A ‘Window Seat’ For All Thanks To Technology
One of the pleasures of air travel could be made in virtual in years ahead, as the industry seeks to develop windowless passenger planes.
A window seat may not be everyone’s preference but it would be mine every time. Picking out landmarks from 34,000 feet and watching as a patchwork quilt of fields passes beneath enlivens journey to my mind.
But windows add enormously to the weight of the plane, firstly because they are heavy themselves and secondly because their presence demands a thicker, stronger, heavier fuselage than would otherwise be required. That is why cargo and military transport planes only have windows up front.
With the emergence of lightweight, flexible screen technology, aircraft engineers are thinking ahead to the passenger plane that just pretends to have external views. It would cost much less to fly and could even have slightly wider seats.
These aeronautical boffins plan to exploit those ultra-thin high definition shaped smart screens that are being used elsewhere for banana shaped phones and wearable technology.
They are looking to install them around the inside walls of aeroplanes as well as on the seat backs.
This would give the ability to project camera generated panoramic views of the passing landscape to replace glass.
UK-based technologists, The Centre for Process Innovation, have created a web page and short video imagining what these future planes could be like to fly in.
Check out at www.uk-cpi.com and see how a flight in a decade’s time could be just like a theme park ride.
Personally, I can’t wait, but I do wonder about those who already need to steady their nerves to board a plane at all.
