You may soon be able to look up at the starry sky on some flights
Soon you will be able to kick back, relax, and stare at a blue, cloud-filled sky on future Boeing airplane flights.
Well, it's not an actual blue sky, but a Planetarium-esque projection of one displayed onto the ceiling.
In an effort to make flights more comfortable for its passengers, Boeing is testing a new lighting and projection system on its planes. Projections on the ceiling will reflect the time of a day (a starry sky for nightime and puffy clouds for a day trip) and accent lighting will offer some zen mood lighting.
"Airline customers want to set their cabins apart from the competition and give passengers a positive experience that they'll remember and want to have again and again," Bret Jenson, who handles engineering communications for Boeing, wrote in an email to Tech Insider. "So, airlines are looking to Boeing to provide a cabin that offers that 'wow' factor. This lighting concept is part of that effort."
Other potential enhancements include projections on the walls or bulkheads (the partitions separating cabins) that display information about the trip and estimated time of arrival, as well as automated doors between cabins that raise from floor to ceiling when someone wants to walk through the plane.
Jensen noted that the technology will be tailored to the specific airline to showcase their branding and general lighting preferences. For example, an airline could elect to have projections that show nature scenes.
Boeing is currently testing different kinds of hardware and has not settled on what kind of lighting or projection system they will use in their planes. Since the lighting system is still in the prototype phase, it is unclear when we can expect to see this on our next flight.