[starpilot]

Interesting wishlist, but that's all it is. What he doesn't list is the bump in airfare he's willing to accept for all of the proposed changes. Active noise cancellation and better screens don't come cheap, and most of the compromises he cites were decided out of economy, not because aeronautical engineers are thoughtless. It seems like the most practical thing for him to do would be to pony up and pay for business class.

[mbell]

'Active Noise Canceling' in an open space isn't a reality. You can do it, in an anechoic chamber, with a massive array of microphones and an equally large number of speakers, and even then, you can often only target a particular area. It is completely irrational for a space like an airplane. His mention of a couple of speakers above your head, is particularly laughable. In an open space the best your going to do is sound masking, which is nothing more than shaped white noise to drown out the other sounds, aircraft engines already do a pretty good job of this with the exception that their frequency spectrum can be a bit annoying.

On the other hand, you can do structural vibration cancellation to reduce outside (engine, air) noise entering the cabin. This would be done using sensors/actuators on the inner structure of the cabin. A proposal was out to do this for the A380 but I don't know if it was actually included in the final design or not.

Additional points that caused a snicker:

> laser / ultrasonic zoning of noise, which I've seen some night clubs use.

I've read some research into creating noise barriers by using extremely focused sound, but in laboratories, certainly not in night clubs. Most notably the goal is to create a focused area of very high pressure using a phased array of sources. This pressure levels needed to create a 'barrier' would likely be damaging to a human ear entering the area. I have no idea where the ultrasonic nor laser idea is coming from.

> Noise suppression of the flush in the bathroom/restroom. I think the volume is too high to be safe.

The SPL level of an airplane toilet flush is a long ways away from being damaging. Annoying? sure. Damaging? not unless you have a condition that results in highly sensitive ear drums.

[jostmey]

Agreed. It is annoying when people come up with "radical" solutions to re-vamp an industry simply by ignoring any and all technical constraints.

The situation is akin to the stereotypical boss who knows nothing about computers throwing out silly ideas to his or her hired programmers.

[sliverstorm]

To frame it with something people are a little more familiar with-

"I'm going to revolutionize the automobile industry by offering a car that gets 4x the fuel economy, by doubling the efficiency of the engine and cutting chassis weight in half. The car will be zero emissions, get excellent safety ratings, and offer best-in-class comfort.

Really, I don't understand why no one has thought of this before."

[pasbesoin]

The engine noise serves well as "white noise" to attenuate the cramped nature of the cabin. I think active cancellation would make it feel yet more crowded, as the non-periodic sounds would stand forth more.

We're better served by noise cancelling head phones or ear plugs (the $0.50 solution).

A more important noise factor, in my opinion, is keeping all the yammerheads off their phones. Give them text messaging, if you have to, but no half hour endurance contests listening to half a conversation.