Spike Aerospace is developing a supersonic business jet. The company announced that instead of conventional windows, it will use curved, super-thin digital displays. The S-512 will reportedly cost $80 million when it becomes available in 2018.
The jet will use micro-cameras to create panoramic views on the curved displays in real time. This has several advantages - you can display whatever you want on these displays, it eliminates glares, it reduces the aircraft's weight, part count and drag and will also simplify the aircraft construction and integrity.
According to USA Today, Spike is likely to use OLED panels. It makes sense - this is a high-end aircraft and OLED TVs are thinner and lighter than LCDs. In addition, by 2018 the price premium over LCDs will hopefully be far lower than today (or even non-existent).
OLEDs may also be used in the future for aircraft lighting. Only a couple of week ago, Universal Display and IDD Aerospace demonstrated low-energy shelf phosphorescent OLED lighting prototype targeted at aircraft interiors.
