Make sure your personal belongings are stowed under the seat in front of you or in the overhead compartment, your tray table is locked away, your window shade is fully open, your seat back is in the upright position, and your seat belt is securely fastened. Nawwww, this won't be a bumpy ride.
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Don't forget to ask the flight attendant for your complimentary orange croissant as we make our final approach.
You all remember this famous example of Mitt Romney having his head in the clouds in 2012:
After his wife's plane was forced to make an emergency landing this weekend, Romney told the Los Angeles Times, he was worried for her safety. The candidate then continued on a bizarre tangent that showed just how little the Republican nominee understands about flight.
“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney told the paper. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly."
Romney said the biggest problem in a distressed aircraft is that "the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous."
Romney's Damage Team Leader (a full time position) later explained that Mitt was just joking, that he really does know there's a good reason why the windows don't open. Oh, that Mittens, just a non-stop laugh riot. He's so gosh-darn funny he should get a job writing for SNL.
Anyway.
Would you ride in this airplane?
At first glance, the plane appears to have little or no ceiling or sides. In fact, the concept is kind of the opposite. What it doesn't have is any windows, or any way for passengers to directly see outside at all. The fuselage is a lightweight tube, made much less complicated to design and build due to the absence of windows. The resulting tube is thinner, yet stronger, and lighter in weight than what you are flying in today. And that leads to greater fuel economy. In this concept,
being developed by the UK-based Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), the interior walls and ceiling are covered with high-tech digital display panels. These panels can display images from external cameras, or even add computer-generated graphics.
This airplane could be possible within 10 years. Much of the advancement in display technology is due to the continuing development of OLED. Screens made with OLED (or AMOLED) are ultra-thin, lightweight, and flexible. They can be flexed to conform to the shape of curved walls, such as the inside walls of an airplane. And as the technology progresses, they can be manufactured in ever-larger and higher-resolution ranges.
How practical is this, really? As pictured above, not very. A lot of people would freak out at the sight of the outside, being so near and so transparent. And it only takes one person freaking out at 35,000 feet to make a dangerous situation. But it may be more practical in terms of smaller panels, in effect replacing the familiar port-hole airplane windows with somewhat larger, but not too large, screens.
So how about this?
Ahh, that's more like it. The perfect setup for the
discerning business traveller. You can discuss your latest PowerPoint over a lovely meal with a colleague while viewing the scenery outside, or whatever else fits your mood. You and I won't be travelling like that. (I'm hopeful though. See the tip jar below).
Whether 10 years away, or 20 years away, or however long it takes, it seems that the windowless airplane is on its way, somewhere, somehow. But the developers are going to have to find a happy medium. Too much of outside, with wide open spaces, is going to induce vertigo in passengers. Too little, and claustrophobia sets in. If you're on a private/business jet, you can control the images on those big screens; if you're one of the sardines packed into Economy class on a big jumbo, you're probably at someone else's mercy. The person sitting in the "window" seat might have control over what's on that big panel next to them, and you might think you're about to fall out of the airplane. And you thought the fights over reclining seat backs were bad. Better to give control over that to the crew.
Cruise ships have already implemented something similar, but with lower-grade technology. Both Disney Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean have deployed "digital portholes" for inside cabins. These are cabins on the inside hallway, less expensive to book because they have no outside view. Until now.
RC recently renovated its ship Navigator of the Seas to add 80-inch LCD panels to inside cabins, which can display the view from outside. And the soon-to-be-launched Quantum of the Seas has them as well. RC calls them virtual balconies.
Mind you, Cruiseline.com has already dubbed these an
epic fail. Maybe the airline industry will take notes.
Meanwhile, Airbus is thinking even further ahead on the virtual window concept. They have actually filed a patent application for a windowless cockpit. Now, there are no announced plans to actually build such a thing, yet. Personally I like my pilots to be able to see where we're going. Airbus says that their concept would actually give pilots an even better view of their surroundings. Let's hope that the screens and cameras won't be depending on Boeing-style lithium-ion batteries for power.
But before you ever get on an airplane1 with no windows, you'll be on one that has wifi, Internet, flat-screen, hi-definition entertainment of all kinds. And if we're lucky, no capability to make phone calls. Damn that VOIP! Because really, do you want to be sitting next to some idiot yammering away to Aunt Martha for the duration of the flight about every little nonsensical thing? Or even three rows away? Because the people with the least interesting things to say, have the loudest voices and the longest duration windpipes.
1 About this time, someone is telling you to get on the plane. "Get on the plane. Get on the plane." I say, "fuck you, I'm getting IN the plane!"
- the late, great, George Carlin
TOP COMMENTS
October 29, 2014
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
Tonight we have some nominations that are for comments made yesterday, but for one reason or another didn't get nominated until after last night's Top Comments edition had already gone to press.
From BlackSheep1: because, darn it, this comment by 8Zs4me in MessagingMatters' post, "Why cats aren't Republican" is too good not to get more attention!
From SoCalJawhawk: I really didn't want to laugh at this comment by tuma, but I just couldn't help it. It's from Meteor Blades' diary "That 93-year-old turned away at the polls in Texas is not the only person rejected for lacking an ID".
From Steven Payne: Yo, TrueBlueMajority asks a damned good question that deserves a real answer in Susan Grigsby's diary "Ten hours of catcalls".
And now on to today's business.
From koosah: Being a West Coast resident, I like to start my day with a splash in the Kiddie Pool at Cheers and Jeers by Bill in Portland Maine. Right near the top of the comments this morning, Roadbed Guy started this exchange with Scottsdalian. Who knew the Ebola virus could be so humorous? (Hint: It is, if you pretend to be Republicans.) Their entire thread is worth a read.
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TOP PHOTOS
October 28, 2014
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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