4 ms·
Looks like the bare minimum windows needed to fly it. Windows create drag. The overall design reduces drag by "59 percent".
by ZetaZero 4y ago
Looks like the bare minimum windows needed to fly it. Windows create drag. The overall design reduces drag by "59 percent".
- Hextinium 4y agoWould be interesting to make "virtual windows" where you take a camera on the hull and just stream its feed to like the in-flight entertainment system or a wall mounted monitor.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoI would love this in cars one day. Getting into an unbearable hot car on a summer day would be a thing of the past.
- mlindner 4y agoThat can be handled with pre-cooling your car.
- bityard 4y ago...a car without windows would get hotter than one without because windows are at least somewhat reflective (depending on the angle of the sun) and because they can be left cracked open to let the heat escape.
- happyopossum 4y agoThe first half of your supposition is dead wrong, but the second half is correct. Opaque materials will always transmit less solar energy than transparent materials. The most effective insulated multi-pane windows available for homes today are still less efficient than a wall.
- bityard 4y agoYes, light travels through glass and not through metal and paint. But if the outside of the car gets hot, the inside will too.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoOn a sunny day, why are the contents of my trunk cooler than the interior of my car?
- elihu 4y agoIt's kind of a weird idea to get used to, but I think windowless cars could be pretty cool. Maybe the driver puts on a VR helmet and can see everything. (Obviously the technology would have to be extremely reliable.) It solves a bunch of problems: it gets rid of all the trade-offs between structural integrity and visibility. It reduces costs and makes manufacturing easier. The driver could be anywhere, even in the back seat if that makes sense for some reason. This seems like it would be extra useful for military vehicles. I wonder if you were to redesign something like the A-10 or F-16 from scratch and you could put the pilot anywhere you want because visibility isn't an issue, would you come up with the same design or would the cockpit end up somewhere strange, like in the back of the plane?
- numpad0 4y agoI did a napkin math a while back: the standard for 20/20 vision or 1.0 acuity scale equals to 1 arc minute resolution, or 1MOA, or an Euclidean angle of 1/60th degree. A spherical VR image that resolves to 20/20 acuity is as large as (60 x 360, 60 x 180) = (21600, 10800)px before requisite oversampling, and that’s kind of hard. Then of course those fighter guys has/need better visibility than 20/20 which only makes it harder. And by the way modern digital image pipelines buffer and delay transfers, sometimes as much as 200ms, which is absurd considering the CPU runs at literally millions of times better clock frequencies and latencies, but that’s what readily available implementations are. These mean that we are still some time away until such “local remote driving” not just complements but totally replace heat formed and dielectric coated pane of plexiglass. I guess it eventually will beyond upper edge of atmosphere as glasses don’t work well and vision required surpass human eyeballs, i.e. in interstellar settler’s carriages and planetary orbital fighter jets, but for now and for forward windscreen applications, it makes more sense to just put on panes of plain old transparent aluminum.
- ericbarrett 4y agoSome passenger jets have had this for a while, giving you various views from the seatback screen. Not sure which airlines or jets but I've definitely heard of it.
- metadat 4y agoAirbus A380 has this in first class.
- glowingly 4y agoA similar camera was present on the old DC-10. AFAIK, it was removed after an pretty big crash in Chicago. Nothing to do with forthrightness, iirc (outside of the usual flying coffin perception of the DC-10). EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191 Looks like it was a cockpit camera, not an external camera.
- _moof 4y agoI was on an Emirates flight that had this.
- tensor 4y agoI absolutely loved the few times I was in a plane that had a forward and downward facing camera that you could watch on the screen. So great to just watch it for hours. Windows are nice but in most transatlantic flights they are all closed the majority of the trip so that people can sleep.
- mlindner 4y agoHow about no? A camera doesn't give you the same view as a window does. You can't move around to get different angles. Not to mention the pixel resolution of in-flight entertainment is nowhere near what you get with your eyes. Looking out the window at the sights is one of the few great things about flying.
- tln 4y agoI don't know, I've been on flights with webcams on the nose/tail/belly and found those to be pretty entertaining. And it's available to every passenger, not just the window seats. If an airplane design really leaned in to the webcams, I think it could be fantastic!
- numpad0 4y agoPut aside controversies, I believe the window requirements are for rescuers to scout the cabin in a crash than for occupant entertainment. Else makes no sense to have window shades open during takeoff & landing.
- chipsa 4y agoWindows themselves don't create drag, it's the interruption of the surface that creates drag. If they do a very good job of getting the windows put in, it shouldn't be an issue. The bigger reason is: it's a prototype, so it's easier not to cut the windows out and fill them with glass.
- ChadNauseam 4y agoWhy do they create drag? Is it difficult to make them flush with the exterior of the plane?
- mahoro 4y agoI guess the main problem is weight. 6-10 windows might weight ~100 kg, and you'll need more aluminium in the frame because of more complex structure.