This article has certainly made an impression on me.
Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has theorized a see-through passenger plane for the future, one with a completely transparent fuselage. In this concept craft, the push of a button by the captain would a send an electrical pulse through a high-tech ceramic skin -- making the main body of the plane see-through. The extraordinary design would allow travelers to look down on cities and landscapes thousands of feet below or gaze up at the heavens, giving them the sensation of floating unassisted through the sky.The sheer terror of having the floor and the walls disappear at an altitude of 12 km... what can I say: they better have the barf bags back pronto!
I like much better the next idea:
The report includes ... solutions for overcongestion in the air, such as pre-seating passengers in pods that are then loaded onto the plane when it is ready.I have always dreamed about doing my air travels unconscious in the A Team's Mr. T style. If the airline wouldn't mind splurging on injecting or gassing me to insensitive state, I wouldn't mind the size of the pod and the way they stack 'em. Like this, to use one example:
So it's settled, I guess - to everyone's satisfaction. The only problem that bothers me: if up till now we had to rescue our bags from Murmansk* after a good percentage of the flights, now we'll find ourselves in Murmansk. Imagine waking up, groggy, bleary and geared for +30 of Tenerife - in a place where -30 us considered a lucky day... and they lost that sticker with the barcode from your pod...(*) Where, according to the late and great Douglas Adams, most of the luggage usually ends up.
