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I've seen it on Air Canada (or Red or Jazz, or whatever it was called that day), and it actually worked quite well. They offered to rent tablets for people who

I've seen it on Air Canada (or Red or Jazz, or whatever it was called that day), and it actually worked quite well. They offered to rent tablets for people who didn't have devices. I suspect managing the streaming server isn't going to be much more complicated than managing the old wired content sever... On the other hand, not needind kilometers of cables for entertainment, not needing to maintain them, makes a huge difference for the airlines. This is not as simple as pulling a cable in your house, planes have crashed because of fires from bad maintenance/install of cables, including cables for entertainment.

tsomctl 10y ago
I'd hope they'd have separate cable trays for critical and noncritical wires. And we have flame-retardant plastic that isn't deadly poisonous.
- atbentley 10y ago
  Anecdotal, I know, but I was on a flight a few months ago where the wire for the hand held controller for the entertainment system had gotten so hot it burnt my hand. I'm not sure how far away the autoignition temperature of cotton is from the burn-my-hand-temperature, but I suppose it's possible that if it was cotton on that wire as opposed to my skin it may have caught fire. And while the wire delivering that content was non critical and probably on a seperate power network to the main systems of the plane, a fire on a plane is a fire on a plane regardless of which system caused it.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    You can cause a full thickness burn at really low temperatures. Water will cause a 2nd or 3rd degree burn in 2 seconds at 65 C. http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_wa... I think regular cotton burns at something like 200 C. Cotton on a plane is going to have fire retardant properties. Burns are complicated, but if you'd touched something that hot you'd have had an instant burn, probably with blistering.

tsomctl 10y ago

I'd hope they'd have separate cable trays for critical and noncritical wires. And we have flame-retardant plastic that isn't deadly poisonous.

atbentley 10y ago
Anecdotal, I know, but I was on a flight a few months ago where the wire for the hand held controller for the entertainment system had gotten so hot it burnt my hand. I'm not sure how far away the autoignition temperature of cotton is from the burn-my-hand-temperature, but I suppose it's possible that if it was cotton on that wire as opposed to my skin it may have caught fire. And while the wire delivering that content was non critical and probably on a seperate power network to the main systems of the plane, a fire on a plane is a fire on a plane regardless of which system caused it.
- DanBC 10y ago
  You can cause a full thickness burn at really low temperatures. Water will cause a 2nd or 3rd degree burn in 2 seconds at 65 C. http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_wa... I think regular cotton burns at something like 200 C. Cotton on a plane is going to have fire retardant properties. Burns are complicated, but if you'd touched something that hot you'd have had an instant burn, probably with blistering.