Spike Aerospace is building the first supersonic private jet – and when the $80 million S-512 takes off in (in four years) it won’t have something you’d find on every other passenger aircraft: windows. The aerospace firm is taking advantage of recent advances in video recording, live-streaming, and display technology with an interior that replaces the windows with massive, high-def screens. The S-512’s exterior will be lined with tiny cameras sending footage to thin, curved displays lining the interior walls of the fuselage. The result will be a unbroken panoramic views of the outside world. And if passengers want to sleep or distract themselves from ominous rainclouds, they can darken the screen or choose from an assortment of ambient images. Windows are essential for keeping claustrophobia in check, they generally require workarounds in engineering that compromise a fuselage’s structure – and that goes double for a supersonic aircraft. Spike says that in order to hit their performance goals, they’ve planned to go windowless since the beginning and this innovation allows the plane to hit a top speed of 1,370 mph while carrying up to 18 VIPs. (via Wired)
