Sapere Aude
Tag: airplane
JetBlue, Yahoo! and RIM have announced free in-flight WiFi services. But there’s a catch as there always is. The service is limited to Yahoo! Mail, Messenger and WiFi enabled BlackBerries will have access to their BB mail and messenger.
eww. why bother?
similar to FBOWeb, using google maps
cyborgization continues apace.
6 years ago, I was on the book-tour circuit discussing my book Free Flight, which had just come out. It was about several parallel innovations in the aviation biz — more efficient engines, cheaper and better ways of building planes, safer ways to navigate and control the planes — that might together make “air taxis” part of the solution to the misery of hub-and-spoke airline travel.
air taxis are here.
The only crowded parts of today’s system—the runways and approach paths to the big hub airports—are precisely the places air taxis plan never to go. The DayJet planes fly at altitudes basically unused by other aircraft, 4500-7500m. (Very small planes fly lower than that; airliners and corporate jets fly higher.) “What’s the biggest airport we’ll ever go into?. A place like Savannah or Knoxville. Where the airlines are is where we don’t want to be.”
an update on dayjet
jetpacks, they are here
when do we get the my maps version?
Much of the suck you’re familiar with on other domestic airlines is absent, and there are a lot of nice little details that add up to a pleasant, smart experience. For instance: no harsh lighting. Cabin interior feels like a big happy iPod. White round plastic edges, metal surfaces and black mesh stowaway dividers. Sleek without feeling cold.
is there hope for airlines? maybe
Developed internally at Virgin America, the system is named Red and provides live satellite tv, movies, mp3s, games and plane-wide chatting. Yes, chatting. There is a general chatroom, a private invite channel for your friends, and direct user-to-user mes
Customers of both FedEx and UPS can now print out shipping labels that are easily scannable by computers. Meteorologists at both companies routinely outguess official Weather Service forecasts. And both are working with the Federal Aviation Administration to improve air safety and scheduling. UPS is collaborating with the FAA on a system — ADSB — that may make conventional radar obsolete. “We want to make ADSB the backbone of our future air traffic system.”
yay. UPS is working to overhaul the decrepit FAA air traffic control system, cause of most of the delays in air travel these days.
maybe we will see transparent pricing one of these days.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 