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Emirates Planes Could Be Going Windowless
- gooseyard 8y agoI look forward to being able to pinch zoom to magnify interesting landmarks
- PrimHelios 8y agoEven with virtual windows, I think knowing that I can't directly see outside would make me extremely claustrophobic, and I think a lot of people would feel similarly. All in all this is a cool concept, but I don't think it will be executed well. What happens when my "window" inevitably breaks (as technology is apt to do) and the illusion of being able to see is broken? What about annoying dead pixels or color banding? I can't imagine the displays being used are very high quality.
- Rotdhizon 8y agoI'd think it'd be a disaster if those screens were to malfunction mid-flight and all of the sudden people realized they were in a box with no way to see out. I'm sure that would cause at least one person per flight to have a panic/anxiety attack. It's similar to walking with your eyes closed, you start to panic after a few seconds because you can't see where you're going and lose your sense of positioning/direction/balance. I hate flying, I don't think I could manage to make it on a plane with no windows at all.
- PuffinBlue 8y agoAnd yet, millions of people are able to handle tunnels everyday without incident. Metro lines don't tend to have much visible outside them (if anything at all save for some flashing lights), and there are extended scenarios like the Channel Tunnel where passengers basically don't see anything for over 30 minutes.
- pweissbrod 8y agoif the tunnel was a tin can 3,000+ meters in the sky thats a different story
- PuffinBlue 8y agoOnly in the mind, and I think the large majority of people wouldn't care much for the difference. Just make sure they can plug into Facebook/Instagram/YouTube/Social Media of choice and quite literally most people wouldn't care in the slightest. That's not to say the negative reaction of a small minority wouldn't be vastly increased, but I think the masses would still be perfectly fine.
- taneq 8y ago> Only in the mind You say that like there's anywhere else that it matters
- Cerium 8y agoClaustrophobia of the feet; that's why I wear sandals.
- lou1306 8y ago> That's not to say the negative reaction of a small minority wouldn't be vastly increased The main problem I see with this is that both the small minority and the large majority are locked together inside a tin can speeding through the stratosphere. I'd rather not find out how fast panic might propagate under such conditions.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mhb 8y agoPeople also do OK in movie theaters, etc.
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- anoncoward111 8y agoEh, I hate flying and I have a ton of anxiety. But when I'm on a train in a tunnel, theoretically I can't see anything and it doesn't bother me too much.
- PrimHelios 8y agoThere's a big difference between being on a train in a tunnel and being in a plane several thousand feet in the air.
- anoncoward111 8y agoI am acutely aware of that difference- however, both scenarios are enclosed tubes.
- Asooka 8y agoAnd your brain is wholly enclosed in a sphere anyway, which itself is part in your body, so you kind of spend your whole life encased in a tube with no way out! Thus, rationally proving that claustrophobia is a myth and anyone claiming to suffer from it is no more credible than a flat-earther! yes this is sarcasm
- anoncoward111 8y agoI literally suffer from claustrophobia and agoraphobia you sarcastic nitwit I'm trying to explain to you that a window with some clouds does not alleviate my claustrophobia. So, whether the windows are virtual or not make no difference to me, even if one malfunctions... Jesus
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoIn a train tunnel you could be suddenly be crushed by rock or water. You have time to contemplate your fate in a plane.
- ajnin 8y agoThe train has window. In my experience tunnels are always lit a little bit and you can see the wall passing by. Also it's rare to stay in a tunnel for more than a few minutes.
- qaq 8y ago"I can't imagine the displays being used are very high quality" ??? if they provide the amount of savings outlined I doubt spending extra 200K on quality screens will be an issue
- philipov 8y agoIf they provide the savings outlined, those savings will be pocketed as profit. Productivity improvements don't mean employees get to work less, either.
- Matticus_Rex 8y ago> Productivity improvements don't mean employees get to work less, either. The economics literature begs to differ, though it's not a 1:1, as the improvements are usually specific to an area of the market while the labor market is much less specific, which actually means that the benefits are less because they're dispersed over a wider group of people, marginally improving the lives of people who didn't even have productivity improvements in the work they do.
- qaq 8y agoIt's pretty hard to argue that airlines (at least outside of US) is a very competitive biz.
- billforsternz 8y agoIt's an extraordinarily competitive business.
- PrimHelios 8y agoI really don't expect an airline company to actually spend those savings on quality. Just because they can do something doesn't mean they will
- qaq 8y agoEmirates is not exactly known for cutting corners like that
- finolex1 8y agoThe idea might seem uncomfortable, but realize that on airplanes today most windows are closed for the majority of the flight and people seem perfectly alright with it.
- orev 8y ago“Majority” is not all. Even with a few windows still open you can still get the sense of the outside, and light shifts as the plane moves, etc. There’s a big difference between “majority” and “all”.
- GordonS 8y agoEh? I fly a lot and, with the exception of overnight flights, the windows are open most of the time.
- karthikb 8y agoEmirates (subject of this thread) almost exclusively flies super long haul overnights. Their proposal wouldn’t work for the domestic 2-3 hr hops, but does work well for that 12 hour flight where one person trying to look outside wakes the whole cabin.
- jen20 8y agoThe 787 automatic tinting works for that, too, though.
- EliRivers 8y agoThere may be some kind of step too far somewhere in the space of things that can be done for cheaper flights, but so far everything the airlines do that leads to paying less for a ticket has led to lots of grumbling and no shortage of sales :) No windows in exchange for a discounted ticket; I think people will happily eat it up! If you sit in the middle of a row of ten seats (plus two aisles) the windows were just blobs of light in the distance anyway.
- rcostin2k2 8y agoWhat do you think about few cameras streaming live from different points of the aircraft and the passengers having the possibility to switch between them, or between live and a geosynchronized prerecorded day or night flight with a clear sky ? Would be a perk for the middle aisle seats...
- CalRobert 8y agoThis is already the case on some flights. I know we had this on a KoreanAir A380 from LAX to Seoul a few years ago. The view was kind of underwhelming, for the most part.
- saalweachter 8y agoWhat about a camera pointed straight ahead (maybe slightly downward) on each wingtip, and VR (binocular) headsets?
- andbberger 8y agohttps://xkcd.com/941/ https://xkcd.com/941/
- EliRivers 8y agoI think that if people get a 10% cut in the ticket price, they'll happily sit in a box with no windows and no substitute for windows.
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- fierro 8y agoReally? Most of the time on flights the windows are shuttered anyways, most people open them during landing to watch it go down. I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest by lack of windows
- weaksauce 8y agoI thought you were supposed to open them to let in light just in case you need to evacuate. Normalize your eyes so people can jump down the slide without delay of adjusting to the outside light and to be able to see inside the cabin without aux lighting.
- Grue3 8y ago>What happens when my "window" inevitably breaks What if your glass window inevitably breaks? That actually happened recently and a passenger died.
- PrimHelios 8y agoHow many times a year does that happen? Now how many times a year do you hear about shitty monitors? Hell, on Reddit alone I see 2 or 3 posts about bad monitors every day
- mikeash 8y agoFor those unfamiliar with the incident, note that the window broke because an engine exploded and hit the plane with debris.
- chrisseaton 8y agoWhat do you do at night in a plane at the moment? Do you panic then?
- jasonjayr 8y agoYou're typically above the clouds. You can use the stars to get your bearings.
- chrisseaton 8y agoEvery time I'm on a night flight, everyone just puts their blinds down and goes to sleep. There's no mass hysteria. If you're in the economy section and not in the minority by a window you can't see anyway even when it's daylight. I don't think this is any kind of issue.
- PrimHelios 8y agoI've never been on one. I don't have the opportunity to fly much.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- asdfman123 8y agoBut these will be on planes, meaning they will probably be engineered to hell and back. I'm sure they will almost never fail. It's not like the software world, where we slap on a feature, do some mild testing, and maybe do a little bit more debugging when the user complains about it.
- netsharc 8y agoBut this is the (web-)software equivalent of a positioning of a button using CSS. 1 pixel off? Good 'enuff. Have you never flown on a plane where the audio or USB port is broken? These parts are not mission critical, and "20% of the virtual windows are broken? Good 'enuff."
- asdfman123 8y agoTrue, but having windows at important places is mission critical, so maybe they'll all be well designed as a result.
- mstrum 8y agoJust like wifi internet, it will work flawlessly ;) lol
- ams6110 8y agoNon flight-critical stuff is not engineered to any super high standard. Consider the in-seat video displays, the fold-down tray tables, etc. I was once on a flight where the lavatory door wouldn't stay shut, and it kept banging open and closed every time the plane turned.
- sushisource 8y agoNo one in this thread seemed to pick up on the mention in the article that they wanted to pipe in fiber optics and project. It sounds like a largely analog solution that would be unlikely to break.
- sofaofthedamned 8y agoI'd imaging these would go blank in an emergency or at landing/takeoff. Can't imagine that reducing the terror factor for certain folks.
- lmnt 8y agoNo reason to believe that they would, I've been on multiple planes where it was possible to bring up different camera feeds of the plane on the screen in front of me. The coolest of these was filming the plane from the top of the tail wing so it almost looked like a video game feed.
- NegativeLatency 8y agoThis sounds really cool, what carrier and aircraft type were you on?
- jrockway 8y agoI think this is an A380 feature, needed to accurately steer the thing on the ground. Other airframes of similar age may also have it, though I've been on several 787s and haven't seen anything quite as neat as what the A380s have.
- reaperducer 8y agoSingapore's A380's LAX-NRT have this. JAL had it, too, on ORD-NRT. A member of the crew would switch to different cameras, presumably based on what there was to see (front landing gear view during takeoff, just clouds straight down during most of the flight, etc...). I haven't flown JAL in close to a decade, so I can't say if its planes still have this.
- trevyn 8y ago“Greatly reduced number of windows” is a more accurate statement, which seems to be a much less scary thing.
- flurdy 8y agoExactly. No windows at all = travel sickness, panic attacks, no spotting of fires, the issue with exits in emergency landings etc. E.g. 80% fewer windows = none of the problems above. True the window seat is then mostly less desirable, but on a long haul, they see nothing for 99% of the journey anyway.
- rbanffy 8y ago> they see nothing for 99% of the journey anyway. Endless clouds below, dark blue skies above, the occasional contrail of another plane on a slightly different route, the moon over the ocean, the stars, auroras, sunrises, sunsets, large ocean liners or cargo ships below, wind farms, mountains, cities, the Alps, the Grand Canyon, endless patterns of irrigation. The Earth is unfathomably beautiful from above.
- mannykannot 8y ago> it would save 50 per cent of the weight of an aircraft. Surely this is nonsense, even if you are considering empty weight, when you take the engines and main spar into consideration?
- extra88 8y agoYes, 50% reduction of the weight of just the fuselage would sound much more plausible.
- assblaster 8y agoNot just the window materials but all the aircraft structure that is needed to support the windows to sustain pressurization. The reason why windows are shaped as they are is to withstand the constant pressure changes without suffering catastrophic fatigue stress failure.
- CydeWeys 8y ago50% of the weight of the bare fuselage. Something was lost in translation when the article was being written.
- GordonS 8y agoAny idea how much that is in absolute terms?
- jzwinck 8y agoPerhaps 100 windows at 10 kg per unit, so roughly one metric ton. The metal required to fill the holes will be quite light. LCD screens are light as well, but less so when you account for the long wires to drive them, plus other infrastructure. Still, you ought to be able to carry a few extra passengers by removing the windows.
- djrogers 8y agoNo - they're not 'removing' windows, they're building the fuselage without them which eliminates the need for a lot of extra structural reinforcement. This is not just the weight of the windows we're talking about.
- yalooze 8y agoOfftopic: I found the article format quite hard to read. The mix of headings, bold, block quotes and embedded media made it feel very messy and I was never sure when the article was finished.
- vidanay 8y agoFor about the last 10 years of online "journalism". Hate it.
- PuffinBlue 8y agoWindowless planes would be a useful step. If people can get used to not having windows then there's more scope to change the design of the aircraft, so something like Boeing's Blended Wing design[0] might have a chance of not failing before it gets off the ground. https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/flying-wing2.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/fl...
- gnode 8y agoThe technology could also be useful for having a virtual window in tunnels, to make the experience a bit less claustrophobic. Particularly for something like a hyperloop carriage when there might not be room to move about.
- DaiPlusPlus 8y agoThe Blended wing concept has issues with evacuating passengers quickly and safely enough - nothing to do with windows.
- PuffinBlue 8y agoGood point. Is the target still 90 seconds to evacuate the entire aircraft? I can see how with the central compartments it could be more difficult to meet that sort of time constraint. It'll be interesting to follow how the engineers seek to create a design for evacuating in time.
- rbanffy 8y agoJust put economy in the middle, first and business closer to emergency exits.
- rbanffy 8y agoIt's a shame windows on the leading edge of the blended wing are not very practical. Maybe one day we'll be able to make the composite machinery switch to transparents where a window is supposed to be. This would probably also allow for much larger windows.
- koolba 8y ago> Are there any safety concerns? > Not really, aviation expert Douglas Drury from the University of South Australia says. Not a common need (thankfully) but windows also provide a way to look into plane as well, say in times of emergency or a hostage taking. That’s one of the reasons you’re required to open them when you take off and land. I wonder if their answer to that is a live video feed of the inside of the plane to the tower.
- gnode 8y agoAs mentioned in the article, you don't have to get rid of all the windows. Regulators may be happy with keeping only the windows near emergency exits.
- tetrep 8y ago> That’s one of the reasons you’re required to open them when you take off and land. I fly pretty regularly in the US and am unaware of this rule, where have you encountered it? I've only ever heard crew request windows be closed to mitigate the greenhouse effect and keep the plane a bit cooler.
- highesttide 8y agoAll my flights in Europe the last few years have had that as a part of the initial safety message
- jessaustin 8y agoI don't fly that often anymore but this rule has been universal in USA and abroad for decades. I don't doubt there are some cabin crews that DGAF, but they are exceptions.
- lvspiff 8y ago> That’s one of the reasons you’re required to open them when you take off and land. I've heard this was more for the reason of passengers safety being able to see whats going on outside - i.e. engine smoke, pieces of wing coming off, etc to let the crew know and in an emergency landing being able to tell what is outside (fire, water, militant guerrillas)
- ataturk 8y agoFlying is already awful, allowing airlines and manufacturers any more leeway in how badly they treat customers is unacceptable.
- oliveshell 8y agoFor me, the biggest issue with “virtual windows“ would be the lack of parallax. It would be very jarring to not see the view change as you move relative to the window. They could implement head tracking to solve this, but that breaks down as soon as more than one person need to look through the same window.
- gervase 8y agoI don't think it would be a huge issue for the most part, simply because the parallax from your head movement is minimal due to the relatively long distance involved from the plane to the ground. Most of the parallax you'd experience in a plane would come from the plane's movement, which would be replicated due to the cameras' relative movement as well.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoBut the parallax is pretty huge from me to the window to the ground. If I lean forward, I can suddenly see a lot of ground I couldn't see before; if I lean back, I can see all the ground in front of the plane.
- kurthr 8y agoIf you can see the wing, it's pretty close. That said with some fairly simple optics you could give the "look" of parallax. There are a number of "3D like" lens solutions that go over high resolution screens to create different views at different angles, if they really wanted to go that way. I'd say just make it look like you're going down a subway... passing trains and all!
- bsmith 8y agoActually, the distance from the plane to distant objects exaggerates parallax. The closer an observer is to the window, the stronger the effect. Just like a really long lever.
- JBiserkov 8y agoI would definitely fly this if there is such an option. And so would many others, if at least some of the savings are passed on to the consumer.
- spraak 8y agoUnlikely. Companies want more profit
- gnode 8y agoSuch profits aren't usually sustainable when the competition starts doing it.
- jessaustin 8y agoWhen in doubt, they just spend more on marketing. They can all do that at once without customers benefiting in the slightest.
- mrfusion 8y agoIf they did this they should make a viewing area with a big window where people could take turns visiting.
- taoistextremist 8y agoI get this feeling that the displayed images just won't be the same, not the least because they'd just be flat images instead of what you see when you normally look out. As someone who regularly requests window seats this doesn't appeal to me in the least, but I don't fly Emirates so I guess it doesn't really matter. I suppose I might be in the minority, though, of people who love just staring out the window, especially on takeoff and descent.
- mrfusion 8y agoIt’s only a matter of time before they put ads on the windows.
- ryandrake 8y agoCouldn’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find the real killer app for this. Even if a relatively upscale airline like Emirates won’t coat these with ads, what do you think a discount cattle hauler will do with this screen space if the concept catches on?
- gringoDan 8y agoReminds me of this Black Mirror episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
- quailmaster 8y agoA freemium model also seems likely.
- reaperducer 8y agoMaybe about five years ago I was on a flight where not only were there ads on a few of the overhead luggage bins, the stewards handed out little flyers to each passenger. I can't remember which airline it was, though. I don't fly discount very often, so it's hard to pinpoint. It would have to have been American, United, or maybe JetBlue. I sleep as much as possible, even on short flights, so few are memorable.
- mrfusion 8y agoWhat would be really awesome would be to find a transparent material to build the fuelsolage out of and then windows are just the unpainted areas.
- ilarum 8y agoAirbus revealed a similar concept a while ago. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003052/Airbus-unveil-transparent-plane-flying-come-2050.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003052/Airbu...
- stephengillie 8y agoThis could be an interesting use for Aluminum Oxynitride. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DduO1fNzV4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DduO1fNzV4w
- anonlastname 8y agoThis seems tolerable as long ad they don't start playing the obligatory safety video on the windows or messing with the feed at all
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoI'm sure the monitors won't help people with air sickness at all.
- kingkawn 8y agoA joy of flying is to look and see the world itself directly in the highest resolution possible; reality.
- davidgay 8y agoSadly, the scratches and distortion (esp. from the two layers of window) make this "highest resolution" a bit of a pipe-dream... [Or: no, looking directly through optical system A is not guaranteed to have "higher resolution" (really, MTF) than looking at a display of a digital image captured through optical system B]
- kingkawn 8y agoYes, but what does make it through is actually there, in analogue, not interpreted. This is non-trivial levels of information being conveyed even through distorted glass that is more present than a digital image.
- tln 8y agoYes, its an experience :) But really, that is only accessible for passengers in window seats and on day time flights. With Emirates, that is a small %age of the time! 2 out of 10 passengers per row, and windows have to be down overnight. For this airline, a passengers' opportunity to gaze out a window is simply less. Every emirates flight I've taken has included tail, nose and belly camera shots to screen right in front of me. Blurry, not the highest possible resolution, but a FAR more interesting perspective! Not every experience that a window gives you can be replicated. As the plane banks over the bay, spotting your house or favorite park is probably never going to happen with cameras, nor being able to watch the ground crew work. But for the bulk of the flight, the takeoff, the landing, man the external camera feeds are great. As a passenger, I'd gladly ditch the windows for better cameras, on pretty much any flight.
- netsharc 8y agoI always pay so I can pick seats, and I think I've had 2 out of 20 flights in the last 5 or so years where I was not sitting by a window. Looking at the landscape through the screen would be like watching a live performance on your phone's screen (which is, surprise, a loooot of people do). And people saying "What's the difference between a windowless plane and a plane where all the windows are shuttered, the people insisting on windows are stupid!" are... stupid. With a windowless plane I think my anxiety would cause claustrophobia. With a windowed plane I know I won't get that anxiety...
- nmridul 8y agoWhat about opening the window shades before flights land / take off ? I thought it was for the firefighters to see inside during an emergency. Or was it not ?
- wohlergehen 8y agoIIRC it is mostly so that the passenger's eyes adapt to the outside light level in case of an evacuation.
- jrockway 8y agoI don't have a problem with this. The one guy that opens their window on an "overnight" flight that is actually during the day kind of messes up everything. I have certainly been on some nifty flights where you could watch thunderstorms out the window the entire time (I made a neat timelapse)... but in the end, I guess it doesn't matter.
- hrnnnnnn 8y agoThe nice thing about the 787 Dreamliner is that the windows don't have physical shades. They have remote controlled dimmers that the crew can operate centrally.
- crazygringo 8y agoIt would make me sad to remove windows on small commuter jets, since it's so much fun looking out the window and you spend a significant proportion of the flight closer to the ground anyways, watching interesting things like cities. But on long-haul flights like Emirates has? Only 2/10 people per row have a window seat to start with, and airlines usually require everyone to close their window shade anyways for much/most of the trip, for people who want to sleep. Sure you lose a bit of romance, but honestly for the majority of the passengers and for most of the time there's going to be zero difference... except burning less fuel means being better for the environment and hopefully slightly cheaper tickets.
- Alex3917 8y agoIf it really saves 50% of the aircraft weight, it's crazy that long haul airplanes today are even allowed to have windows.
- degenerate 8y agoThat is the biggest 'wow' in the article, and I'd really love to see a source on that... but they don't provide a source and I cannot find this info when googling. Anyone can back up that claim?
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- cecilpl2 8y agoI can't believe that's possible. I really want to know where that number came from. Maybe you could reduce the weight of just the frame of the fuselage by 50%, but I bet you'd save at most 2-3% of the total takeoff weight, once you include fuel, wings, tail, engines, gear, cabin, baggage, people, cockpit, etc. Edited: I looked into this more deeply and found the following: https://aerospace-europe.eu/media/books/CEAS2015_211.pdf https://aerospace-europe.eu/media/books/CEAS2015_211.pdf It claims a total possible weight reduction on an A320 from 2155kg to 1560kg, or 600kg off the fuselage (plus an additional 150kg elsewhere for a total savings of 750kg). An A320 weighs 42,000kg empty and 78,000kg at takeoff. 2155kg is probably the weight of the fuselage frame sections containing the windows - makes sense that you could save 50% off that piece. That's a reduction of 1% or so off the takeoff weight. Also, note that cargo planes are already windowless. I couldn't find a good example of a plane that has both freight and passenger versions that are otherwise identical.
- Darthy 8y agoFor an example of this been done well, check out Royal Caribbean's Virtual Balconies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4__AIB8Bl-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4__AIB8Bl-4 Note that RCI did not remove any windows, but instead used tech to give a window to people in inside cabins where there are no windows. IMHO this should be the way to go for planes as well: Give everybody a window seat, with VR. And then also use that VR to show all those movies in a virtual cinema, show VR games etc.
- rbanffy 8y agoAnd some people would even pay more for that "enhanced" experience. And nothing says their experience should be limited to actual views of the outside - they could have the sensation of traveling through space at hyper-relativistic speeds or whatever experience they want. In return, I'd be very happy if my window seat faced the window and my back a narrow corridor. I'll fetch my meals from the galley myself, if that's what it takes. On airliners, at the very least, they could add good cameras with removable IR filters to all new planes and pipe real-time video (from gate to gate) to the entertainment system. Flying and being able to watch the Milky Way from above the clouds would be a memorable experience. Has anyone in management even consider what makes people learn to fly themselves in the first place? Hint: it's not the paycheck.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y agoI thought this was pretty cool, but the people in that video thought that it was the most amazing thing ever. Pretty funny.
- decebalus1 8y agoI don't know about you, but I find that to be dystopian and weird. Nothing against windowless airplanes but damn, that thing is weird and scary. It's straight out of Black Mirror [1]. One of these days some PM will have the great idea to overlay some promo bullshit on top of it and in the future basically make you watch 'safety' messages or ads. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
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- Johnny555 8y agoCabin crews (at least on some airlines) tell you to open the window shades for landing and takeoff in the name of "safety": https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/airline-staff-reveal-why-window-shades-must-be-kept-open-during-takeoff-and-landing-a6899681.html https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/airline... So why is it safe to remove the windows entirely?
- uhnuhnuhn 8y agoThis is addressed in the article.
- rbanffy 8y agoI'd never, ever, under no circumstances, want to fly on a plane without windows. I hate the 787's stupid way of taking away my control of the window for the idiotic gimmick of controlling transparency through buttons. I like to see the sunrise. I like to see the sunset. I like to see the clouds below and the dark sky above. If people want no windows or a completely dark place, let them add walls, curtains or put bags on their heads.
- scarejunba 8y agoKill the windows entirely if it can be safely done. I don't care. Cost, safety, speed. All else is optional. And wtf are these guys who panic without windows going to do when they have to close them so others can sleep. I think that's a stupid objection. People are intelligent. They aren't going to panic for this shit. That's idiotic.
- reaperducer 8y agoPeople already panic on flights. On my last NRT-LAX flight a woman totally freaked out and started running up and down the aisles screaming. Unfortunately, the Singapore Air crew was far too polite and spoke soothingly to her for far too many hours of a very long flight. I've also seen someone freak out during turbulence on a CDG-IAH flight. The Air France flight crew was less patient and dragged her into the back of the plane where she was presumably restrained or sedated or something. If you've never been on a flight where someone lost their shit, you don't fly very much. Or at least you take short flights.
- scarejunba 8y agoI think I'd like it if airlines would mark their flights as "panicky person onboard", etc. That way I can just take the later/earlier flight and leave the crackpots to themselves.
- netsharc 8y agoI've never been in a windowless plane, but I think I would be anxious that I'd have a panic attack because of the claustrophobia - not that I'm claustrophobic, I can travel in lifts. When all the windows are closed I don't get anxious because I know if I get a panic attack (which has never happened!) I will always be able to ask someone to open a window, or even jump over a few people and open it myself. But well, maybe you're a psychologist and your flippant dismissal of it all as being "idiotic" is correct.
- scarejunba 8y agoMan, I wish I could just form some sort of group of normal people and we could have cheap, fast, efficient things that don't have to cater to the seventh sigma.
- wyld_one 8y ago3 things: "would you like the upgrade package that shows the outside?" and "Ads on windows" Gee joy, more useless garbage to have to listen to. On the other hand you would have some joker make a virus to have the displays put a buzzing insect on it.
- larkeith 8y agoA counterexample to the majority view in this thread: The idea is cool, but I could never take a flight in a windowless plane. While I am generally only mildly claustrophobic, "artificial windows" have always induced an uncanny valley-esque increase in discomfort due to the lack of parallax; the reminder of what's outside while still being evidently not a direct view might well be worse for me than no window at all. Though I'll usually spend flights reading or on my laptop/phone, the presence of the window in my peripheral vision is essential for my comfort even on a shorter flight, and the concept of being trapped in a box with no direct view of the outside (and no guaranteed knowledge of if something goes wrong) for 10-12 hours is the stuff of nightmares. The fact that digital windows can fail or display false information only makes it more horrifying. Several commentors have made the comparison of either nighttime flights or a train in a tunnel. Nights are never pitch-black, and between moon/starlight and the plane's own running lights, even if you encounter high-altitude clouds there is always some visible outside environment. The same goes for train tunnels, with the replacement of tunnel lights instead of moonlight, and significantly more tactile feedback on the tracks compared to an airplane.
- Edd314159 8y agoI can absolutely see how a windowless plane could make someone feel claustrophobic. Equally, even though I fly every few months (so you’d think I’d be used to it by now) I actually don’t like being reminded that I’m 38,000ft in the air. It freaks me out. I like it when I can’t see outside the window into the clouds. (However, I do kinda like seeing out the window while landing, but that’s only a tiny fraction of the overall flight.)
- larkeith 8y agoI can absolutely see that view. Knowing there's nothing but miles of air between me and solid ground is disconcerting, to say the least, but I don't think I would be able to divorce myself from that thought in a windowless plane - I've flown too many times to not inherently be aware of the altitude, whether I can see it or not.
- cmurf 8y agoI think it's completely perverse. How about saving even more weight and not building airplanes and traveling anywhere at all? That's just as absurd.
- whitepoplar 8y agoI think this would cause a subset of passengers to have psychotic episodes. It's not important to constantly look out the windows, but knowing that they exist gives everyone on the plane psychological comfort.
- ohazi 8y agoThis will make a lot of people severely airsick. I'm a pilot with an iron stomach, but one sure-fire way to make me queasy is to hide visual cues from the natural horizon during maneuvering (i.e. during takeoff and landing). You don't have to have a window seat to benefit from real windows -- even a very slight peripheral view of nearby windows, or a view of shadows cast on the inside of the cabin are enough to make you feel better.
- vegasje 8y agoTake a look at the video linked in the article: https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2Fnews%2F2018-06-07%2Fwould-you-travel-on-a-windowless-plane%2F9843722 https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089?ref_... This seems very well executed to me.
- bahmboo 8y agoHere's video of current emirates virtual windows. Initially I didn't realize they were virtual. Guessing a lot more obvious in person, but still impressive: https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089 https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089
- Angostura 8y agoDoes anyone know why the standard seatback entertainment systems in planes don't have channels showing feeds from an external camera or cameras? I would love to be able to watch the scenery or cloud formations. Is it a security issue? It seems like such a no-brainer.
- praneshp 8y agoHaven't read the article yet, do you mean airlines other than emirates? They have 3 or 4 cameras with decent views, but you cannot really make out clouds
- jamesb93 8y agoThey already do this on Qatar.
- jonathanyc 8y agoI’m pretty sure every US-based international and every non-US-based flight I’ve been on in the past few years has had these.
- rocky1138 8y agoI once flew on a plane that had electric window tints instead of manual blinds. It was neat, until the airline turned my window off which disabled my personal control of it. What a frustration, to not be able to control my own view of the sky!
- basicplus2 8y agoI would have to put on my reading glasses to look at the distant view..
- elihu 8y agoI assume that the pilot will still have windows, but it's possible to imagine an aircraft with no windows at all. An interesting thought experiment is to consider a car with no windows; the driver wears a head-mounted display and sees the environment via a 3-D model reconstructed from cameras. My initial reaction is that it seems terribly unsafe to have a safety-critical system like that with no backup if your HMD fails for some reason. On the other hand, I could imagine becoming accustomed to seeing all around without obstruction, and feeling uncomfortable driving a regular car with it's opaque pillars and huge expanses of fragile glass. Another consideration is that encountering a car with no windows would feel really creepy. We're used to be able to make eye contact.
- portlander12345 8y agoAnd here I was hoping that with new technology airplanes would eventually have larger windows...