Airbus reveals its concept of the passenger plane of the future.
M Champion lost me the moment he said "experience". I had an airline "experience" last Saturday and one is enough, thank you. I'll grant that some of this is interesting and if Airbus can pull off a passenger cabin with a panoramic view, I will be impressed. However, all these "smart tech zones" and "revitalising zones" amount to one big "aggravation zone".
Why is the bracing so weird?
Look, if the crazed weasels who make up the Airbus design team are reading this, please pay attention. What I, and I suspect the saner fraction of the travelling public, want is a passenger plane that I can get on quickly, get off quickly, moves my luggage about equally fast without destroying it, drinks, a seat large enough and with enough leg room that I can finish my journey without being crippled, a large enough window that I can see out of without straining my neck or blocking my neighbour's view, drinks, corrosion-resistant aircraft materials that allow the cabin to be properly pressurised and humidified so I'm not snuffling for three days after, a decent meal on long flights, two on transatlantic ones, drinks, friendly cabin crews that don't get their knickers in a twist about being called stewards and stewardesses, an entertainment system with a decent variety of films plus a GPS readout of our course so I know where the hell I am, wifi Internet access if possible, not being treated like a terrorist suspect while the bloke with the "I heart Al Qaeda" tee shirt is treated with kid gloves, and drinks. Put those together and I'm as happy as dog rolling in something smelly.
Call it the "I just want to get my destination in one piece with a reasonable degree of comfort and no, you may not use my body heat to power your bloody aeroplane because I'm using it and clearly you don't understand what the auxiliary power unit is for, so naff off! zone".
I assume the convoluted bracing is to better resist explosive decompression at altitude. Either that, or they're going for a gothic cathedral look.
As for "energy-harvesting" seats with acupuncture capability, I hated the Matrix movies. If I sit in a chair, I expect it to quietly submit to being sat upon and otherwise do nothing. Any chair which tries to stick needles in me, or "harvest" any part of me, including "energy", risks being shot several times with a 9mm.
I'll be interested in determining how well it "harvests" kinetic energy, 345 foot-pounds at a time.
Um, aircraft already harvest your body heat. For heating! I mean, you put n warm-blooded animals into a space, at a resting metabolism of w Watts each, and the space gets warmer. Current employer works from a small building, with poor insulation, and you can feel the temperature drop in the winter between when most of the people leave and when the heating system picks up the slack.
I like the airplane-style (i.e., narrower than I am) seats, set on 20' centers. Fat people still can't squeeze into the things, but non-fat people at least get room for their arms and shoulders. Of course, first thing the airline will do is see how many seats it can cram into a cabin. Acupuncture? Like, instead of padding, the seats are going to have needles that jab up into my nether regions? Sure! Why not? I can't see anything wrong with that!
Since when is steward/stewardess not PC? And how long before they do something really silly like ban the word "it"?
We are rapidly approaching the point where any form of coherent speech is defined as offensive- precisely because it conveys information.
Eventually, only nonsense words will be permitted. When sentences consist of "Snorrrjj ooble flurrnnjj gorrvlle", or "words" to that effect, the progressives will have achieved Utopia.
After which everything will fall apart because no one will be able to repair anything- or read a shop manual to learn how it is supposed to be done.
eon: I am shocked and disappointed at your lack of sensitivity. We no longer say things like (shudder) "words". Don't you know that they prefer to be known as the gynder-neutral "wyrds". The thoughtpolice will be along presently. Hope you like rats.
I was going to step in to defend progressivism, but then I noticed you were already being trolled by your social milieu. Please, just bear in mind that people who disagree with you are not all Stalinists who hate freedom and apple pie. (Nor, for that matter, are people who disagree with me all gibbering, bigoted conspiracy theorists. Which is how the dumber part of the other side of the aisle sees you.)
I sort of like the idea of harvesting body heat. I'm one of those people who put off heat like a furnace the normal airline seat does a pretty good job of holding that in and letting me bake like a Christmas goose. If they can make a chair that will draw heat away from my body and keep me nice and comfortable on a long flight then they can take that energy and do what ever they like with it. Fair trade.
Then there's wreckers of law and order. Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, neo-Trotskyists, crypto-Trotskyists, union leaders, Communist union leaders, atheists, agnostics, long-haired weirdos, short-haired weirdos, vandals, hooligans, football supporters, namby-pamby probation officers, rapists, papists, papist rapists, foreign surgeons, headshrinkers– who ought to be locked up, Wedgwood Benn, keg bitter, punk rock, glue-sniffers, "Play For Today", Clive Jenkins, Roy Jenkins, Up Jenkins, up everybody's, Chinese restaurants - why do you think Windsor Castle is ringed with Chinese restaurants? And, of course, thugs, bully-boys, psychopaths, sacked policemen, security guards, sacked security guards, racialists, Paki-bashers, queer-bashers, Chink-bashers, anybody-bashers, rear Admirals, queer admirals, Vice Admirals, fascists, neo-fascists, crypto-fascists, loyalists, neo-loyalists, and crypto-loyalists.
On second thought, forget him. Some people are just too f**king annoying to bother with.
Oh, and antiplato;
Be advised that the basic principle of real-world engineering is that complication for its own sake is inadvisable; as Dr. John D. Clark said, some systems are just too precious to work.
I'm quite sure the Airbus Industrie crowd are grubby capitalists at heart, and I applaud that. I'm also sure that any aircraft as complicated as a Tech Level 14 Federation Starship built at late TL8/early TL9 is going to be a maintenance nightmare.
To say nothing of the public-health nightmare of acupuncture-capable seating therein. In a world loaded with AIDS, Ebola, STDs, (etc.), how do you guarantee antisepsis on each flight?
(Trust me; I used to do postmortems for a living, among other things.)
Another factor I noticed being conspicuously absent from the spiel; no mention of the (even estimated) flyaway cost of this bird. Going back to the USS Enterprise comparison, this thing is going to make an A380 look like a Piper Cub, MSRP-wise, just by requiring beyond-bleeding-edge tech to build and operate it, even by mid-C21 standards.
Also, everybody keep in mind that while this flying carpet will be designed by Ph.Ds and flown by MAs, it will be maintained by people with BAs at best- supervising crews who may or may not have GEDs.
(With the state of education in the developed world now, plus four decades, I'm guessing "no" on even a GED. And the ones with an actual diploma probably won't be able to read or write above a K-to-2 level, either.)
Short of a military-style training syllabus for every single wrench jockey (and even the guys on the honey-tank detail), I don't see that working out too well.
May I mention Birthers, people who think global warming is a conspiracy - actually, that'll do, really. It's true, the Left does have at least its fair share of nutters - you might have mentioned anti-vaxxers and people who believe in the Illuminati, although I think the latter fall on both sides of the fence. But they're not in the mainstream the way climate change deniers and people who think Barack Obama's Kenyan/a Muslim/the Antichrist are. (I say 'deniers' not to compare them to Holocaust deniers but to note that they're in denial.)
...At least we're in agreement that acupuncture-seats are a really stupid idea.
Holocaust deniers are rightly derided because they refuse the truth of a firmly established historical fact. It is something that happened. To claim that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming that requires the imposition of a tyrannical socialist regime is a tendentious and unsubstantiated hypothesis dishonestly promoted by certain groups for their own selfish ends that are opposed to human liberty and prosperity is at its worst, disagreement and at its best, standing up to would-be despots.
18 comments:
so... as far as I can tell, the big selling point is being blinded by the high-altitude sunlight?
yay
I assume the convoluted bracing is to better resist explosive decompression at altitude. Either that, or they're going for a gothic cathedral look.
As for "energy-harvesting" seats with acupuncture capability, I hated the Matrix movies. If I sit in a chair, I expect it to quietly submit to being sat upon and otherwise do nothing. Any chair which tries to stick needles in me, or "harvest" any part of me, including "energy", risks being shot several times with a 9mm.
I'll be interested in determining how well it "harvests" kinetic energy, 345 foot-pounds at a time.
cheers
eon
Um, aircraft already harvest your body heat. For heating! I mean, you put n warm-blooded animals into a space, at a resting metabolism of w Watts each, and the space gets warmer. Current employer works from a small building, with poor insulation, and you can feel the temperature drop in the winter between when most of the people leave and when the heating system picks up the slack.
I like the airplane-style (i.e., narrower than I am) seats, set on 20' centers. Fat people still can't squeeze into the things, but non-fat people at least get room for their arms and shoulders. Of course, first thing the airline will do is see how many seats it can cram into a cabin. Acupuncture? Like, instead of padding, the seats are going to have needles that jab up into my nether regions? Sure! Why not? I can't see anything wrong with that!
Since when is steward/stewardess not PC? And how long before they do something really silly like ban the word "it"?
Sergej;
We are rapidly approaching the point where any form of coherent speech is defined as offensive- precisely because it conveys information.
Eventually, only nonsense words will be permitted. When sentences consist of "Snorrrjj ooble flurrnnjj gorrvlle", or "words" to that effect, the progressives will have achieved Utopia.
After which everything will fall apart because no one will be able to repair anything- or read a shop manual to learn how it is supposed to be done.
cheers
eon
eon: I am shocked and disappointed at your lack of sensitivity. We no longer say things like (shudder) "words". Don't you know that they prefer to be known as the gynder-neutral "wyrds". The thoughtpolice will be along presently. Hope you like rats.
Sergej;
Oh, I do. They're great for target practice with a suppressed .22.
cheers
eon
I was going to step in to defend progressivism, but then I noticed you were already being trolled by your social milieu. Please, just bear in mind that people who disagree with you are not all Stalinists who hate freedom and apple pie. (Nor, for that matter, are people who disagree with me all gibbering, bigoted conspiracy theorists. Which is how the dumber part of the other side of the aisle sees you.)
Please, antiplato, I assure you that I never regard all those who disagree with me as Stalinists.
Some are Maoists, Trotskyites, Luddites, Nihilists, Fascists, Socialists, Mesheviks, Jihadists, Objectivists, and Hollywood producers.
I sort of like the idea of harvesting body heat. I'm one of those people who put off heat like a furnace the normal airline seat does a pretty good job of holding that in and letting me bake like a Christmas goose. If they can make a chair that will draw heat away from my body and keep me nice and comfortable on a long flight then they can take that energy and do what ever they like with it. Fair trade.
Acupuncture on the other hand...
David: don't forget the Anarcho-Syndicalists. They are not to be repressed!
Then there's wreckers of law and order. Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, neo-Trotskyists, crypto-Trotskyists, union leaders, Communist union leaders, atheists, agnostics, long-haired weirdos, short-haired weirdos, vandals, hooligans, football supporters, namby-pamby probation officers, rapists, papists, papist rapists, foreign surgeons, headshrinkers– who ought to be locked up, Wedgwood Benn, keg bitter, punk rock, glue-sniffers, "Play For Today", Clive Jenkins, Roy Jenkins, Up Jenkins, up everybody's, Chinese restaurants - why do you think Windsor Castle is ringed with Chinese restaurants?
And, of course, thugs, bully-boys, psychopaths, sacked policemen, security guards, sacked security guards, racialists, Paki-bashers, queer-bashers, Chink-bashers, anybody-bashers, rear Admirals, queer admirals, Vice Admirals, fascists, neo-fascists, crypto-fascists, loyalists, neo-loyalists, and crypto-loyalists.
And don't forget Angus Deayton.
On second thought, forget him. Some people are just too f**king annoying to bother with.
Oh, and antiplato;
Be advised that the basic principle of real-world engineering is that complication for its own sake is inadvisable; as Dr. John D. Clark said, some systems are just too precious to work.
I'm quite sure the Airbus Industrie crowd are grubby capitalists at heart, and I applaud that. I'm also sure that any aircraft as complicated as a Tech Level 14 Federation Starship built at late TL8/early TL9 is going to be a maintenance nightmare.
To say nothing of the public-health nightmare of acupuncture-capable seating therein. In a world loaded with AIDS, Ebola, STDs, (etc.), how do you guarantee antisepsis on each flight?
(Trust me; I used to do postmortems for a living, among other things.)
cheers
eon
eon.. EEEWWWW!!!!
Oh wait.. postmortems *FOR* a living.
Sorry...I misread the 'for a' as 'on the'.
jayessell;
You have to get those articles right. ;-)
Another factor I noticed being conspicuously absent from the spiel; no mention of the (even estimated) flyaway cost of this bird. Going back to the USS Enterprise comparison, this thing is going to make an A380 look like a Piper Cub, MSRP-wise, just by requiring beyond-bleeding-edge tech to build and operate it, even by mid-C21 standards.
Also, everybody keep in mind that while this flying carpet will be designed by Ph.Ds and flown by MAs, it will be maintained by people with BAs at best- supervising crews who may or may not have GEDs.
(With the state of education in the developed world now, plus four decades, I'm guessing "no" on even a GED. And the ones with an actual diploma probably won't be able to read or write above a K-to-2 level, either.)
Short of a military-style training syllabus for every single wrench jockey (and even the guys on the honey-tank detail), I don't see that working out too well.
cheers
eon
I was addressing eon actually, but that was a well-researched comeback.
antiplato;
All the "conspiracy theorists" I know are on your side of the aisle. (9/11 Truthers, UFO "believers", etc.)
/just saying.
cheers
eon
May I mention Birthers, people who think global warming is a conspiracy - actually, that'll do, really. It's true, the Left does have at least its fair share of nutters - you might have mentioned anti-vaxxers and people who believe in the Illuminati, although I think the latter fall on both sides of the fence. But they're not in the mainstream the way climate change deniers and people who think Barack Obama's Kenyan/a Muslim/the Antichrist are. (I say 'deniers' not to compare them to Holocaust deniers but to note that they're in denial.)
...At least we're in agreement that acupuncture-seats are a really stupid idea.
Holocaust deniers are rightly derided because they refuse the truth of a firmly established historical fact. It is something that happened. To claim that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming that requires the imposition of a tyrannical socialist regime is a tendentious and unsubstantiated hypothesis dishonestly promoted by certain groups for their own selfish ends that are opposed to human liberty and prosperity is at its worst, disagreement and at its best, standing up to would-be despots.
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