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girlwhowaspluggedout writes:
"Spike Aerospace has revealed how the Spike S-512, which is planned to be the first supersonic business jet, will be able to fly from New York to London in half the time that the flight requires now. The plane, which is expected to carry 12-18 passengers, will enjoy the reduced drag and lower weight that come with an advanced engine and no windows:" Read more below.
The new supersonic jet will feature a revolutionary windowless passenger cabin so no more glaring sun and no more shades to pull down or push up. Instead, the interior walls will be covered with a thin display screens embedded into the wall. Cameras surrounding the entire aircraft will construct breathtaking panoramic views displayed on the cabin screens. Passengers will be able to dim the screens to catch some sleep or change it to one of the many scenic images stored in the system.
Without windows, the S-512 is expected to reach speeds between Mach 1.6 and 1.8.
Dr Darren Ansell, an expert in space and aerospace engineering at the University of Central Lancashire, told BBC News what passengers in a plane without windows can expect to experience:
There will be no natural light it will all be simulated so it will be a bit like being in a tube. And how would it work from a safety perspective? If there was an accident how would you know which way the plane was facing, and where you had landed, when the cameras have failed?"
You just know that some imaginative hacker is going to have a field day with this..."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sir Finkus on Saturday February 22 2014, @06:05AM
I'm curious what the camera/display latency would be on that. Looking at the interior concept, I could see this causing motion sickness if they aren't synced very closely. I'd also worry about the cameras vibrating.
That said, it looks neat.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by kebes on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:18PM
On the one hand, for most of the flight the plane will be cruising and so will be quite steady. It will be displaying images of distant objects, so the images will not be varying much from frame-to-frame. Moreover, since the image being displayed is 2D, most people will actually just perceive it to be like a still image/painting, and may not even associate it with being 'the outside world' (which, in fact, calls into question the reason for having these screens at all).
On the other hand, during tight manoeuvres and whenever there is turbulence, any slight mismatch between the movement of the images and the true movement of the cabin will indeed be unsettling (and worsen any motion sickness). Most people ignore the windows on an airplane except during takeoff and landing, when there is something interesting to actually look at. So, these viewscreens will be especially unsettling particularly during those times when people are most likely to want to look at them!
Hopefully they will do a bit of research inside flight simulators, and design their video frame-rate and latency to minimize such problems.
(Score: 1) by demonlapin on Saturday February 22 2014, @04:11PM
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Saturday February 22 2014, @06:13PM
Why don't we just stop denying reality? Even aircraft manufacturers have admitted that passengers' ideal flights are the ones they entirely sleep through. Forget windows, forget video, forget reclining seat-backs, just drug everybody out of their minds before takeoff, and wake them up after landing. No motion sickness, no need for food/drink service, no rowdy passengers, fewer lavatories, etc.
Do YOU see ALL home-page stories?
dev.soylentnews.org/search.pl?tid=1
github.com/SoylentNews/slashcode/issues/78
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday February 23 2014, @08:56AM
"have admitted that passengers' ideal flights are the ones they entirely sleep through." ... here's someone who doesn't know about the "mile high club".
The killer problem is I've taken the train from Chicago to NYC and had a nice steak dinner on board not some airline garbage (although congress has been trying to get rid of the good food to make Amtrak fail for political soundbite reasons), slept in a real bed, its really pretty nice. Laze around the fireplace in the 1st class lounge in CHC until dinner time, hop on the train, leisurely evening relaxing in my cabin with my laptop, wake up and eat breakfast, dropped off in downtown NYC at Penn station around lunchtime. Return trip about the same, more like hop on the train mid afternoon, arrive in CHC right at breakfast time. Movies on a projector in the recreation car, real bartenders serving real drinks, its like a very narrow cruise ship, minus the topless sunbathing deck (which could probably be arranged on a train if they really wanted it...) Changing your business model to match something where your competitor absolutely excels, is a fools game.
True, I'm not going to take the train from CHC to Japan anytime soon (although that would be impressive as hell, the zillion mile detour and amazing bridge in Alaska to .ru would be something to see) This railroad bridge (nearly need a covered tunnel?) between Alaska and .ru is likely to be the engineering achievement of my kids generation. Imagine continuous double track from .de or heck, .uk, all the way to north america. Maybe not so much for people, other than people with a hell of a lot of spare time, but cargo. Ship tank cars of hot grits from Georgia to Georgia, or York to (new) York.
(Score: 1) by thoughtlover on Tuesday February 25 2014, @05:23AM
If the camera were mounted flush with the surface, I don't see a problem.
I do see an 'entertainment bonus' with video cameras by adding an augmented overlay of a crazy creature tearing parts off the wing...