Emirates Planes Could Be Going Windowless
abc.net.au
abc.net.au
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.
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
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.
It's always sad when physics gets in the way of aesthetics...
Does this seem odd? The fuselage only accounts for 5% of the empty weight of the plane. I checked your sources and that's what I see too, but it still sounds low. Where does the rest of the weight go? The engines weigh about 4600 kg total. Seats weigh 35 kg x 200 or about 7000 kg. That leaves 28,000 kg. Wings? Landing gear?
The operating empty weight (OEW) is the sum of the manufacturer's empty weight (MEW), standard items (SI), and operator items (OI).
Basically the whole plane, interior outfit and crew needed for full operations, excluding the actual fuel and payload.
An A320 carries around 25,000 L of fuel.[0] Jet fuel weighs ~0.81 kg/L (it varies by temperature).[1][2]
25,000 L * 0.81 kg/L = 20,250 kg = 44,550 lbs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A320_family
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel
[2] https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/48785/how-is-fu...
The fuselage is generally about 20-40% of the entire dry, empty weight of an aircraft (speaking strictly about large transport aircraft). So clearly seeing that kind of reduction in weight isn't really possible strictly from structurally modifying the fuselage (and even major modifications of the entire airframe). If we look at comparing planes with windows (like those operated by passenger airlines) to those without (like those operated by cargo airlines), loose estimates are less than 1% to around 1% weight savings from removing windows alone. Even if you assume massively increased returns on weight savings because of massive changes in airframe design it's probably no where near 50%...
Keep in mind, even incredibly small weight reductions mean huge savings over the lifetime of an aircraft (especially if they are also carried out over an entire fleet).
Also Windows play a role in emergencies: "that sides on fire, let's open the other escape door"
That seems extremely hypothetical and optimistic. If your large passenger plane is on fire you're probably already dead.
I think the types of things they would be looking for are flap deployment, icing, damage to the wing, gear deployment (though there is usually a window in the floor for this), etc.
There's a great YouTube channel called Mentour Pilot that covers a lot of stuff like this, but I can't find his video that discusses visual inspections.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwpHKudUkP5tNgmMdexB3ow/fea...
It's also one of the requirements for starts and landings, along with "make sure your seat back and folding trays are in their full upright position".
The 50% lighter just doesn't work any way you spin it. I think this is another example of the journalist not really digging and verifying statements in a subject their knowledge is lacking/non-existent. (Similar to, "wine/chocolate/smoking/x cures cancer new study shows".)
You can't just remove all the fuselage reinforcements even if you remove the windows... Still, observe as mentioned in calculations [0], even the ~1% gain is significant as it accumulates over time.
[0] https://aerospace-europe.eu/media/books/CEAS2015_211.pdf
Not only cities, watching natural formations like lakes, rivers, fields, forests, hills and mountains from above is a unique perspective (compared to seeing the same from land), and very cool too. I remember being glued to the window, for tens of minutes (at least), on a flight from Europe to the US, when passing over the Arctic (or near it, not sure, but northern seas anyway), seeing vast expanses of ice floes and blue-green water glittering in the sunshine from high above. Then passing over Goose Bay as we crossed over Canada into the US, that was great too. Miles of green meadows or grassland.
I happily took window seat on 13hr direct flights for the chance of seeing them back when I traveled more often.
Also no rays of sunlight :-/.
If there is some way to pan, it could be better than looking out the side for most passengers, if it's super HD. It presumably won't be blocked by the wing, and could encourage carriers to put nice outward-facing views on the seatback screens for passengers in other seats.
IMO it's definitely going to be a minor downgrade to the experience, offset by lower ticket prices.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You say that like there's anywhere else that it matters
yes this is sarcasm
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
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.
Although that's probably regulatory stuff. Most governments don't let arbitrary airtcaft do aerial topography-grade stuff, and companies err on the side of caution.
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.
Customers have no real visibility into any of this, eg you're lucky to know what kind of aircraft will be flying a route let alone what interior configuration it will have (and all of that can and is regularly changed between booking and departure).
I'd gladly pay an extra $10 or $20 to fly with more legroom or a plane with windows, which would be a realistic reflection of what these cost carriers (10-20% extra), but these are major revenue centers for them. On the last flight I took, Delta wanted an extra $110 for an exit-row seat, on a flight that cost $165. That's just blatantly milking it. At time of departure, 5 of 6 seats were unfilled and they had to fill them with main-cabin passengers.
The only real control you have is over what carrier you fly with, and there are definitely people who will refuse to fly with budget carriers. By the time they are done nickel-and-diming you for having a carryon and everything, you end up in the same place anyway.
But even there, people only have a small degree of choice in carriers either. Delta is the vast majority of flights out of my airport (Wikipedia says 75%), I'd love to go with Alaska Airlines or someone but I don't really have a choice.
So, there's lots of reasons this isn't really an efficient market.
Lots of people say they'd rather pay more for those extras, but the evidence indicates otherwise. Lower prices wins custom.
What if your glass window inevitably breaks? That actually happened recently and a passenger died.
I don't think this is any kind of issue.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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!
Surely this is nonsense, even if you are considering empty weight, when you take the engines and main spar into consideration?
The reason why windows are shaped as they are is to withstand the constant pressure changes without suffering catastrophic fatigue stress failure.
Great! Less legroom but, in return, you get no windows.
I'd be very surprised if that's not the case. You'd need a plane that's designed from the ground up to not have windows in any configuration.
weight with windows - weight without windows = 2 * (weight with virtual windows - weight without windows)
NOT weight with windows = 2 * weight without windows
NOR fuselage weight with windows = 2 * fuselage weight without windows
The net savings is about 1%.
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.
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.
My position is also to not remove any windows, but give the 90% of passengers without a window seat a window seat.
I'm not saying that your wrong or that's it's not interesting/cool, I'm just saying give it a few years and some profit forecast misses and then we'll talk.
> 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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/fl...
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.
This would probably also allow for much larger windows.
[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]
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.
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...
Is it a security issue? It seems like such a no-brainer.
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.
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.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/airline...
So why is it safe to remove the windows entirely?
If people want no windows or a completely dark place, let them add walls, curtains or put bags on their heads.
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.
https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089?ref_...
This seems very well executed to me.
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.
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.
That way I can just take the later/earlier flight and leave the crackpots to themselves.
But well, maybe you're a psychologist and your flippant dismissal of it all as being "idiotic" is correct.