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Comment by tristanj | Hacker News Reader

The interior of the plane is clearly designed by an engineer. They stripped everything down to save weight, passenger comfort be dammed. The seats don't even look comfortable.

They need to hire an actual designer, if the plane weighs 0.5% more but has actual human usability that's worth it.

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Really, a prototype airplane, the first of this size ever built with this novel propulsion system, had engineers involved in the design?

You've missed the point. The engineers went too far optimizing for weight, to the point of sacrificing usability.

What does "usability" mean in the context of a prototype short haul passenger aircraft? It's got seats for people to sit in...

The competition in this market segment doesn't look like Middle Eastern airlines' first class cabin concept art, it looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_340#/media/File:Mesaba_Ai...

It’s a prototype. Surely easy access to the structure and equipment is a lot more valuable than nice seats and a finished-looking interior surface.

The company that makes the airplane is not normally the company that installs the interior anyways. The airline that buys the plane typically determines what the interior will look like (stuff like ratio of business to economy, overall # of seats, in flight entertainment, etc)

It being barebones from the factory is not a problem.

It's a prototype. But yes, the seats are going to take the trend of "lighter seats" even further. For example, for such short flights it's probably worth not having tables in the seats.

BUT, where current aircraft are usually constrained on size, cramming as many passengers as possible into the cabin is the goal.

Here, space will be less of an issue than weight. So cabins can offer more room between seats minimalist seats.

But maybe they’re aiming at short haul cargo. And either way, wouldn’t that really be one of the last things to do? Just proving the plane can even get in the air and stay there for a useful distance on electricity is more important than how comfortable it is.

The video shows dozens of seats, so they are not only aiming for short haul cargo.

And, unsurprisingly, the video also includes speaking where the head of the company says that.

customers buy furniture options when they order the plane.

related : many flight demonstrators in the past for large passenger planes have had no interior at all aside from the cockpit and ballast kits.

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