Paris Air Show 2009: New 787 Dreamliner window shade technology

by Kent Wien on

If you’ve been following the development of the Boeing 787, you may have heard about the electronic shades on their extra-large passenger windows.

So far, we’ve had to imagine how effective this technology would be, knowing it would be over a year before the first revenue flight of the Dreamliner.

Luckily, we managed to find the PPG Industries booth at the Paris Air Show, and scored a demonstration of this signature feature of the 787 known as Alteos Interactive Windows.

We’ve all been on airliners with plastic shades that frequently become stuck between the interior panel above the window. Sitting in that seat can be torturous on a sunny day. Not to mention the scratches they produce on the plexiglass inner pane.

Boeing and the airlines have found that these mechanical window shades represent an added maintenance cost, and for that reason, these reliable electronic shades will be a standard feature on all Boeing 787s and possibly other airliners in the future.

Passengers will be able to control the windows through five different settings, which take about a minute and a half to go from full dark to fully bright, at least on the version we saw. While this delay is a limitation of the design, the gradual transition could be a nice feature for passengers sleeping nearby.

Mark A. Cancilla, Director of Commercial Transparencies at PPG gave us a demonstration:


Flight attendants will have some control over the cabin as well. During a movie or as the sun begins to rise after a transatlantic flight, they’ll be able to lower the brightest setting without eliminating the view for someone who would rather look outside. And catching one of those sunrises can be more entertaining than an old sitcom episode you’ve seen three times that month anyway.

For some reason, I had imagined the darkest setting wouldn’t be dark enough, but I was thrilled to discover that PPG had designed a system that would allow as little as just .1% of the light to come through. Boeing has chosen a range of 70% transparency down to .1% for the Dreamliner over the five available steps.

The technology for these windows originally came from the automotive industry. In fact, you may have it in your car. The auto-dimming rear view mirror found in newer cars is the same technology behind these shades.

But will this technology make it into the pointy-end of the airplane or will pilots continue to resort to newspapers and safety briefing cards to shade themselves from the sun? We learned a bit about the 787’s cockpit windows and the new technology they’ll be using as well.

Check out the rest of Gadling’s Paris Air Show coverage.

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Galley Gossip: A question about dating pilots – gay pilots.

by Heather Poole on
Dear Heather,
I flew a MIA-JFK yesterday and thought of you. These were the highlights…
  • Family of 6 in first class made the purser cry
  • Customer service agent boarded the plane to calm passengers down which caused a late push back
  • Lady got dizzy and needed oxygen in economy
  • Lady ran from economy to first class lavatory seconds before take-off
  • We missed our roll
  • No kosher meal made a Jewish lady cry
  • Had to do a “go-round” at JFK
  • Late arrival
  • Missed international connections
  • More yelling passengers

It was a total scene! By the way, can you possibly find a nice pilot for me to date? He doesn’t have to be HOT, just cute enough, and nice…oh and a pilot. LOL

Ron

Dear Ron,

Thank you for thinking of me…I think. I mean that was a crazy flight you experienced and I’m not so sure I want to be connected to that kind of drama. Now if you’d said it was a great flight and you thought of me, I’d be thrilled. But a bad flight? Not good. And that’s exactly why I avoid the NY – Miami route at all costs. It’s always a tough trip to work.

As for finding you a cute pilot to date, I’ll definitely keep an eye out and I’ll pass the word along to my mother who is also a flight attendant. Though that might not be such a great idea, considering one of the worst pilot dates I ever had was a blind date my mother arranged with a 757 first officer from New York. Not that I can pick them any better. My friend Cady, on the other hand, always had good luck with pilots and even married one. Perhaps her husband, an international Airbus Captain based in Miami, can be of assistance.

I have yet to meet a gay pilot – that I know of. Now I know they’re out there because my friend Stephen is dating one. Not to mention, I’ve heard quite a few scandalous rumors in the galley, rumors I will not share with you here, only because they are just that – rumors. That said, I have met a couple transgender pilots and mechanics throughout the years who were more than happy to discuss their experiences, like Jamy Spradlin, who recently regained her wings after the Federal Aviation Administration delayed renewing her flying license for nearly a year as they analyzed her psyche for stability after she started hormone replacement therapy.

Recently I read an interesting book, Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot, by Stephen Gary Keshner. Midway through Keshner discusses what it was like to be a Jewish pilot and why he hid his religion from his coworkers. If Keshner felt he had something to hide by poking fun of his own religion to throw his colleagues off, I can only imagine how gay pilots must feel when talk turns to dating and family. Take it from me, it’s not always easy working with such a diverse group of men and women. Half the time you’re meeting someone new on each and every trip, which means you’ve got to learn quickly how to work together, meshing different personalities in a confined metal tube for hours on end. At least I have the opportunity to escape a coworker I may not be getting along with by working in a different cabin. I can’t imagine what it must be like for pilots, especially gay pilots, who may not feel comfortable sharing details of their personal lives.

On a side note, The NPGA, National Gay Pilots Association, is an organization promoting aviation safety and equal treatment. They provide scholarships to help earn a degree in aviation and access to legal and medical assistance, as well as a social and professional network for gay and lesbian members of the aviation industry, from pilots and students to flight attendants, mechanics, and air traffic controllers.

Another way to find the pilot of your dreams, Ron, is to check out aviation dating web sites like Crewdating.com and Love-is-in-the-air.com. Personally, I’d skip the dating sites and just do what my friend Cady was doing when she met her husband – hang out at Starbuck’s in the airport. You’re bound to run into a ton of crew members grabbing a quick jolt of caffeine before a long flight. I know that’s exactly where I’m going to be before my flight to San Francisco departs tonight.

Good luck with your search and happy travels!

Heather Poole

Have a question? Email me! Skydoll123@yahoo.com

10 passengers we love to hate: Day 6 – Crybabies and restless kids

by Brenda Yun on

We don’t mean to hate ’em but we do. The moment of truth is when you find your seat and hope pray that a child will not be sitting next to, in front or back of, or even close to you. Children just don’t make good neighbors on an airplane. On a playground, maybe, but not when you’ve purchased a seat and five hours of flying time for $200.

Take my nephew, for instance. When his mouth is closed, he really is the most adorable little human: soft baby skin, big innocent eyes. But once his breath quickens and he makes even the slightest peep, he’s handed off to my sister like a football on 4th down.

There’s something about adjusting to the cabin air pressure that, well, turns these little cuties very ugly. Their skin turns pink, their eyes close and wrinkle, and then the mouth gapes open and the shrillest human sound escapes.

The child is inconsolable. And the parent? Well, there’s really nothing s/he can do about it except bounce the child on her lap and pray the crying will stop — and soon. Nothing — not even an emergency stop-it-from-crying kit — can calm this child. What makes the situation even worse is that the cry sounds like it’s amplified by a loudspeaker when it’s contained in the tight quarters of an airplane cabin. We’re not at a Cry Baby Matinee. We’re on a plane, and we prefer the experience to be as peaceful and pleasant as possible.

Let’s face it: an airplane is not a suitable place for a crybaby, nor is it suitable for a messy toddler who likes to kick the back of your seat for the whole flight. It’s a reality, yet one we can’t do much about.

Earplugs may help — or maybe a child section to every plane.

Read about ALL the passengers we love to hate.

Galley Gossip: Cell phones on the airplane

by Heather Poole on

Recently on Twitter.com Times Travel asked me who I thought the worst type of passenger was. I wrote, “a business class passenger who does not get an upgrade and ends up in coach.”

But not all business class passengers who end up in coach are bad. In fact, business class passengers are actually my favorite passengers. They know the drill. They know exactly what to expect. So there’s no “on my last flight…” or “what do you mean there aren’t any magazines or pillows?”

The truth is the worst type of passenger is the kind of passenger who thinks he/she travels often, but in reality he/she only travels a few times a year, which isn’t really all that often, not compared to frequent fliers today. Yet they have no problem letting me know just how often they fly (which isn’t all that often) when they’re doing something they shouldn’t be doing, something a frequent flier knows not to do, like use a cell phone after the flight attendant has made the announcement that it’s time to turn off and stow all electronic devices.

The following scenario actually took place on board one of my flights…
We’re on the tarmac in Chicago and the flight attendant is walking down the aisle while the safety video is on and she sees a passenger on his cell phone talking and says, “Sir, you need to turn your cell phone off!”

He tells whomever he’s talking to on the phone to hold on a minute, and then he covers the mouthpiece with his hand and asks the flight attendant, “what flight number is this?”

Shaking her head, the flight attendant says, “Sir, you can’t be on your phone right now! The safety video is on. You need to turn it off.” She points to the video monitor and it’s at that part where the guy in the suit reaches up and grabs the oxygen mask and places it over his nose and mouth, looking way too relaxed for a guy who has just placed an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth because he’s probably going through a decompression or something and should probably be hyperventilating along with the rest of us.

The man on the phone rolls his eyes and tells his friend to hold on again. Then he says to the flight attendant, “I JUST NEED TO KNOW THE FLIGHT NUMBER, MA’AM!”

My colleague tells him she doesn’t know the flight number, which could be true because half the time we really don’t know whether we’re coming or going due to the short layovers mixed with long work days spent hopping from one city to another. Not to mention the safety video is on and this guy should not be on the phone right now. At this point it doesn’t really matter what the flight number is.

“TURN IT OFF!” she demands, squinting her eyes, which makes her look a little crazy and has zero affect because he’s still on the phone and just looking at her as if it’s no big deal there’s a flight attendant screaming at him and looking all crazy-eyed.

Sighing, he tells his friend, “The flight attendant is not being very helpful. She’s putting a lot of stress on me.”

Of course this only makes her put even more stress on him. “TURN THE PHONE OFF NOW! I MEAN NOW! RIGHT NOW!” which not only makes him jump, but also works because he actually turns it off and puts it away.

When I shared the above story with a fellow coworker, he wrote…

This lack of compliance causes me concern for a couple of good reasons. First, it establishes that some passengers see flight attendant instructions as optional–and they’re mandatory. That mandatory aspect is for everyone’s safety in an emergency, and in order to be effective, that authority covers every instruction they give. Second, as a captain, I always weigh whether I want to take Mr. Optional-Instructions-Cell-Phone-Guy into the air and just hope when he’s given an instruction, he’ll comply. Why would I?

Cell phones on the airplane, some people want them, others don’t. Me, I fall into the don’t category. Why? Because it’s a me, me, me world we’re living in and people today don’t always have common courtesy for those seated around them.

Tell me what you think.

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Photo courtesy of Jung Hong (cell phone), Beigeinside (flight attendant)

Drunk mailman threatens mayhem, grounded for half decade

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Why is it always the postmen?

Robert Russell had added “former” to his “mail carrier” title after being laid off by Royal Mail. So, he took a trip to Malaga, Spain. This isn’t unusual; plenty of people do something nice for themselves after losing their jobs. It’s great for morale.

It didn’t work.

Russell got wasted on lager and vodka in the Gatwick departure lounge. By the time he was literally flying high, he threatened to kill his fellow passengers and at one point tried to get off the plane early … via an emergency exit at 30,000 feet. The closest thing to a caring moment was when this unruly passenger yelled at a flight attendant, “Oi, blondie. Come and sit here so I can stroke you.”

Touching.

At one point, he said he would take down the entire plane … an awfully ambitious claim for a guy who couldn’t get the emergency door open. Eventually, crew and passengers were able to subdue the former postal employee, following his physical display of stereotype. .

All this happened on October 15, 2008. The Brighton Crown Court has finally ruled. Russell is banned from every airport in the United Kingdom for five years and will have to pay a fine of £4,643. A 12-month prison sentence was suspended for two years. And, in case there’s hope for the passenger’s humanity, he’s been ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.

As crazy as this incident sounds, in-flight disruptions are more common in Gatwick than you may realize. Sussex Police had to address 58 incidents on planes last year … an increase of almost 20 percent from the 50 in 2007.