If you've ever sat in the window seat on a flight, you've probably noticed the tiny hole at the bottom of the window. We asked the FAA why it's there, and they assured us it's totally safe. Here's why there are tiny holes in airplane windows.
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Maybe you've seen this ancient-looking video of cats floating weightlessly inside an airplane.
Since YouTube user AIRBOYD uploaded the clip on January 11, 2011, people have watched it more than 2.3 million times.
No real surprise there: The Internet loves cats doing ridiculous things, and so the footage — an excerpt of a public-domain video by Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories — was bound to be a hit.
When the American space program went into overdrive, primarily in response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik — the first artificial satellite — scientists had very little idea of the effects of zero gravity on the human body. Or any body, for that matter.
Monkeys and mice were obvious choices for zero-gravity research, but cats' ability to right themselves in midair presented an opportunity for an extreme balance test: Would they be able rotate like this in microgravity?
The answer, it turned out, is no.
The Air Force researchers you see in the clip are riding in a Convair-131, the first of a series of planes that NASA would nickname "vomit comets."
On these flights, the pilot would take the plane up to 12,000 feet, then plunge it into a high-speed dive. After reaching 280 miles per hour, the pilot would pull up sharply to make an arc. At the top of the arc — as the plane began to free-fall — occupants would experience about 15 seconds at zero gravity.
Repeat many, many times, and you can rack up a few minutes of weightlessness for various experiments. Like tossing cats around.
In 1962, the Aerospace Medical Division included what they learned in a report, "Weightless Man: Self-Rotation Techniques." This particular technique mimics the twisting of a cat's torso to get control of one's position in space — though we doubt astronauts kick each other around their capsules, like one particularly cruel researcher did in the full video (see below).
A similar vintage video that Kelly uploaded, this one featuring weightless pigeons, hasn't garnered millions of views like the cats. But it's still fascinating.
If you want to join the weightless cats and pigeons, you're in luck.
Similar microgravity thrill rides operate publicly and privately, though at considerably higher speeds to squeeze more weightlessness out of each arc. The band OK Go even chartered a zero-gravity flight over Russia to film their jaw-dropping music video for "Upside Down & Inside Out" (at a cost of untold dollars and "58 puke events").
Check out the full DNews video for more on the first animals in space:
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The London-based design and innovation firm Seymourpowell has unveiled plans for a luxury plane cabin suite that would offer first class passengers private rooms with lie-flat seats that turn into beds.
First Spaces — which we first read about on The Telegraph— has been designed to evoke "a contemporary boutique hotel" in the sky, according to a press release from the company.
Intended for Airbus A380 aircraft, the first-class section is made up of four single rooms and two double rooms. Each room comes with a bed, TV screen, a table, storage space, and a tablet to control the room's functions.
Seymourpowell was inspired to design the suite after speaking to passengers who said that above all they want privacy during a flight, the company's cofounder Dick Powell told Business Insider over the phone.
Though it's unclear if First Spaces will become a reality or how much a room would cost, Powell said the company is currently "having interesting discussions" with a number of aircraft suppliers. "It's at least three years away from being in the air," he said.
The concept has also been nominated for a Crystal Cabin Award at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg on April 5-7, where it's likely to make an impression.
Take a look inside the dream cabin below.
Ever wonder why airplane passengers are asked to lift up their window shades before takeoff and landing? A flight attendant explains why they do this.
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With a combined market cap of nearly $130 billion, the seven largest domestic airlines carry a vast majority of air passengers in the U.S. They service hundreds of destinations all over the globe, flying more than 740 million revenue passenger miles (RPMs)—which is what you get when you multiply the number of paying customers by the distance traveled—in 2014 alone.
Read on to explore the seven largest airlines in the U.S.! Peanuts not included.
(All data is as of February 2016)
The ultra-low-cost carrier is known for its healthy balance sheet: It has over $750 million in cash versus $530 million in debt. About a third of Spirit’s revenue is generated through ancillary, or non-ticket, fees. In 2014, Spirit grew its capacity the fastest among U.S. carriers, increasing traffic 18 percent.
Market Cap: $3.4 billion
Founded: 1980
Headquarters: Miramar, FL
Destinations: 57
Over 90 percent of JetBlue’s passengers fly point-to-point, meaning there are no connecting flights. The carrier plans to add between 10 and 12 additional seats to every jet in its fleet, a move that’s expected to generate $100 million in extra revenue by 2019. JetBlue became the first domestic carrier to expand its services to Cuba once diplomatic relations were relaxed between the Caribbean island and the U.S.
Market Cap: $7 billion
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: Long Island City, NY
Destinations: 97
For five straight years, Alaska has been ranked as the most fuel-efficient domestic airline by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), receiving a fuel efficiency score (FES) of 1.14. For eight straight years, it’s received J.D. Powers’ highest rating in its 2015 North America Airline Satisfaction Survey. The airline carries more passengers between Alaska and the bottom 48 states than any other airline.
Market Cap: $9 billion
Founded: 1932
Headquarters: Seattle, WA
Destinations: 104
The Senate refused Thursday to come to the aid of airline passengers squeezed by the ever-shrinking size of their seats.
An amendment by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., would have blocked airlines from further reducing the "size, width, padding, and pitch" of seats, passengers' legroom and the width of aisles. "It costs you an arm and a leg just to have room for your arms and legs," Schumer said.
The amendment also would have required the Federal Aviation Administration to set standards for the minimum amount of space airlines must provide passengers for their "safety, health and comfort." Airlines would have had to post the size of their seats on their websites so that consumers could take the information into consideration when buying tickets.
The proposal failed on a vote of 42-54, with all but three Democrats in favor and all but one Republican against.
Economy-class airline seats have shrunk in recent years on average from a width of 18 inches to 16.5 inches. The average pitch — the space between a point on one seat and the same on the seat in front of it — has gone from 35 inches to about 31 inches. Many airlines are charging passengers for extra legroom in amounts that used to be standard.
No senators spoke against the proposal, but airlines opposed to the measure have accused lawmakers of trying to "re-regulate" an industry that has been deregulated since 1978.
The vote was the Senate's last this week. Shortly afterward, many senators left to board planes to fly home to their states.
Democrats were quick to capitalize on the vote in an election year. Within hours, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out news releases chastising GOP senators from Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Ohio who are facing Democratic challengers this fall for siding with the airline industry over passengers.
The Senate is considering a bill to renew FAA programs, due to expire July 15, through Oct. 1, 2017. The bill also contains aviation policy provisions that lawmakers have been working on for more than four years, including greater access for drones to the national airspace and protections for airline passengers chafing at fees for basic services such as checked bags and ticket changes.
Also Thursday, the Senate overwhelmingly approved amendments seeking to boost security at airports and other transportation hubs in response to last month's attacks in Brussels, as well as the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt last year that is suspected to have been caused by a bomb planted by an airport worker. The security amendments would:
—Authorize an increase from 30 up to 60 in the number of government "viper teams" that stop and search suspicious passengers in public areas before screening, often using bomb-sniffing dogs.
—Make more federal grants available to train law enforcement officers in how to prepare for and respond to active shootings at transportation hubs and other "soft targets."
—Require the Transportation Security Administration to use private companies to market and enroll more people in its PreCheck program while ensuring PreCheck screening lanes are open during high-volume travel times. The aim is to reduce crowds waiting for security screening by vetting more passengers before they arrive to get them through checkpoints quickly.
—Enhance the vetting of airport employees with access to secure areas. It also expands the use of random and physical inspections of airport employees in secure areas and requires a review of perimeter security.
—Authorize TSA to donate unneeded security equipment to foreign airports with direct flights to the U.S., permit increased cooperation between U.S. officials and partner nations to protect routes flown by Americans, and require a new assessment of foreign cargo security programs.
In-flight Wi-Fi may sound like a great way to keep in touch with friends and family or catch up on work, but services are often so slow, you're better off sticking to the in-flight magazine.
New satellite-based Wi-Fi services promise to change that, prompting a grab for capacity and customers by companies such as Inmarsat Plc, Viasat Inc, Gogo Inc, Panasonic and Global Eagle Entertainment Inc.
Wi-Fi on U.S. domestic routes is already widespread although air-to-ground (ATG) technology can mean service is slow. In Europe, a patchwork of regulatory regimes has hindered the creation of any substantial ATG networks, while satellite-based systems have until now been too expensive for short-haul routes.
Satellite-based systems can provide coverage across the whole world, including over oceans, where ATG falls short. Additional beams are typically overlaid to follow traffic flows, to provide extra broadband capacity for more congested flight areas.
Inmarsat, long a provider of satellite communications to the maritime industry, has spent five years building its Global Express network for aviation. Final ground and flight testing is underway, with three satellites already in service.
"Existing solutions have not met market expectations ... Despite all of the happy talk, the state of play is an inconsistent patchwork," Leo Mondale, president of Inmarsat Aviation, said at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg.
U.S.-based rival Viasat is launching two new high-powered satellites that it says will significantly improve broadband speeds from next year.
According to a 2016 global report by Routehappy, which rates flight amenities, travelers currently have a chance of getting Wi-Fi on more than one-third of available seats worldwide, with around 60 airlines offering the service.
But just 6 percent of the flights with Wi-Fi have connectivity that is comparable to a home broadband service and which allows for data-rich usage such as video streaming.
It's not just passengers who like Wi-Fi on board. It can also be used in the cockpit to identify weather patterns, optimize routes, and for quick identification and reporting of maintenance issues, Carl Esposito, vice president of marketing and product management at Honeywell Aerospace, told Reuters.
Honeywell teams with Inmarsat to provide the hardware for airlines to connect to the Global Express network.
In the cabin, having Wi-Fi connected systems also makes for easier upgrades of in-flight entertainment and can bring in more revenues from entertainment, services and advertising.
Competition from new satellite-based services has put more established aviation connectivity providers under pressure.
Shares in Gogo, which provides in-flight Wi-Fi in North America using ATG technology, fell in February after American Airlines threatened to end its contract via a lawsuit, saying that the Viasat service was superior.
Gogo is working on its own satellite-based service, known as 2Ku, and in February signed a deal with satellite operator SES to provide extra capacity.
Gogo has put forward a 2Ku proposal for 200 aircraft for AA, although no decisions have been made yet, Gogo president Michael Small said in an statement to Reuters.
Rival Panasonic is also looking at commissioning entire satellite payloads as it seeks more capacity for its existing global network, David Bruner, vice president of global communications services at Panasonic Avionics, told Reuters.
Bruner said the aviation connectivity market had become hyper-competitive in terms of pricing and that there were too many players fighting over too few planes.
Inmarsat, which has signed up Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines to its network, highlighted price pressure in the industry when it reported results last month.
"There probably needs to be some consolidation," Bruner said, adding there was space for three or four providers and that each would need to serve about 1,500 aircraft to break even on satellite-based services.
Panasonic has signed up 3,000 aircraft, with 1,100 in service, he said. Gogo's 2Ku has commitments for over 850 aircraft and expects to have 75 installed this year, while Inmarsat has over 300 for Global Express and says more are to come.
Bruner said the AA and Gogo row showed that older systems in place in North America were ripe for replacement and that there would be a real fight for contracts.
"I think it will be a really crazy next 24 months. We'll win some and we'll lose some, but it will be interesting," he said.
(Editing by Catherine Evans)
It seems like every single airplane window is round. How come they're not square-ish like most windows at home? The reason, according to the FAA, is for your own safety.
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Two pilots are slowly carving their way into a new future of solar-powered flight as one of them embarks on the latest leg of their around-the-world journey in a plane powered only by the sun.
After some uncertainty about the winds, the Solar Impulse team took off from Hawaii early Thursday. The aircraft landed in Hawaii last July but was forced to stay in the islands after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.
The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 is now on course to land in Mountain View, California, in about three days.
The aircraft started its journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, then made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It's on the ninth leg of its circumnavigation.
Pilot Bertrand Piccard, who is flying this leg of the trip, said the idea of crossing the ocean in a solar-powered plane a few years ago stressed him out, but Thursday morning he was confident things would go according to plan.
Piccard also said the flight's destination, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is fitting. He said on his way to the airfield that when the plane lands there, it will land "in the middle of the pioneering spirit."
Piccard's co-pilot Andre Borschberg, who flew the leg from Japan to Hawaii, told Piccard he greatly admires his dedication and strength.
He said the plane "represents what we could do on the ground in our communities, in our cities."
The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to end their trip early and divert to Japan because of unfavorable weather and a damaged wing.
A month later, when the weather conditions were right, the plane departed from an airport in Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.
That trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the plane's global travels, as there was nowhere for it to land in an emergency. The same is true for the trip from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland.
The plane's ideal flight speed is about 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a minivan or midsize truck.
The wings of Solar Impulse 2, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
The crew successfully arrived in Hawaii after completing their longest trip to date, but the plane's batteries became too hot on the first day of its trip from Japan to Hawaii. There was no way to cool them down, the team said, and the system required extensive repairs.
The company said there was no weakness in the technology, but they didn't anticipate similar temperature fluctuations in a tropical climate.
OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN (AP) — The pilot of a solar-powered airplane on an around-the-world journey said Saturday that stopping in California's Silicon Valley will help link the daring project to the pioneering spirit of the area.
Pilot Bertrand Piccard, who left Hawaii three days ago, said he hopes to fly over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge before landing in Mountain View on Saturday night.
"Can you imagine crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on a solar-powered plane just like ships did in past centuries? But the plane doesn't make noise and doesn't pollute," Piccard said a live video feed on the website documenting the journey.
"It's a priority to link the project we have with the pioneering spirit in Silicon Valley," he added.
The project's website says the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft is 2 days and 4 hours into a three-day flight over the Pacific.
The aircraft started its around-the-world journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. It's on the ninth leg of its circumnavigation.
On Friday, Piccard exchanged pleasantries with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who hailed Piccard's pioneering spirit as "inspirational," telling him he was making history.
Piccard responded that Ban, too, was making history by having just presided over the signing of a climate agreement supported by representatives of 175 nations.
"What you are doing today in New York, signing the Paris agreement, is more than protecting the environment, it is the launch of the clean technology revolution," Piccard said.
The trans-Pacific leg of his journey is the riskiest part of the solar plane's global travels because of the lack of emergency landing sites.
After uncertainty about winds, the plane took off from Hawaii on Thursday morning. The crew that helped it take off was clearing out of its Hawaiian hangar and headed for the mainland for the weekend arrival.
At one point passengers on a Hawaiian Air jet caught a glimpse of the Solar Impulse 2 before the airliner sped past the slow-moving aircraft.
The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.
Piccard's co-pilot Andre Borschberg flew the leg from Japan to Hawaii.
The team was delayed in Asia, as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavorable weather and a damaged wing.
A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.
The plane's ideal flight speed is about 45 kph, or 28 mph, though that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a midsize truck.
The wings of Solar Impulse 2, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
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Airbus planned to deliver its first U.S.-made jetliner on Monday to JetBlue Airways, a key step in efforts to win market share from rival Boeing Co .
Airbus' first U.S.-built plane, the largest A320-family jet known as the A321, was assembled at a new $600 million factory in Mobile, Alabama, a site that was an open field three years ago.
The plant holds strategic and symbolic significance for the European plane maker. It ends an era in which Boeing was the only U.S.-based maker of such large commercial airplanes, and it adds to Airbus' industrial capacity as the world's largest plane makers race to boost production through the end of the decade.
Being "U.S.-built" is not a decisive factor in aircraft sales, but “it certainly doesn't hurt to become part of the infrastructure,” Airbus sales chief John Leahy told Reuters.
Airbus plans to notch up global A320 output to 60 a month in 2019. Boeing plans to lift output of its competing 737 planes to 57 a month the same year. Both build 42 a month currently.
The Alabama plant also shows Airbus' growing global industrial base. Modeled on an Airbus plant in Hamburg, Germany, the Mobile facility is the company's fourth assembly plant for single-aisle jets after Hamburg, the French city of Toulouse and the Chinese industrial port of Tianjin.
In contrast, Boeing builds all of its 737s at its single factory in Renton, Washington.
“Now it is our most modern factory anywhere in the world,” Leahy said of the Mobile factory.
Airbus broke ground at site in April 2013, began assembly of the first plane in July 2015, and plans to be producing four aircraft a month at the plant by late 2017. The plant is capable of building at twice that rate, Airbus said.
Airbus is aiming to win 50 percent of the U.S. market for single-aisle jetliners. It is already on track to capture 40 percent of such U.S. sales based on the existing orders in its backlog, up from 20 percent before Airbus' newest single-aisle models were announced.
The second plane from the Mobile plant, also an A321, is due to go to American Airlines in a few weeks.
The plant employs about 600 people, and is expected to build up a network of suppliers in the Mobile area. So far, parts for assembly are all shipped from Europe, Airbus has said.
(Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Delta really doesn't want to lose people's bags anymore.
By the end of this year, the company plans to become the first airline to use RFID tags to enhance tracking of all luggage that passes through its system — a move the company is calling "historic."
The innovation comes on the heels of more than two decades of handheld barcode scanning, which began in the early 1990s as the gold standard for keeping track of baggage.
The new technology, which stands for Radio Frequency Identification and appears in other industries from shipping services to public libraries, will enable customers to receive push notifications each time their bags enter and exit the plane, and one final time when they hit the carousel.
Unlike barcode scanning, which only sends information to the handlers, RFID tags can alert both handlers and customers about the bag's status via a mobile network. Delta says the added transparency will give people more peace of mind.
While Delta is the first airline to implement RFID tags, the move isn't new in aviation.
McCarran Airport in Las Vegas has been using RFID since 2006, and a number of international airlines have been using RFID tags for years as a way to entice customers to upgrade their tickets.
In addition, numerous luggage manufacturers have equipped their products with RFID tags for the exact purpose Delta recently announced.
There's a questionable price tag for the whole project: $50 million.
As Alissa Walker noted in Gizmodo, Delta's success rate with baggage-handing seems far too high for the airline to invest millions in a solution that would close the gap only slightly.
Reputation may be the biggest thing at stake. Delta was recently voted one of the worst airlines in existence, so that $50 million might go toward an image of being forward-thinking, even if the reality is that most people don't lose their bags anyway.
Once the RFID is fully rolled out, there will be 3,800 tag printers nationwide and 4,600 scanners. There will also be 1,500 scanners on the conveyor belts that load bags on and off planes in an effort to eliminate the need for handlers scanning each bag individually.
Delta says the process already has a 99.9% success rate in its initial deployment. Knowing the airline industry, customers will still find something to complain about.
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CheapAir.com recently released its annual study on when you should book your flight to get the best deals. They analyzed millions of trips and outlined the best times to book international flights and domestic flights.
Produced by Jacqui Frank. Original reporting by Talia Avakian and Samantha Lee.
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EgyptAir has retracted its statement that wreckage from flight MS804 has been found near Greece’s Karpathos Island, according to CNN.
"We stand corrected on finding the wreckage," Ahmed Adel, EgyptAir's Vice President, told CNN on Thursday.
Flight MS804 crashed heading from Paris to Cairo early Thursday morning.
Greek officials initially said they had located pieces of plastic and two life jackets in the Mediterranean Sea, near where a transponder signal from the plane was emitted sometime before it fell off the radar. But that information turned out to be incorrect — Greek officials now say that nothing was found, and that the plane is still considered missing.
There were 66 people on board: 53 adults and three children, plus 10 crew members consisting of three security members, five cabin crew members, the pilot, and the copilot.
The flight took off from Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport and was scheduled to land at Cairo Airport at 3:05 a.m. It lost contact with radar at 2:45 a.m. Cairo time (8:45 p.m. ET Wednesday), according to the airline.
The Airbus A320 had been traveling at 37,000 feet when it "swerved 90 degrees left, then 360 degrees right at 2:37 a.m. (Cairo time), while it was at 10-15 miles within Cairo's airspace at 37,000 feet," the Greek defense minister, Panos Kammenos, said in comments broadcast live on the state-run ERT TV. It then dropped to 10,000 feet and was lost from radar.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said he had no special information about why the plane disappeared and added that he would not speculate on the cause.
"Relevant authorities are doing everything they can to try and find out what the facts are of what happened today," Kerry told a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Reuters reported.
Democratic presidential frontrunner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN's Chris Cuomo that it “does appear that it [the crash] was an act of terrorism."
Egypt and Greece have deployed military aircraft and a frigate to search the area, and a sea search is still underway. The French military says a Falcon surveillance jet monitoring the Mediterranean for migrants had been diverted to help the sea search.
Egypt's aviation minister, Sherif Fathy, said in a news conference that an act of terror was more likely to be the cause of the crash than a technical failure.
US officials later told CNN that there are early indications a bomb took down the plane. Israeli officials have definitively ruled the crash a terror attack.
Still, some experts say there is nothing about the evidence so far that points directly to a terror attack.
"It could be a catastrophic mechanical malfunction, some kind of crew error, and so on," Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the book "Cockpit Confidential," told Business Insider on Thursday. "The plane's maneuvers by themselves don’t indicate a whole lot. It’s just too early to be speculating so broadly."
Weather conditions in the area of the plane's last known location over the Mediterraneanwere "clear and calm," CNN meteorologist Michael Guy noted.
British pilot Alan Carter, who was flying a Boeing 747 in the same airspace at the same time as MS804, told the BBC conditions were "perfect" and "all air traffic communications were operating normal."
Greece's civil aviation department said that while it was in contact with the pilot, he seemed "in good spirits and thanked the controller in Greek," after he was cleared to exit the Greek airspace, according to Reuters. The pilot had logged more than 6,000 flying hours, EgyptAir said on Twitter.
Controllers apparently tried to contact the pilot 10 miles before the flight exited Greek airspace, but the pilot did not respond. Controllers continued trying to make contact until the plane disappeared from the radar but received no response.
"They did not radio for help or lose altitude," Ehab Mohy el-Deen, the head of Egypt's air navigation authority, told The New York Times. "They just vanished."
Flights over Egypt have encountered trouble on several occasions in the past year, prompting aviation authorities to instruct pilots to fly above 26,000 feet in the region.
In October 2015, a Russian airliner crashed in northern Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.
In March 2016, an EgyptAir flight was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus, prompting an hourslong standoff. No one was harmed in that incident.
In 2002, an EgyptAir Boeing 737 went down near Tunis-Carthage International Airport, killing 14.
In 1999, an EgyptAir flight from Los Angeles to Cairo, with a stop in New York, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, 60 miles off Nantucket Island, killing the 217 people on board.
The EgyptAir flight that disappeared on Thursday was delivered to EgyptAir in 2003 and had logged 48,000 flight hours, Airbus said in a statement on its Facebook page. The plane had engines made by the Swiss-based engine consortium IAE.
Airbus said it was ready to help authorities investigating the disappearance and said "our concerns go out to all those affected."
Smith, the pilot, was still reluctant to characterize EgyptAir as unsafe.
"EyptAir has what a lot of people would reasonably call a spotty safety record, but I’m a little uneasy saying that because, with crashes so few and far in between, all large commercial carriers are safe. In a more practical sense, I tend to doubt there’s anything particular to EgyptAir that made this happen."
This story is developing. Click here for latest updates.
Story by Mark Abadi, Bryan Logan, Ben Moshinsky, Barbara Tasch, Natasha Bertrand, and Pamela Engel.
In January 1959, the first transcontinental commercial jet trip flew from Los Angeles to New York City in five and a half hours. Today, the same trip will take a half hour to an hour longer (that is, if your flight isn’t delayed). A lot has changed since 1959—fares are less expensive, planes have reduced effects on the environment, and we’ve reached astonishing levels of safety—yet the speed hasn’t increased, and the romance of flying is gone. So why is the Concorde, the fastest commercial airliner ever built currently sitting in a museum collecting dust? And what’s next for aviation? On Wednesday, May 11, Future Tense—a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University—brought together industry experts, leaders, and innovators to weigh in on the future of flight at an event in Washington, D.C.
Greg Zacharias, chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force, joined NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman in conversation with moderator James Fallows, national correspondent for the Atlantic, to discuss the historic role the Air Force and NASA have played in driving the research and investment that gets adopted by the private sector and creates jobs in the U.S. economy. In February, NASA announced the arrival of a new era of cleaner, quieter, and faster aircraft. “New Aviation Horizons,” an initiative included in the president’s budget, will design, build and fly a series of X-planes, or experimental aircraft, during the next 10 years. Newman emphasized the importance of investing in such new initiatives to ensure the United States is a leader of this field. According to her, the public/private partnerships are stronger than they’ve ever been with the goal of “transition[ing] these technologies sooner, quicker, and cheaper” into commercial markets.
The private sector, however, faces the financial challenge of taking designs to market. Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis for the Teal Group Corp., reminded the audience that even with the support of public sector partnerships, the commercial aviation industry is a low-margin business. So private sector companies that aim to design paradigm-shifting planes face the additional challenge of making them economically viable. Joining Aboulafia in conversation were representatives of three companies—Airbus, Boom Technology Inc., and Lightcraft Technology Inc.—that are attempting to do just that. Airbus and Boom are aiming to build and market the next supersonic jet that can achieve what the Concorde could not, unmatched speed at a cost-effective price. Leik Myrabo’s lightcraft technology aspires to achieve speed and environmental sustainability within an entirely new infrastructure for air travel that includes light-ports and laser-projecting satellites.
But it’s not just about the cool new technology. David Lackner, vice president and head of research and technology for North America Airbus Group Innovations, reminded the audience that the industry must also grapple with existing policy and infrastructure. For instance, one of the greatest barriers to supersonic air travel is bans on flight over land. When supersonic jets travel at a speed of Mach 1 and above, they generate the sound we know as the sonic boom. Today, NASA is working with Lockheed Martin on a preliminary design for Quiet Supersonic Technology, aircraft that can fly at supersonic speeds while only registering a soft thump. As the technology moves to market, the public’s appetite will change and so will the policies that once limited supersonic travel. For example, when consumers realize they can travel faster from Los Angeles to Tokyo than from L.A. to New York due to regulations of supersonic travel over land, policymakers will feel the need to respond. Michelle Schwartz, chief of staff of the Federal Aviation Administration, said the FAA is more collaborative with industry than ever before and she understands that with “industry moving at the speed of Silicon Valley, FAA can’t be moving at the speed of government.”
But new technology won’t fix our aviation system. We still have other problems to deal with—like long lines at airports and an air traffic control system that needs modernization. Justin Powell, principal at Arup Group, and Diana Pfiel, CTO of Resilient Ops Inc., believe that innovation in the private sector can respond to the infrastructure problems that affect passengers’ journeys. For instance, Pfiel and her team use crowdsourcing and data sharing to increase transparency and give passengers more control of their experience by identifying the source of delays in airports.
As Fallows noted, “Flight today is both a miracle and a frustration.” Perhaps in the future the romance of flying will once again return.
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.
Aircrafts have taken lots of shapes throughout the history of flight, from flying saucers to hollow tubes. Not all have been successful, of course, but it’s still fun to admire the aeronautical innovations that engineers and designers have attempted over the years. Scroll down to see some of the strangest planes that have ever left the ground.
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A flying platform, the Aerocycle was commissioned by the US Army as a reconnaissance tool and first tested at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in 1955. It was designed to fly up to 70 miles per hour and only require 20 minutes of instruction before a soldier could use it. But the platform proved too accident-prone during the initial test flights, and the project was abandoned.
Students at Miami University built a prototype of the strange-looking aircraft, which was designed by inventor Steven Nemeth, to demonstrate that a circular wing could be used to fly a plane effectively. The round wing also doubled as a parachute if the engine stalled, allowing the plane to float softly down to the ground. Despite a successful test flight in 1934, the Nemeth was never mass produced.
No, this isn't a flying saucer or spaceship from Star Wars. The Avrocar was developed by the Canadian government in the early '50s as a fighter bomber. To take off vertically from the ground, the turbojet engines directed thrust downwards, creating a cushion of air. The US Army and Air Force took over the project in 1958 and developed two prototypes, but the plane proved unstable in aerodynamic tests. The project was canceled it in 1961, and the two prototypes now sit in the US Army Transportation Museum and the National Museum of the US Air Force.
The Breitling Jet Team tours the world performing in air shows and private corporate events. Ahead of the Jones Beach Air Show in Wantagh, NY, the team invited members of the media to join them for a thrilling flight.
Business Insider senior video producer Graham Flanagan volunteered to go for the ride, which featured speeds of up to 500 MPH and some serious G-Force.
Produced by Justin Gmoser
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Flight attendants are humans too, and just like everyone else, they need to sleep on long-haul flights.
But where do they do it?
Most Boeing 777 and 787 airliners have a secret stairway that leads to a tiny set of windowless bedrooms for the cabin crew — and few people know they even exist.
See what the secret cabins look like.
Delta Air Lines wants to minimize the drudgery of airport security lines. On May 26, the company paid for and installed two "innovation lanes" that allow up to five passengers to prepare their carry-ons for security scanning at the same time.
The lanes, in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, each feature five "divestment points"— designated spots where people can load their containers. Gil West, the company's chief operating officer, says that this extra prep space "should double the productivity of any given lane."
The security protocol is still the same, though: laptops in one bin, shoes and clothes in another. But most of the current airport security conveyer belts allow only one traveler at a time to load their belongings into the plastic bins, which means that a passenger who takes too long getting out their liquids or laptop can slow the entire line.
Delta's innovation lanes, on the other hand, allow for faster-moving passengers to move through security more quickly.
The lanes also have a second conveyor belt beneath the primary one, which carries used containers back to passengers waiting in line, thereby eliminating the need for TSA employees to manually cart them back and forth.
Delta says that it paid over $1 million to install the two new lanes — and that's in only one airport. No word yet as to whether the company plans to bring similar lanes to other airports, but on behalf of all beleaguered travelers, we're crossing our fingers.
