Windowless Plane

You could be traveling in a Windowless plane within the next 10 years

Windowless Plane (2)

Your flight of fantasy will be landing shortly- in about 10 years from now. According to a UK developer, aircraft windows could potentially be replaced by super lightweight smart-screen panels, allowing the occupants to gaze at a panoramic view of whatever splendor’s rolling outside.

Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), a UK-based technology innovation center are proposing to replace all the windows of commercial airliners with massive screens running the length of the cabin and broadcasting live pictures/feed of the spectacle that lies outside, courtesy exterior mounted cameras. Also, the smart-screens would be interactive allowing passengers to surf the web, amongst other things. The screens would be constructed using organic light-emitting diodes which are actually flexible and can ultimately sit flush with the inside of the fuselage.

Windowless Plane (7)

The purpose behind the idea, apart from looking gorgeous is to save weight of modern-day aircrafts, therefore reducing fuel consumption. CPI suggests that 0.75 per cent of fuel is saved for ever one per cent reduction in the weight of a plane.

While discussing the idea, CPI’s Dr. Jon Helliwell said, “We had been speaking to people in aerospace and we understood that there was this need to take weight out of aircraft. Follow the logical thought through. Let’s take all the windows out – that’s what they do in cargo aircraft – what are the passengers going to do? If you think about it, it’s only really the people that are sitting next to windows that will suffer.”

“What would be great would be to make devices based on OLEDs that are flexible,” said Helliwell. “We can make transistors that are flexible but if we can make OLEDs that are flexible, that gives us a lot of potential in the market because we can print OLEDs on to packaging, we can create flexible displays.”

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