Alright, Leaffan, in spite of your obvious opinion in this thread about the necessity of windows on airliners, we concede, clearly there were no stars out on the night of your flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong because you didn’t notice them. :rolleyes:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a square or rectangular window on a plane (or a boat!).
Amazon Airlines?
That’s why there’s shades 
I guess if you are claustrophobic and have a fear of heights you can put the shade half way down 
Just the thought of sitting on a turbulent plane without windows makes me feel motion sick.
Anyway, I love the window seat. Even after dozens of flights around Australia and elsewhere, I still spend the flight gazing out the window on the world below.
Yes a complete loss of electrics wouldn’t be great in some commercial aircraft, however it’s near impossible to have a complete loss of electrics. Even our lowly Dash 8 has four electrical sources plus the batteries, we can lose any one of the generators with no loss of services, we can lose most combinations of two and still have all services. Even if we lose all four sources we still have two batteries which will provide essential services for at least 30 minutes. Once the batteries have gone, the airspeed indicators are pressure instruments that don’t require electrics and the standby altimeter is a pressure instrument as well. Unfortunately the attitude instruments are all electric and so if we were in cloud we’d be in trouble.
Larger jet airliners are often equipped with a RAT (ram air turbine) which can be deployed into the airflow and act as a wind generator supplying electrical power.
Having said all that, you don’t need a complete loss of electrics to lose the hypothetical video screens for the pilots. Just a failure of the components themselves would be enough to cause serious problems. Of course there’d be more than one, but something like a lightning strike might fry both screens. I think ultimately you wouldn’t see pilots using video screens because they wouldn’t accept it. It would also be useless as a “see and avoid” traffic avoidance tool. And would provide no depth perception for landing and manoeuvering on the ground.
Yes that’s closer to the mark. Pressure at 36000 feet is about 224 hPa and pressure at the typical cabin altitude of 8000 feet is about 743 hPa [sup]cite[/sup]. This gives a differential of 519 hPa (7.5 PSI).
You were probably just unlucky. There’re lots of stars out there, in fact, it’s all stars!
Well no, because the Comet demonstrated that they are unsafe on a pressurised aircraft. They do come in shapes that are almost rectangular though and the challenge for the engineers would be just how square can they make the corners while maintaining the structural integrity.
This aircraft has rectangular windows with enough curve at the corners to keep them strong. Note in particular the large observer window which is very rectangular.
Bingo. I spent yesterday morning playing with one of the model Dreamliner windows. They have electrochromic window shades. Tell me that doesn’t add to the cost of the plane - but it’s a selling point.
From a news release regarding the windows of the 787:
“The 787 is a family of super-efficient airplanes by Boeing that will provide passengers with a better flying experience. As the world’s first mostly composite commercial airplane, it will use 20 percent less fuel per passenger than similarly sized airplanes, produce fewer carbon emissions, and have quieter takeoffs and landings. The airplanes will feature significant improvements in passenger amenities including cleaner air, larger windows, a lower cabin altitude and higher humidity. The first 787 is scheduled to enter passenger service in May 2008.”
(they sure did miss the boat on the estimated date of service)
I’ve travelled in the back of a van with no windows and felt distinctly nauseous from the lack of visual reference points. Planes would be worse, since they’re moving in three dimensions (it’s bad enough at night if you can’t see the lights on the ground). If I was offered a cheap flight with no windows, I wouldn’t buy it - and cheap seems to be the only argument for it.
Yep. Windows have a real purpose for people prone to motion sickness (like me). And an LCD monitor wouldn’t help - the slight ‘offness’ of the experience with the visual information might make it worse. I feel crappy on virtual reality rides.
Planes have windows partly to keep that acrid vomit smell away.
“…larger windows…”
Here’s a pic comparing the 787 windows to smaller current industry windows.
And another link that says they get a 50% weight savings using the composite frame.
This is all public marketing stuff though, but still probably close to the end-result product.
[QUOTE=bengangmo;11043099
Mostly when I fly, there is nothing to see out the windows - we are too far up or there is almost total cloud cover, and then the damn things are too small to be really useful anyway. But I do like to look[/QUOTE]
Such has been my experience, but once in a while you do get to see something interesting. One time flying home from Las Vegas to L.A. it was well worth being near the window to view the desert in the late afternoon sun. The reddish cast of the light and long shadows of the outcroppings, starkly delineated, gave the Mojave an otherworldly appearance. Another time I was coming back from the East Coast, at night, and I looked up from my book to find Las Vegas passing by my window. This was long before Vegas became a sprawling megacity; it was then just a densely contained oasis of adult pleasures, isolated like a jewel on the breast of the desert. You may recognize the phrase “breast of the desert” from the opening lines of Arthur C. Clarke’s The City And The Stars, which was the book I happened to be reading. The lights of Vegas floated in a sea of darkness–a mere blip in my field of vision. I couldn’t help being reminded of the book, in which the remnants of humanity live in a single, utopian city billions of years in the future, while almost all the rest of the the Earth has withered to a desert.
Spectre of Pithecanthropus reminded me of one magic moment that I was able to capture photographically from a plane window: Chicago.
I’m guessing that’s for commercial airlines. Which sounds about right. They only fly at around 35,000’.
The planes I do design work for cruise significantly higher - more like 50,000’.
Still, at 7.5-8 psi, you still have several thousand pounds of pressure on that window.
ivn1188,
My original response was to your comment:
Your response was to my response to that comment. My response to your response to my response was still toward that original comment.
If you’d agree that there is indeed a reason to worry about the structural disadvantages of windows, I’d be happy to move on.
Yes, the problems due to windows are solved. No, they are not irrelevant. As a matter of fact they are quite significant. Obviously, the benefits outweight the consequences - otherwise there’d be no windows.
Having been aboard a submarine and on windowless aircraft, I’m all for them. It is all the nervous-nellies and crying babies that keep me awake that I could do without. Just sit down, shut up and take a nap while the pilot gets us from point A to point B.
Not that I necessarily agree with Chronos, but…
Ya think? 
Not so - provided the controls still work, the plane flies happily along.
There’s no vital need to know how fast you are going.
You can tell where you are by looking out the window.
There’s no vital need to talk to ATC or anyone else. You simply need to find a runway - or other acceptable place (e.g. Hudson River) - and land. The challenge of doing this successfully will certainly increase with the size of the aircraft. ATC might well be able to provide considerable help, but they are not essential.
The pilots need a 3D view with a large field of vision. That’s a bit hard to do with cameras.
But its a great idea for passengers. Most large airliners already have the LCD screen in the seat back for movies. It should be fairly simple to have a feed from one or more external cameras on some of the channels.
So would I if that tube was a submarine.
Another advantage to window seats is not having to get up every time some one wants to go to the toilet, they have to make way for you at your convenience. This is usually the reason I want a window seat. Getting rid of the view would *still *make it a valuable seat in my eyes
I love to identify exactly what I am flying over. I think your photo is indeed of New Caledonia - to be precise, the coastline between Poum and Koumac, at the northern end of the island (map). Assuming you’re flying roughly southwest.
I wrote this twice already, I’ll write it once more: some companies, like JAL, already do this. It’s not that great. The resolution of the screens isn’t all that great and it’s hard to make out any detail. However, there’s another issue: seeing something on a screen isn’t the same thing as seeing it directly with your eyes.
Oh I’m sorry. I hope I haven’t ruined your weekend or anything.