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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, Insightful) by Open4D on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:24AM
I presume a first generation of such aircraft would have to do this because people have always been used to having windows. But if people come to accept the idea of windowless passenger cabins, any cameras that didn't serve a strictly functional purpose could eventually be considered for removal. This would be fine by me.
These concerns shouldn't be a big deal. We're already used to being without natural light for several hours each day. And a cost/benefit analysis of the usefulness of windows after an accident would probably show you're better off spending the money on reducing the chance of an accident, or on alternative post-accident countermeasures.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by johaquila on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:46AM
Alternative post-accident countermeasures are psychologically more important for the same reason people are afraid of flying but not of driving a car on their own, even when they are tired and can't drive. It's about feeling in control in case something goes wrong. The odds of something going wrong don't factor into it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:37PM
Might be why many young guys have the urge to do stupid crazy stuff- create more opportunities for fitness testing of their other genes (healing, reflexes etc). And if they survive to get older they tend to stop doing the crazy stuff (till maybe they hit 40-50
(Score: 4, Insightful) by evilviper on Saturday February 22 2014, @06:07PM
I never bought this argument... People who are afraid of flying aren't afraid of riding a bus or a train, and probably aren't afraid of crossing a bridge or looking over the edge of a building. It doesn't seem like "control" has anything to do with it.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Angry Jesus on Saturday February 22 2014, @12:32PM
But if people come to accept the idea of windowless passenger cabins, any cameras that didn't serve a strictly functional purpose could eventually be considered for removal.
They wouldn't really need cameras to begin with, just pre-recorded video. After all, how would the people inside know the difference once they got off the ground? Get 50 or so different recordings for different conditions (rainy, sunny, night, winter, summer, etc) and you'd fool pretty much anyone flying on these things, they aren't likely to be focusing on the verisimilitude anyway.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Saturday February 22 2014, @06:03PM
If the video doesn't match the inertia, people wouldn't accept it. When you feel yourself suddenly dropping, climbing, accelerating, slowing, etc., but the video is smooth and level, you know it's fake without thinking about it.
Theme park rides make it work because they're on stable ground, and they CAUSE the motion at the exact moment needed to match-up with the video.
The video could potentially be adjusted on-the-fly (so to speak) but it would take a vastly larger video (or something fake and both vertically and horizontally tiled), and a very impressive computer on-board
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(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Saturday February 22 2014, @08:37PM
That's only a problem when you are very near the ground. Most of the time you are too far away from any reference point for there to a be visible correlation to movement. Any sudden drops that are discernible mid flight will be so serious that the last thing the passengers will be worrying about is whether the video is in sync or not.
(Score: 1) by evilviper on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:03PM
Have you ever heard of "clouds"?
And I disagree with the assumption that people shut off their brains when there's turbulence/air pockets/wind shear/etc.
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(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday February 23 2014, @01:30AM
Have you ever heard of "clouds"?
Have you ever flown in a plane?
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Sunday February 23 2014, @01:49AM
All the time.
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(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday February 23 2014, @09:27AM
Then clearly you've never paid attention to the clouds because anyone who has paid attention knows that clouds only look like they have a perceptible edge when you are too far away for a couple hundred foot change in altitude to be noticeable. And in the rare case of suddenly dropping more the a couple of hundred feet, nobody gives a shit what is outside the window.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Sunday February 23 2014, @08:00PM
They don't have sharp edges, but they do have areas of differing density. You absolutely can clearly see horizontal and some vertical columns of thinner and denser "fog" (for lack of better terms) while flying through clouds.
I still don't buy that, and you've certainly provided no evidence to support the claim. People may be scared, but that doesn't mean their brain shuts-off to everything they're seeing. In fact looking out the "window" is precisely what people would be doing, once they've got a good grip on the arm-wrests.
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(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday February 23 2014, @10:58PM
You absolutely can clearly see horizontal and some vertical columns of thinner and denser "fog" (for lack of better terms) while flying through clouds.
So what? If you are inside the cloud you don't have any reference to figure out the scale of those areas.
I still don't buy that, and you've certainly provided no evidence to support the claim. People may be scared, but that doesn't mean their brain shuts-off to everything they're seeing
Maybe the reason you don't "buy that" is because I didn't say "their brain shuts-off" -- I said they don't care. If the the video doesn't sync up and the illusion is lost it doesn't fucking matter.
(Score: 1, Troll) by evilviper on Sunday February 23 2014, @11:47PM
So when the jet banks and rolls 45 degrees, and starts climbing/diving you won't notice that the picture out the window is following right along with you? Uhhh...
Well, if Angry_Jesus says it doesn't matter, than I'm sure nobody else in the world will care...
Why not just put a matte painting up there, instead, and save tons of money and power consumption on those LCD displays?
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(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Monday February 24 2014, @11:14AM
Lol, good thing Foobar Bazbot was there to do your thinking for you.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by evilviper on Monday February 24 2014, @07:34PM
A shame you can't do any...
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(Score: 1) by Foobar Bazbot on Sunday February 23 2014, @12:32PM
The problem isn't position changes (as you say, reference points are too far away for those to matter), but attitude changes. When the plane starts to roll, any visual lag will be very perceptible, because the entire view should exhibit the same roll rate, regardless of distance.
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