Why are premium class seats designed to provide an as flat as possible bed and the appropriate ambience for fine dining? asks Contour Aerospace joint managing director Ian Plummer.
Passengers on a five-hour flight that departs in the morning might have other things in mind than relaxation or culinary pleasures.
There is a whole new consumer generation who have grown up with computer games and who could be eager to dive into virtual worlds above the clouds, according to Peter Tennent of Factorydesign. Contour asked the London consultancy to come up with a seat concept focused on computer gaming.
The aim of the "Not For Wimps" project was not to develop a final seat design but to "push the boundaries" and develop ideas that might find their way into future products, says Plummer.
One of those ideas is to connect several seats in a gaming class to form a local network. A more sober conclusion of the 1960s-inspired design study has been that not all premium class seats need, for example, sophisticated recline mechanisms, which could lead to weight savings on widebody aircraft that are only employed on medium-haul routes.
Source: Flight Daily News
