Hasta La Gadget!

It won’t help you if your plane falls out of the sky and plummets 30,000 feet to the ground, but if you’re in an emergency landing or your plane just flops off the runway on takeoff, new airplane seats could save your life.

The seats, which will have to be retro-fitted to even some old commercial airliners after October 27th this year, are called 16G seats, and can withstand up to 16 times the force of gravity before being ripped from their shorings. Any plane introduced since 1988 already has them, but planes which were originally brought to market before that date will need them too. It’s a rather technical issue, to be sure, and its likely that any plane you travel in today is already so equipped.

More interesting are airplane airbags. These will be mounted into the lap belt and work just like those in cars, exploding into a safe cushion in case of a crash. They are calibrated not to deploy when the plane hits turbulence, though, so you shouldn’t have to worry about your tiny bottle of warm white wine being launched into your face.

The plebs won’t see the benefits, though. These belts will be fitted into first class seats, not cattle-class. This isn’t a way to kill off the lower castes, though, but a simple question of engineering: There just isn’t space top fit the belts into already tight seats, and the cushion of the seat in front provides protection anyway. The bags could make their way into seats in the emergency exit rows, the front seats and anywhere that a passenger may be flung into space. One more reason, apart from the legroom and lack of children, to choose the exit row.

We’re all for more safety in planes, though, which seem to have been dropping from the skies recently.

Product page [AmSafe]

New Planes Will Have Air Bags and Seats Less Apt to Rip Loose [NYT]
Photo: AmSafe

China’s Spring Airlines has a problem. It doesn’t have enough planes to meet demand for its flights. And while it has ordered more planes, it has another solution: standing flights: “for a lower price, passengers should be able to get on a plane like catching a bus, with no seat, no luggage consignment, no food, no water,” said Spring’s president Wang Zhenghua. It will still be, he insists, “very convenient.”

By herding passengers onto the plane like cattle, the airline will be able to squeeze on 40% more people. They will still have to wear safety belts, however, although it sounds like they’ll be strapped in somewhat uncomfortably. “It’s just like bar stools,” Spring’s Zhang Wuan told China’s CCTV.”The safety belt is the most important thing. It will still be fastened around the waist.”

This doesn’t actually sound too bad, especially if it means that seated passengers could also stand up and stretch their legs without being constantly harassed by flight attendants brutally wielding trolleys. The plan is still in the baby stages, though, and Spring is considering whether to submit the idea to China’s regulators.

Airline To Ask To Stand Passengers In Aisle [Sky]

Photo: lrargerich/Flickr

Remember the LightLane, the laser-projected personal bike lane concept that put a pair of do-not-cross lines alongside the night-rider? It is now real and running as a rather successful looking prototype.

The personal bike lane consists of strips of laser-light projected onto the asphalt. This provides a psychological barrier to other road users, hopefully giving the cyclist a little extra breathing space.

The video looks good, and the only real change in the trip from concept to reality is the color of the lasers — now Jedi-green instead of Darkside-red. It’s a little dimmer than we’d like, although the designers put a nice spin on this:

Preliminary contextual research shows its performance in real world situations is best when lighting conditions are at their worst, improving safety in the most critical situations.

Product page [LightLane]
See Also:

• LightLane: Personal Laser Bike Lane
• LightLane’s Lasers Make an Instant Bike Lane

The Bern Brentwood is a lightweight, low-profile bike helmet designed for “action sports”. This means that it isn’t the best option for everyday urban riding, as it favors protection over ventilation, but it doesn’t mean that the Brentwood lacks home comforts.

First is the removable peak (or visor) which, unlike the usual snap-on sunshades has a built-in sweatband. You can also opt for a plain, peak-free sweatband. There are channels in the sides for your specs or sunglasses, and in the winter the cold-weather kit incorporates headphones for iPod hookups.

It’s also a lot cooler looking than many helmets, which is for many just as important as keeping you head from splitting open like a watermelon on impact.

The helmet comes in sizes from S to XXXL, and costs $70.

Product page [Bern via Urban Velo]

While we like the thinking behind the BaubBike, a bicycle both modular in design and also fairly easy to build from standard square-section steel tubes, in practice it looks both dangerous and rather uncomfortable.

There’s a reason bike frames have been triangular for so long: stiffness. A steel frame will flex a lot, and the triangle is an inherently stable shape. Stiffer modern materials mean that today designers can experiment more, but if you’re using off the shelf tubing, a square is going to crumple in a collision.

Of course, looking at the Bauhaus-inspired frame by designer Michael Ubbesen Jakobsen, we’re not thinking about damage to the bike. We’re thinking about damage to ourselves: Check the iteration with a second saddle and cojones-splitting handle. Ouch. In fact, all the sharp corners in general make this one of the scariest-looking rides we’ve seen. Far better is the slot-in carrying-rack, but that still leaves a lot of sharp corners.

Unlike many concepts, there is a “buy” button on Jakobsen’s site, although right now it leads only to an e-mail contact form. If he does put it into production, he might consider adding a “sue me” button alongside it. Either that or just only sell the BauBike to men who are already wearing tight jeans and taking very hot baths in order to deprive their baby-hungry wives of vital proteins.

Product page [BauBike via Design Boom]