Airbus Patents a VR Helmet That’ll Make You Forget You’re on a Plane

Airbus has filed a patent for helmets to provide “sensorial isolation.” US Patent Office

In a world where economy-class seats are getting thinner and lavatories are shrinking, any flight longer than an hour can feel like a traveling prison. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus is abetting the shift, but a recent patent filing shows it hasn’t forgotten about you, the passenger who actually has to sit in these miserable flying cells. It’s considering helmets that will let you forget you’re in an airplane at all.

Flying can be boring or stressful, which is why airlines provide music, movies and bad TV. The next step appears to be thoroughly immersing passengers in what they’re watching. “The helmet in which the passenger houses his/her head offers him/her sensorial isolation with regard to the external environment,” reads the patent filing.

The helmets feature headphones to provide music. You can watch movies (perhaps in 3D) on the “opto-electronic” screen or possibly through “image diffusion glasses.” If you want to get some work done, turn on the virtual keyboard, which appears on your tray, don a pair of motion capture gloves, and type away. The helmet could even pipe in different odors for an olfactory treat, and the whole thing would be nicely ventilated.

There would be various ways to wear the helmet, and the screen would go up and down. US Patent Office

The idea, definitely in a preliminary stage, is both horrifying and brilliant. Horrifying, because flying already stinks and the need to strap on a virtual reality helmet to make you forget just how hellish it is feels like a creepy add-on. Brilliant, because there’s no reason to expect economy class to become pleasant anytime soon, and the people packed into those thin, confining seats already look for ways to distract themselves. Thus, eye masks and noise-canceling headphones. Virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift promise great things. If people are getting excited about wearing headsets that let them play sweet games, why wouldn’t they want to use them while traveling?

Don’t expect the helmets anytime soon, though. This is merely a patent filing, and an Airbus rep says the company isn’t doing anything to bring the idea to market; it’s just protecting its IP. Beyond that, adding something like this would require navigating an American Ninja Warrior-level obstacle course of regulations governing absolutely everything about civil aviation. Then, airlines would have to want to buy them. Cost aside, the added weight (read: higher fuel bill) makes it a hard sell, especially since passengers can entertain themselves quite nicely with an iPad or, for the Luddites, a book.

If Airbus does bring this to market, it should include a setting to virtually transport yourself to first class.

Fig. 14 shows the “image diffusion glasses” that could be included with the helmet. You can see how air would circulate in Fig. 15, and the virtual keyboard in Fig. 16. US Patent Office