By: David Martànez-Celis
The Airborne Hotel, or abh, is an innovative seating system for wide-body aircraft that optimizes the available cabin space, ensuring a fully-reclining seat-bed for every passenger on board, while maintaining–and even increasing–passenger capacity of aircraft.
The design’s functionality is based on the bi-level configuration of its seating modules, which enables the utilization of the otherwise empty overhead space in an aircraft cabin. Each module is designed to weigh about the same as a conventional airplane seat; this is possible because the modules’ honeycomb structure allows for multiple points of anchoring and fastening to the aircraft’s fuselage, thus enabling the use of lighter materials. Another element of the design is its unique implementation of three aisles throughout the passenger cabin; this feature is essential to the design’s efficiency, and also increases corridor space by 50%.
Having taken into account the precise dimensions of an Airbus A380 cabin, the system’s designers put together several abh layouts in three-class arrangements for this specific type of aircraft; the most efficient of these layouts can accommodate as many as 580 passengers–that’s 25 more seats than the standard 555 seat configuration for a three-class arrangement in an A380.
This is refreshing news for air travelers and great news for the aerospace industry. Airlines have the possibility of increasing seat count while enhancing passenger comfort; in turn, passengers get a more comfortable flight, without their airfares skyrocketing.
This design is currently participating in the annual Create the Future Design Contest, co-sponsored by NASA Tech Briefs magazine and SolidWorks Corp. To visit the contest page, go to http://www.createthefuturecontest.com/
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By: Tim McCarthy
It’s hard to believe that 12 years have passed since the tragic TWA Flight 800 crash that killed all 230 of its passengers. Following the four-year investigation of the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board stated that the accident was caused by an explosion in the center wing fuel tank that most likely resulted from a short circuit outside the tank.
Because damaged wiring is extremely difficult to detect and is more common than the public is lead to believe, the National Transportation Safety Board has stated that “new technology, such as the arc fault circuit breaker and automated wire test equipment” should be incorporated into aircraft. Recently, a company by the name of LiveWire Test Labs, Inc. has made significant headway in developing an innovative arc fault circuit breaker to address this hazardous issue.
As planes age the chance for damaged wires increase as the insulation surrounding the wire can become brittle and cracked. In fact it’s not unusual for a typical aircraft to have hundreds of wires that are beginning to crack and fray. Friction between unprotected wires, maintenance wear, as well as moisture buildup can all be hazardous to delicate wiring and result in accidents. However, it isn’t just aging aircrafts that are susceptible to damaged wiring. Research has shown that nearly 1/3 of all planes will have wiring faults within the first year. In addition to the TWA Flight 800, it is believed that faulty wiring was also the cause behind the downing of the Swissair 111 near Nova Scotia.
Now, by monitoring changes in live electrical circuits, Live Wire has created an instrument that detects faulty wiring in real time and then locates (within an accuracy of +/- 2%) the location of the fault after the arc fault circuit breaker gets tripped. Since most aircraft carriers have hundreds of meters of wiring, current repairs can take days, even weeks, to troubleshoot. LiveWire’s technology eliminates much of the guesswork, which could enable planes to spend more time in the air, and less time on the ground.
This is a blog that has been written from someone outside TheAirlineBlog.com. At times we will allow outsiders with some interesting story or fact to share to write up an entry and we will post it for them. For any questions about this blog, please contact the company directly. Thanks!
A Boeing 737 before the livery is actually put onto the plane. Will be going to Shenzhen Airlines.
Image: BFIguy
The FAA sees this week’s software glitch that disrupted about 600 flights and 60,000 passengers to be a wake up call that things need to change for American’s outdated air traffic control system.
The two computers (amazing only two) that help disrupt flights to controllers are updated multiple times per day. One of the files in one of the updates was corrupted and caused it to crash.
Saying that in one 24-hour period the FAA controls over 300,000 flight plans, only having 600 affected isn’t too bad (unless you were one of those passengers).
Source: MSNBC Image: gTarded
It might be getting harder to have a guaranteed seat on your airline. I have personally been lucky and never have been bumped from my flight, but I would imagine it being a horrible experience.
Due to airlines cutting back flights and having fuller flights, the chance of being bumped is getting greater. The NYTimes reports that 343,000 passengers have been bumped so far this year. That is a lot of comp flights, meals and hotels that airlines have to pay for, wouldn’t seem to make economical sense.
Source: UPI.com Image: caribb