Airbus submits patent application for windowless jet cockpit. Fully opaque cockpit would let pilots navigate with viewscreens and holograms

The FAA thinks FPV should be illegal while the airline industry is filing patents on flying airliners with no windows.

An article published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the other evening describes a patent application from European aerospace company Airbus in which pilots fly aircraft entirely through electronic means. The patent application, number US20140180508 A1, is titled "Aircraft with a cockpit including a viewing surface for piloting which is at least partially virtual" and notes that while an aircraft’s cockpit must be located in its nose to afford its pilot forward visibility, the physical requirements of the cockpit’s shape and the amount of glass required are aerodynamically and structurally non-optimal.

Enlarge / Cockpit, cockpit, where's the cockpit?

"For aerodynamic reasons," explains the patent application’s description, "the nose should ideally be lancet-shaped. However, the housing in the nose for radar, a landing gear, and especially for the cockpit, requires a much more complex shape and structure to be provided, with numerous radii of curvature." It would be better, says the patent, if the cockpit were moved into some other area of the aircraft and the pilot equipped with entirely electronic means of observing and controlling the aircraft’s flight.

According to the application, the non-windows cockpit would contain "a screen and associated means for projection (including back-projection)" of various "scenes," including the environment immediately forward of the aircraft, and also "a device with lasers for forming a holographic image" to display items like "a 3D mesh of the earth’s surface," "a hologram representing for example an assistant pilot on the ground," or "a holographic representation…of one or more flight instruments."

The lack of "glazed surfaces" (i.e., glass or other transparent elements) means that the cockpit itself could be free of the "numerous structural reinforcements" required to support the typical weight of glass as opposed to the same amount of aluminum. It also means that the cockpit could be placed literally anywhere inside the aircraft’s volume, including in the cargo hold or even in or near the aircraft’s empennage.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/07/airbus-submits-patent-application-for-windowless-jet-cockpit/

There are two issues with the comparison to FPV flying. The first is that FPV flying is done using relatively unreliable wireless links; a failure there leaves the pilot completely out of control. The second is that hobbyist planes are not built and tested to the same amazing level of reliability as a passenger airliner.

Airliners are held to an incredibly high level of fault-tolerance, with meticulously designed fail-safes or fail-to-known-state systems. The most modern planes basically fly themselves, the pilot is required as a sort of failsafe. The controls are already fly-by-wire. Pilots can already land a plane using only the instruments on the dash. A failure in one system will not prevent the pilot from flying the plane using a backup system.

Perhaps FPV flyers should be required to have a backup failsafe radio control link, and a backup video link.

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Comments

Jack Crossfire July 10, 2014 at 8:57pm

Embraer will be 1st with that design, like everything else. The lancet fuselage is inevitable.
Not Sure July 10, 2014 at 8:35pm

they already have a windowless cockpit, it's called a very expensive simulator...
Rolf Stefani July 10, 2014 at 4:15pm

An airbus weighs 600 tons fully loaded and 400 soles on board. My little quad weighs 2 lbs and doesn't have people in it.
Thomas the Nerd July 10, 2014 at 3:38pm

There are two issues with the comparison to FPV flying. The first is that FPV flying is done using relatively unreliable wireless links; a failure there leaves the pilot completely out of control. The second is that hobbyist planes are not built and tested to the same amazing level of reliability as a passenger airliner.

Airliners are held to an incredibly high level of fault-tolerance, with meticulously designed fail-safes or fail-to-known-state systems. The most modern planes basically fly themselves, the pilot is required as a sort of failsafe. The controls are already fly-by-wire. Pilots can already land a plane using only the instruments on the dash. A failure in one system will not prevent the pilot from flying the plane using a backup system.

Perhaps FPV flyers should be required to have a backup failsafe radio control link, and a backup video link.
Pedals2Paddles July 10, 2014 at 11:37am

Question: Why does Airbus want a patent?
Answer: Boeing.

I can't fly a 1/2lb plastic toy beyond visual line of sight over an abandoned cornfield. But an airliner with 400 people on board moving at 500mph over New York City, that's ok.
Alex Lee July 10, 2014 at 10:44am

Don't submarines already have windowless cockpits? Why the need for a patent?
Jesse July 10, 2014 at 10:43am

As a passenger, can you imagine the eye strain of starring out the "window"... it would be literally like starring at your computer screen all day. No bueno.
Acorn July 10, 2014 at 10:14am

I really don't think they intend to staff the cockpit with pilots on these aircraft. I think the big push (in the media) by Amazon, UPS and other big shipping companies with their cutesie little quadcopters is to get the hobby community to lead the rally cry to get FAA to approve autonomous flight so that their bigger birds can fly solo. . .JMHO
ikrase July 10, 2014 at 9:41am

I do not like this. A small slit window is one thing.
Benjamin Pelletier July 10, 2014 at 9:27am

Well, that's not exactly a fair comparison unless all your FPV drone flights are under IFR flight plans

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