New Distribution Capabilities. No, it isn’t a drone-based package delivery system. And it isn’t a viewing infrastructure to binge-watch your favorite program on a smartphone. New Distribution Capabilities, or NDC, is a data protocol, a schema, a standard to permit the interchange of electronic information between airlines and travel agents, ultimately benefitting travelers.
The sun isn’t just a big, bright orb in the sky; it’s an active star, emitting all sorts of radiation and particles. A solar event might give us a beautiful Aurora, but it could also wreak havoc with ground-based power grids, radio, satellite communications, GPS navigation and even air traffic control operations.
Cabin ceiling projections of stars, clouds and colors; huge curved flat-panel in-flight entertainment (IFE) displays; advanced lighting systems; massive translucent cabin monuments displaying current flight status and moving maps. These are just some of the concepts being worked on by engineers in Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes Product Development group. “Airlines are telling us that they want to have interiors that have a wow factor, and set their cabin apart from [those of] their competitors,” says Mark Ellis, senior manager, Payloads Product Development.
The appetite for binge-friendly streaming services like Netflix, Amazon or Hulu, over expensive cable or satellite TV packages, appears to be insatiable. “Streaming video has grown at such a rapid pace in North America that the leading service in 2015, Netflix, now has a greater share of traffic than all of streaming audio and video did five years ago,” says Dave Caputo, CEO of Sandvine, a broadband network solutions provider. Based on a recent Sandvine study, real-time entertainment streaming now accounts for more than 70 percent of evening Internet traffic in North America.
Since November 2014, passengers flying from Frankfurt Airport on Lufthansa’s Boeing 737s have been the first in the world to experience an innovative technology without, perhaps, even realizing it. The airplanes have been pushing back from the gate and taxiing to the runway as usual. But on these flights, the 737s have been rolling from the ramp to the runway without the use of the aircraft engines. Under the control of the pilots, the jets are being towed by a semi-autonomous aircraft tractor called TaxiBot.
The Airbus Perlan Mission II is a major step closer to the goal of sustained, piloted flight at 90,000ft following the successful first flight of the Perlan 2 experimental glider. Launching early in the morning 23 September from the Redmond Municipal Airport in Redmond, Oregon, chief pilot Jim Payne and team pilot and project manager Morgan Sandercock were towed aloft by a Piper Pawnee towplane.
Earlier this year at the Paris Air Show, Boeing test pilots put a 787-9 through its paces in a spectacular aerial demonstration. The new Dreamliner was decked out in the blue and gold livery of Vietnam Airlines, but the people attending the airshow weren’t the only ones to see the amazing maneuverability of the latest version of the 787. Prior to the show, when the pilots practiced their routine at the Moses Lake WA’s airport, Boeing had a high-definition video of the session shot and produced.
At Mock Air, APEX’s unofficial carrier, we’re all about the #PaxEx. At least we would be, if we were an actual airline with real aircraft. But one can never be too prepared, so we recently spent a morning at Boeing’s “Dreamliner Gallery,” to think about fitting out the interiors of our fictional fleet of 787s. The 54,000 square foot facility has been open for eight years, and was a “paradigm shift in our interaction with our customers,” says Dan Olson, Dreamliner Gallery Manager.
It all starts with the winter weather in Antarctica. Glider pilots around the world regularly climb to altitudes above 20,000, or even 30,000 feet, flying in the strong lift found in mountain wave conditions. But for Perlan 2 to reach 90,000 feet, the pilots will need to jump into an express elevator in the Andes, romantically named the Stratospheric Polar Night Jet.
Making its debut at EAA AirVenture 2015 is a new aircraft that’s destined to shatter records. The Airbus Perlan Mission II will use a little-known meteorological phenomenon called the Stratospheric Polar Night Jet, to reach and fly at 90,000 feet – piloted, winged and sustained flight at over 27,400m. Perlan 2 will fly higher than the Lockheed U-2 or SR-71, but it is not an exotically-shaped or scramjet-powered superplane. It is a glider.
