Airbus considers transparent planes, will Larry Niven get the royalties?

[gully_foyle]

Just saw this today: Airbus unveils plans for 'invisible' passenger planes | Mail Online

Did not Louis Wu get about in a similar space craft on his way to Ringworld?

 

[Nik]

Well, by the time you've made the floor opaque to hide the plumbing and the vertiginous altitude, then done the same to the luggage boxes and ceiling HVAC ducts, sanitized the cubicle partitions etc etc, there's not a lot of aircraft left...

I like the self-healing composite idea, though....

 

[Pyan]

Wasn't Wonder Woman there first?

 

[chrispenycate]

Just saw this today: Airbus unveils plans for 'invisible' passenger planes | Mail Online

Did not Louis Wu get about in a similar space craft on his way to Ringworld?

I shouldn't think so.
While General Products hulls are totally transparent, the hyperspace "blind spot" means that anything open to light when you're travelling FTL is not just invisible, but filtered out of your visual cortex, non-existent.
Beowulf Schaeffer, for whom the vessel they rode in as far as the fleet of worlds was designed, was paranoid, as had windows installed (blank spots in the screening/paint job in the interior, I suppose), but no great percentage of the total; Louis remarked on the fact when they embarked, if I remember correctly. (It was a rather long time ago, and my copy's in my sisters place in England).

 

[Vertigo]

Well, by the time you've made the floor opaque to hide the plumbing and the vertiginous altitude, then done the same to the luggage boxes and ceiling HVAC ducts, sanitized the cubicle partitions etc etc, there's not a lot of aircraft left...

I like the self-healing composite idea, though....

My thoughts exactly Nik, far too much stuff below the floor and above the ceiling for them to be usefully transparent but the walls would be pretty cool. Though I suspect the possibly of having half the passengers on board freaking out vertigo panic attacks might put them off a little!

Very close to Alastair Reynolds' ideas in his Revelation Space books where you could trace a "window" out with your finger and that part of the hull would turn transparent.