airplanes. It is probably overall safer to not have windows.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
They will be peril-sensitive and go dark in emergencies, to reduce passenger stress levels.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I greatly look forward to people hacking the virtual displays to show all of thew engines on fire...
I'm not going to say I'll never fly one of these, but I really, really like window seats and it would be a pretty big negative that would lead me to select other flights.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The plane is actually much safer without a bunch of holes in the fuselage, to provide points of failure. That and as long as you're building virtual reality holodecks for first class passengers (this is Emirates Airlines after all) why not go all the way and make it a very lightweight and strong titanium box with its own parachute in case of terrorist attack?
What I don't get is the reference to fiber optic technology. ALL of this could have been done with 1995 technology using merely CCTV and small CCD cameras. Well, maybe. I guess we did have to wait for flatscreens due to weight considerations. But there is no need to go fiber for streaming video to what, about 300 passengers maximum?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
when I yell that there's something on the wing.
This is Emirates Airlines we're talking about. The people who charge $15,000 a ticket and give you a bed seat and an in-flight shower.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
A positive aspect of non-real windows is the interesting thought that all virtual "Windows" could show views that were not obscured by the wings...
But would passengers be upset if looking outside they could not see wings on a plane?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... on the one hand, practically speaking it makes no difference. You could even get a better view, or every seat could be a "window" seat.
OTOH, paranoia ... the windows show us going to NY, but we are really going to Cuba!!
The cockpit doesn't need windows, it needs Linux.
And well, what happens when there's a glitch in the system and all the virtual windows go dark?
Queue the claustrophobia.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
While the Cockpit would need windows, the rest of the plane doesn't.
That's not true. One of the instructions you get in an exit row seat about opening the door in an emergency is that you need to first look through the window to make sure that it is safe to open the door. It's going to be somewhat hard to do that without a window.
Actually the rest of the plane does need windows. In an emergency, flight attendants are supposed to look through them to see whether there's anything wrong with the wings and engines (and more importantly, which one), since the cockpit windows don't extend far enough back to allow that. Cameras are great and all, but they tend to fail in lightning strikes or when the plane has issues with electrical power.
So now instead of being able to focus on objects near (the wings) and objects far (mountains, clouds, rivers, ocean), you get to stare at an LCD display....
Didn't some company try this a while back with windowless cars and it made people really sick?
I'm not a fuckin' coward -- I'll take nice views even if there's an 0.00000000001% chance of being sucked out of the plane.
If I am in an emergency row and there is an emergency, I will look out the window to see if that engine is on fire prior to opening the door. If I have a virtual window that failed for whatever reason in the crash, I cannot reasonably do that.
Being able to go "full manual process" in a life safety emergency is a good idea... If I do not have to depend on technology and the manual process is safer, I prefer the non-tech process...
--I like turtles...
I would suspect that the cockpit and door windows are not part of this proposal.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I don't know. It would be awesome if I could choose what I saw. So instead of seeing the earth below a layer of clouds, how about Mars? Or stars streaking by like in Star Trek, or the center of the galaxy in the distance as we appear to traverse the Milky Way at from one spiral arm to the next?
Sign me up for that flight!
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Lots of yammering. They were yammering about this in the 90s, when there were experiments with lifting body and flying wing designs that didn't support windows. Even then, LCD screens were considered cheaper than designing for windows. Fortunately, this didn't happen due to passenger concerns -- the aircraft is carrying humans, so should be designed to make humans psychologically comfortable. Same reason why subway trains have windows even though there isn't much to see.
Stuffed in a metal tube with way too many people and you can't see outside? Sounds like it would be a great way to induce claustrophobia and anxiety attacks in people who don't even normally experience those. All you'd need then is for it to be a little too warm, be jammed in too close to someone who's making you uncomfortable, and having flight attendants threaten you if you try to leave your seat for any reason, and you'd have all-out panic. Besides which, unless it's night-time, it's nice to be able to look outside through a real window. Some TV screen doesn't cut it. If they're going to do this then they may as well just sedate people for the entire flight.
They want to take away the ONE THING I love about flying?
They might want to but it is very unlikely that they will, or that it will work if they ever get as far as doing it. The London Underground used to have windowless carriages in Victorian times because, as the reasoning went, there was nothing to look at going through a tunnel all the time. Despite this, they were massively unpopular, caused motion sickness etc. and were rapidly replaced with windows. I suspect that this will turn out to be true for aeroplanes as well.
They'll need to get the latency below the perception threshold to avoid motion sickness but it's achievable on their timeline.
Personally I'd love a cabin with no overhead storage and a 180* view of the clouds (all-cabin OLED surface) but that's an amusement park ride, not a logistically-sensible transport system.
Without windows they can have more freedom on reconfigurability which I'm sure they'd prefer.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Unlikely anything is going away due to passenger preferences and US FAA rules. In an emergency, windows are useful -- nice to know if there's any damage to the wings/engines and if there's fire/water/etc on the side you're planning to evac from. Cameras don't work without power.
Sounds horrible. The plane will still be on the ground and i'll be spinning with vertigo. If i can't see out a window my head starts to spin, even taxiing.
Scott
When I get a window seat, I really enjoy being able to looking around outside, in all directions, sometimes upwards, sometimes out towards the horizon, sometimes to watch the terrain below, sometimes even to enjoy the patterns I might see in the clouds we may be flying over.. Until they perfect fully 3d holographic displays where the position of my eyes in relation to the "window" determines what I see, I'd have to say no thanks.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I use windows on an airplane as a way to calm down my motion sickness issues and stress relief during turbulence. There's nothing worse than sitting in a completely enclosed tube, being bumped around and not being able to see the true horizon.
Inquiring minds want to know...
Actually the rest of the plane does need windows. In an emergency, flight attendants are supposed to look through them to see whether there's anything wrong with the wings and engines (and more importantly, which one), since the cockpit windows don't extend far enough back to allow that. Cameras are great and all, but they tend to fail in lightning strikes or when the plane has issues with electrical power.
I'm not an expert and I don't even play one on TV; however, I would suspect there needs to be a balancing act done here. Someone needs to crunch some numbers.
Will the number of lives saved by having a fuselage outweigh the number of lives lost because of every camera being taken out at the same time trying to view the engine/wing. (and all sensors failing to work too). How often are those cameras going to go out?
What I think would be a smart middle step would be to run cameras on some planes that HAVE windows and see how reliable those cameras are. Try that for a few years first. If the cameras tend to work in all conditions... Hey, maybe give windowless a go. If the cameras have problems, aren't you glad you didn't go windowless without a trial run first on a windowed plane?
There might be some advantages to cameras over windows. The lighting can be adjusted so you get better visibility in the dark. Perhaps they can detect infra-red so you can see if the engine is running hot if you doubt the temperature gauge is accurate for some reason. Heck, the pilot can look out the side of the plane himself whilst remaining in the cockpit.
Aesthetically, being in an aeroplane without windows would suck... but I'm all for them looking into whether it really is safer. Just test the camera BEFORE you remove the windows.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Unlikely anything is going away due to passenger preferences and US FAA rules. In an emergency, windows are useful -- nice to know if there's any damage to the wings/engines and if there's fire/water/etc on the side you're planning to evac from. Cameras don't work without power.
Cameras don't use much power and an individual backup power supply could be provided to each camera. As long as there is also backup power in the cockpit, they can see any camera from the cockpit to judge what is safe.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I'm pretty sure pilots can tell whether engines are still attached to wings even without windows or cameras.
Actually the rest of the plane does need windows. In an emergency, flight attendants are supposed to look through them to see whether there's anything wrong with the wings and engines (and more importantly, which one), since the cockpit windows don't extend far enough back to allow that. Cameras are great and all, but they tend to fail in lightning strikes or when the plane has issues with electrical power.
A few windows might be useful for backup but the vast majority are for passenger comfort. Look at military planes. Even the ones that haul soldiers only have a handful of windows. You could easily eliminate 80%+ of the windows without affecting the visibility of the flight attendant. This would probably actually make the plane safer as windows are a common cause of depressurization. That being said, passenger comfort is kindof a big deal and screens are a poor imitation.
The exit door will still have a window.
As long as I can put the display through a filter, like HQ/2X, we'll be fine.
If there's an NES filter, even better. Then landing the plane wouldn't be any harder than Top Gun
This is Emirates Airlines we're talking about. The people who charge $15,000 a ticket and give you a bed seat and an in-flight shower.
I'm glad Delta doesn't have in flight showers. I'm sure I'd be crammed next to some jackass taking a shower and there's no way I'm not getting sprayed in those cramped quarters.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I would expect an LED display would weigh the same if not more than a real window, but it is probably going to be more $$$.
I think I'd rather watch Gravity Falls or something than clouds floating by. Maybe the passengers should be able to arm wrestle each other over it.
In an emergency evac, the flight deck might not even be intact.
What I don't get is the reference to fiber optic technology. ALL of this could have been done with 1995 technology using merely CCTV and small CCD cameras. Well, maybe. I guess we did have to wait for flatscreens due to weight considerations. But there is no need to go fiber for streaming video to what, about 300 passengers maximum?
Fiber might be useful if you were routing the actual view to each of the virtual windows but this seems like a huge expense for very little gain. If you are going to remove the windows, replacing them with hundreds of fake screens seems pointless. It's still a screen. It would be a lot cheaper to just have the screen in the seatback connected to a half dozen different angles.
If the new displays are so awesome, then it should easy to migrate acceptance - put up the full length plane window screens along the plane, with the existing windows still in place.
Then people would get used to the screens and maybe not complain as windows go away...
That is it's a great idea, unless you are afraid to have people compare actual windows with the virtual view...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've always wondered why planes today don't have positioned cameras for the pilots to use to look at their plane
Would it kill them to put a couple of big rear-view mirrors on either side of the planes to look backwards?
I mean, really, cars have solved this since forever. /s
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
<quote><p>This is Emirates Airlines we're talking about. The people who charge $15,000 a ticket and give you a bed seat and an in-flight shower.</p></quote>
<p>I'm glad Delta doesn't have in flight showers. I'm sure I'd be crammed next to some jackass taking a shower and there's no way I'm not getting sprayed in those cramped quarters.</p></quote>
If American Airlines had showers, they'd be a kitchen sink sprayer and a paper napkin, and you'd have to stay seat-belted in next to the others in your row while you used it. To turn it on, you'd have to first watch a five minute sales pitch for their credit card.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
They will be peril-sensitive and go dark in emergencies, to reduce passenger stress levels.
Why go dark? Just show a recorded normal average scene. "Everything's fine, just look out the window. No the engine did not fall off, we always fly at a 30 degree tilted angle. And notice the lovely sunrise even though it is midnight local time."
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
....just as long as I can be sure that there isn't a creature on the wing....
It'll be virtual windows, giving them the ability to display ads to all the people looking out the windows, that's all it is ;)
That shit will be startling
While I'm not a fan of removing the windows (I'm a private pilot - half the fun of flying is seeing the world from above), I highly doubt that the engineers designing a windowless plane wouldn't have looked at this issue and decided it wasn't really an issue or designed around it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
If there were a way to make the day look like night that could help sell our biological clocks to acclimate to new time zones more easily.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In a staggeringly more sane political climate we once heard someone who wanted to be president lament over not being able to open the windows on aircraft. If we take windows away from him entirely he might not fly at all.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As someone who has been on more commercial flights than I care to count I'm all for removing windows. After you get above a certain altitude there really isn't anything to look at any way. I always preferred a isle seat anyway. I found it much more convenient to be able to get up and go take a piss with out having to trip over bubba on the way out.
For the record, I no longer fly commercial. I refuse to be packed into a can like a cow and have to sit that in a seat designed by a bean counter for the next few hours with the guy behind me shoes up my ass. Nope, trains are the way to go.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Came here to say that this is going to be the "HIDE TEH DECLINE!!!1" of the Flat Earther nutjobs...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Not familiar with the sarcasm tag, are you?
The Blue Screen of Death, a.k.a. 'the sky', is a desired feature in this release. My how things have changed!
As someone who prefers a dark, cool plane with the shades down, I would welcome this.
What about if you ticket was $30 less?
To be fair, I've sat next to many people on American Airlines who could have benefitted from an in-flight shower. I'd sacrifice getting wet in exchange for them bathing.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I was on a plane with a fuel leak from a fuel pump cover on the wing. Pointed it out to the flight attendant, one of the pilots walked back and looked out the window. He determined that it wasn't severe enough to be a concern, and we made a normal landing at our destination (we were only about 40 min away when this happened).
Actually, this would make aircraft safer. Windows create a structural weakness in the fuselage, and without windows, it should be stronger.
...That what i'm seeing is real? When i look out the window and see there isn't a gremlin on the wing I want to know for sure the airline isn't just hiding it to prevent a panic.
I would love if they added AR (augmented reality) options. Maybe every once in a while have dragons of UFOs flying around, or maybe a gremlin on the wing
> Will the number of lives saved by having a fuselage outweigh
As a passenger, I certainly feel safer if the plane still has it's fuselage.
Mainly because I'm sitting in the fuselage, I prefer it to still be attached to the plane (which is the wing and tail).
More seriously, a more efficient design actually doesn't have a fuselage. A flying wing like the B2 is more efficient, and airlines have researched using them, but passengers prefer windows and boarding is easier with a fuselage and aisle, as opposed to theater style seating in a flying wing.
I bet they will save a few for those who want to pay for a premium seat that includes an actual window. And as other's have said, if there is just a monitor, expect ads and the view to be brought to you by "Little Debbie"
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
The 767 and the 777, I believe, have emergency exit doors above the wings. I see no reason these doors can't keep their windows to serve this function.
I loved the 767. Plenty of room in the over head bins. You know if you need to hide body of the little snot behind you who keeps kicking your seat. Not that I did that but I did want to keep that option open.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
If you think turbulence is scary try turbulence in a pitch dark cabin after the
virtual windows have failed. Space Mountain would have nothing on that level of terror.
As we take off and land mostly. I no longer look out at clouds or ground while flying.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
and most importantly: their images are not actually 3-dimensional!
Stereoscopic vision pretty much ends at 200m. That's nothing compared to being several miles above what you're looking at - you don't have a 3D view of the ground at 30,000 ft.
At a distance of several inches, 4K comes close enough for the resolution. The dynamic range is going to be hurt far more by miles of water vapor than by being on a screen.
I'd pay $30 to have a real window, not a fake-ass screen.
The proper response to that would be "WH-O-O-O-O-SH!" (a loud whoosh, it being a jet plane and all).
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
video feed does not work with no power or damaged or maybe in an water landing.
This first-class suite is a psych test by Emirates to see if passengers would accept a windowless environment. If they do, it opens up blended-wing designs for commercial use.
I would prefer a clear see through fuselage with the exception of the seats and the lavs (let's not forget the lavs). That would be a total blast!
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
That's even stupider- when you can build a CCD device that sits on the skin of the aircraft so flush that it doesn't even create any wind resistance.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You must not be much of an engineer yourself if you don't even know how to weld one of those big '57 chevy stick-mirrors to the outside of a big 'ol metal plane.
Or at least just let the pilot roll down the window so they can stick their head out and take a look behind them. Cars have had roll-down windows for years too! Time to modernize our planes. /s /s /s /s /s /s
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Most people today can't pull their eyes away from their gadgets for more than a few seconds. I love looking out the windows of airplanes, but I very rarely see others doing so. As long as modern people can have power for their gadget addiction, they don't care about anything else going on around them. Addiction is a serious thing, and a LOT of people are severely addicted.
I don't respond to AC's.
Fuuuuuuck. How's people supposed to get sucke outta windows in movies now?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Scenery depends on weather. If it’s clear, there can be some great stuff out there. I enjoy trying to figure out exactly where we are before looking at the flight map. Totally agree about flying coach, though. If you can afford it, business class is a different world.
All valid points. And then there is the small problem that the windows don't open for some reason.
Can't imagine why.
But of course you brought a tool with you that is suitable for shattering that window, and completely breaking it out so you can make your exit! And I am sure that the TSA agent let you take that tool on board so that you would have it ready at your seat just in case.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Man, you are totally Wight.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Queue the claustrophobia.....
Man am I glad planes never fly at night, and there's no scenarios where flights require you to close windows. /sarcasm.
I flew London to Milan a few years ago on business and from my window I got to see the White Cliffs of Dover, the Eiffel Tower and some stunning views of the Alps. I don't think I've ever seen so much stuff out of the window.
I, on the other hand, am not.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Err...I've never been on a flight, day or night where you were "required" to close the windows (i.e. pull down the shades)....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Why fly to New York to visit your relatives? Just put them on video chat.
And you know they will turn those damn monitors whenever the captain speaks, or the safety video is on, or they show advertisements, or etc. etc.
I was flying on the company dime. If the cheap ass bastards could have shipped my ass baggage I'm sure they would have.
I've put so many miles in the air in the first decade of the 21 century I can clearly say that I have been to every one of the lower 48 states in the Union and most of Canada if you count flying over them. I can similarly boast to having been in almost every major city in the western hemisphere if you count running from one departure gate to the next.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Man, you are totally Wight.
I'm a undead monster that rises at night to suck on the souls of the living?
I know. I shouldn't correct other people gramer or spelling but I couldn't pass that one up. :)
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Sounds like a troll from Airbus. ;)
Man, you are totally Wight.
I'm a undead monster that rises at night to suck on the souls of the living?
I know. I shouldn't correct other people gramer or spelling but I couldn't pass that one up. :)
I believe he was making an Isle of Wight joke since you said "isle" instead of "aisle"
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
I guess I've become too jaded. I like window seats because leaning against the bulkhead is slightly more comfortable than leaning back into the seats with no headrest and support in all the wrong spots. I'm only 6ft who did theyake those things for? I also like window seats because I am in charge of the shade and I can keep it down. I don't like natural light it sunburns my atrophied muscles through my translucent skin.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Even cattle cars have spaces between the slats you can look out of.
Considering how many people on /. never pass up an opportunity to complain about motion sickness from JJ Abrams movies, how in the world can any of you even consider flying without having a window to keep you from vomiting all over the cabin?
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
You're one of THEM! GAHHHHH!!!!!
Don't take this personally, but I DESPISE people like you whingeing to have all the shades down the whole way on long-haul flights and raising Cain with the stews if I want to peek outside.
You would enjoy the observation deck of the Fernsehturm, no doubt.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
AVGN cited on Slashdot. I can die a happy man now...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Backup power doesn't do much good against lightning strikes. But I imagine there would still be a few windows in place - emergency exits, and maybe a few others for visual status checks. Really though, you can't see much of anything useful through most of the windows on a plane, and thus would lose nothing (safety-wise) from removing them.
As for "each camera" - why would you assume there's more than one (or rather two - one for each side)? Other than the wing, the view is pretty much identical from every passenger window on a plane.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
What circumstances require pulling down the shades?
Windows are as tough as they need to be. Probably stronger than the fuselage.
Do you really think screens with their zero parallax, low dynamic range and inevitably low frame rates are going to come close to actually looking out of a window at altitude?
Perhaps these crazy muslims just don't want you to get an idea of the true scale of the world. Maybe they'll show a nice flat-earth map instead.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Hah. Yeah, if you live in a big city and they always scheduled you on the cheapest airline so you couldn't build status, then yeah, you were screwed, but I've seen plenty of people in the front cabin who didn't pony up for the seats - they got them with status. If you're top-tier status, I can't imagine any route on which you'd ever do worse than premium economy, and usually better.
Like I said, if it's clear, you can see EVERYTHING. I've seen tons of things from the air that I've never seen from the ground, and OTOH I've been able to recognize things from the air because I knew what the ground looked like. I prefer to drive if I have the time, because you really do get to see so much you would never see from a plane, but flight gives you a perspective you cannot get any other way.
Seems the real use for windows in airplanes is to take pictures of where you are or what you see along the way. If you can still take photos of the virtual windows, that need seems to be met.
With the tales recently of windows failing in airplanes and sucking people out of the plane, maybe getting rid of them would be a good thing.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I was on a plane with a fuel leak from a fuel pump cover on the wing. Pointed it out to the flight attendant, one of the pilots walked back and looked out the window. He determined that it wasn't severe enough to be a concern, and we made a normal landing at our destination (we were only about 40 min away when this happened).
I just watched show on TV last night that had a story of a mid-flight engine failure. A passenger was recording it when over the loud speaker the pilot asked over the PA that if anyone notices any changes with that engine the they should let the flight crew know. So yeah, windows for passengers do come in handy...
The fly "IFR". Instrument rules. The better ones may look out occasionally to appreciate the view. But not to fly.
Example is of that fellow that landed in the Hudson River. Did not see a huge flock of geese in good weather. What was he looking at? Computer screens.
The question is not the strength of the windows, or for that matter the strength of the body. Every time you change materials (plastic windows to aluminum body, etc.), an interface between the two has to be engineered, adding another expense and another potential failure area. Also, bracing structures must be designed to not go through a window opening: that's a design constraint, which necessarily leads to compromise (greater expense and weaker structure).
That said, I still want a window seat and I'm willing to pay for it.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
This is happening because people are getting wise to the fact that the earth is flat. These cameras and screens will distort the view to make it look like the earth is curved in order to keep the sheeple docile.
Wake up! /s
> Planes already have plenty of lift;
Larger wings create more drag, which requires more fuel, which is heavier, requiring even more wing and fuel. It's a cycle of inefficiency, so you do NOT want a plane with much larger wings (more lift) than you need, not for efficiency. The drag caused by the wing is over half the drag (cost) of flying the plane.
> making the whole plane a lifting surface does not make it more efficient.
The word plane here is the same thing as in high school geometry - a flat surface, the wing. The wing is the plane, it's the wing the flies. The fuselage is an extra source of drag attached to the plane, so you have something to put passengers in. It's far more efficient to fly the wing without the aerodynamically pointless, wasteful fuselage bolted on.
The reason planes ever even had a fuselage, other than for passengers, is because you needed a tail. A wing by itself isn't stable - is doesn't fly straight. You need tail feathers to keep it pointed forward. Just like a dart. So you have to attach a rear fuselage sticking out to attach the tail too. BUT you also need the center of gravity to be at about the same point as the center of lift, approximately 27% of the chord length aft of the leading edge. That means in order to balance at the right point, you need something sticking out in front of the wing. Otherwise the center of pressure being fore of the cog would cause a pitching moment.
In the last few years, electronic systems have progressed to the point where you can have active stability, electronic controls keeping the plane in the proper attitude, so positive static aerodynamic stability is no longer required. There is now no requirement to have a tail, and therefore no requirement for the very wasteful fuselage. That's why you see new military planes using the flying wing design (B-2, RQ-180, Switchblade), blended wing-body (Boeing X-48, RQ-170), or lifting body, where the the entire aircraft is designed as part of the lifting wing (F-15). The F-15 actually flew with the wing extension, the part most people would call "the wing" completely removed, because the entire aircraft was designed to function as a crude wing.
This is real. Whenever I travel from Brazil to Europe shades MUST be up during takeoff and MUST be down before sunrise (flight crew check and enforce it). I don't know if it's a regulation or an internal thing from the airline. ... But then you have the planes where windows don't have shades and it's all controlled digitally, which is easier for this case.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
This is just the first step. Next step is vacations people can still afford. They just sit you in a simulator, show you a nice movie of what your flight would look like, throw away a few random items in your luggage and (if you choose the beach option) dump a vial of sand in your suitcase.
>> removing all windows from future planes
That's not a big change.
Most of the actual planes use Linux already
http://www.anvari.org/db/fun/C...
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https://www.urbandictionary.co...
What? You don't recognise de facto standards that are in common usage? Doesn't mean they're not standards.
Err...I've never been on a flight, day or night where you were "required" to close the windows (i.e. pull down the shades)....
So you've never been in a plane for more than an hour or two then? Pretty much any trans ocean flight will have a period where all passengers are asked to close their windows. Unless you're in a 787, then they force the shades to the darkest setting making them impossible to look out of unless it's the middle of the day and disable your controls.
Any flight across the ocean will have a sleeping period at some point. In 100% of the ones I've been on (and they happen pretty much ever 3 months) the flight attendants will not allow you to open them. The 787s are cool, the flight attendants simply override the window controls and force them to the darkest setting.
Point is: If you've never been in a plane with all the windows down, you've never been in a plane for more than a couple of hours. The claustrophobes seem to do just fine ... or they take the train / boat, I'm not sure which.
"Let me look on you with my own eyes." --https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McUwVg6MfOk
Blaine the plane is a pain...
-=-Ze End-=-
"Queue" - somewhere where Britons wait for other Britons to get seagull shit on them.
"Cue" - a stage direction for someone to come on stage from the wings and start singing, dancing, blowing the lead actress or whatever.
Quite what you're trying to say isn't clear.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
You can also move your head to get a much greater field of view than any camera will give you.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.