Hey, we try our best to be as paranoid as the next guy, but we confess we were caught a little off guard by this one. US Department of Homeland Security folks announced yesterday that three American Airline passenger planes that frequent JFK airport are going to be set up with anti-missile systems in a test run to see if they'd be effective in helping to prevent a terrorist shooting down a jet with a shoulder-fired missile. It's step three in a government-mandated program to determine the suitability of such systems, which involve radar jammers to throw ground-fired missiles off course. The tests are to determine if the jamming system works in real-time conditions, and what sort of sustained costs of maintenance will be required, but all actual tests of the technology have already been performed on non-passenger jets, so it appears no actual missile-firing will be required. Oh come on, you know you were thinking it.

[Thanks, Brett]

While interference has long been the official explanation for why cellphones have been off-limits on airplanes, that hasn't stopped folks from speculating about other possible motivations behind the ban, with the latest bit of rumination on the subject coming to us from Mike Elgan of Computerworld. According to Elgan, one of the "real reasons" cellphones aren't allowed on flights is because of the airlines' fear of crowd control problems should phones be permitted, including the possibility that disputes could erupt among passengers as a result of rude behavior (a pretty safe bet). He also suggests that the airlines prefer to have passengers "ignorant" about problems on the ground during flights, although that issue doesn't seem to have stopped airlines from providing their own phones. Among other reasons, Elgan claims that the government wants to keep the ban in order to avoid the expense of having to test and certify every gadget for use on planes. Of course, there's also the possibility that cellphones on planes are just a really bad idea, but unfortunately we're not the ones that make these decisions.

[Via Slashdot]

Not that there was ever really much doubt that the rest of the commission would take Chairman Kevin Martin's lead, but now it's official: in-flight cellphones are a dead issue for the time being, as far as the FCC is concerned at least. The masters of the airwaves issued a statement today saying that they would not move forward with the proceedings which had been underway to revisit the current ban, citing "insufficient technical information on whether the use of cellular phones onboard aircraft may cause harmful interference to terrestrial networks." Of course the fact that thousands of people called the agency bitching and moaning about the likely cacophony of flying chatterboxes probably didn't help matters much, nor did the blasé attitude most of the major airlines seem to have about this. Hopeful sky talkers can take some solace in the commission's claim that it could reconsider its decision in the future pending "appropriate technical data," and if nothing else, AirCell's impending in-flight WiFi will likely enable VoIP sooner rather than later -- although voice services will initially be locked out. So no gabbing on the plane quite yet, which is just fine with us, because we prefer to be knocked out cold the whole flight anyway.

Just about everyone has been in line while waiting to board a plane, and perhaps only the acrophobic have wished it wouldn't take so freakin' long. Well, if you're in Denver, you may just be in luck. Dewbridge Airport Systems is claiming that its new robotic passenger bridge, dubbed the "AutoDocker," (no relation to the khakis-bot) will halve boarding and deplaning time by placing walkways at both the front and rear entrances on a plane. AutoDocker has been using its sensors and 3D object recognition abilities on doors of different types of aircraft starting this week on United Airlines flights coming in or out of Denver International Airport. We're pretty sure that if AutoDocker were to combine with that new Airbus emergency landing robot we spotted earlier this year, then all we'd need now is robotic air traffic controllers to complete the mechanization of air travel. Yes, that was a joke about flight attendants being robots.

[Via Robot Gossip]

In a breakthrough that's being touted as a potentially crushing blow to the noise-canceling headphone industry, researchers at MIT and Cambridge University have designed a unique passenger jet that reportedly sounds no louder than a washing machine from outside the confines of an airport. The so-called Silent Aircraft Initiative -- which began in November 2003 -- culminates today with the unveiling of a concept plane which is roughly the size of a Boeing 767, but takes its design cues from stealth military jets like the B-2 bomber, in that its fuselage has been "squished" to create an all-lifting body. Besides re-imagining the shape of traditional jumbo jets, the 40-person team also moved the engines from under the wings into the body of the plane itself, allowing them to take in air from the top of the wing and minimize the noise heard by people on the ground. The quieter design could result in airports being constructed much closer to residential areas, meaning that passengers would be able to start their two-hour wait at the security checkpoint that much more quickly. While specific noise-dampening elements of the airplane will probably be implemented into passenger jets in the near future, the SAI researchers believe we won't see the concept itself in flight until sometime around 2030 -- a little too late, in our opinion, as we're pretty sure that teleportation will completely obviate the need for air travel long before then.

[Via Reuters, illustration courtesy of CNET]

We'd really love to have affordable, ubiquitous internet access while airborne. Sadly, with the announcement two months ago of the unplugging of Connexion by Boeing by the end of the year, that day seems farther and farther away. Sure, ASiQ's (or Panasonic's) service may be coming up in the future, but we'd like to see something a little more immediate and a little less expensive. Luckily for us, Boeing will be making the last two and a half months of its service available for free -- so we'd like to tip our hats to our Seattle and Chicago-based friends for having such a classy exit strategy.

[Via MobileRead]

We like, totally forgot to register for the event of the year: the Airline Interior Expo Hamburg. Thankfully CNET's got some pictorial highlights of what it'll be like flying in the future; expect to see some serious tech on the 300 passenger superliner Airbus a350, like LED mood lighting, skyscape projectors, and an "infinity dome"; OnAir, an Airbus subsidiary, showed off their on-board GSM mini-cell (which will be rolled out on Air France in 2007); Digecor had their DigeplayerXT PMP with WiFi, 8-inch screen, 60GB drive, and credit card reader (of course); and our fav was the Contour "Solar" bed / seat / mobile office (pictured) with full entertainment system, power for your bag of devices, and massage feature. Suddenly killing hours in a highly pressurized frigid cabin miles above the Earth's surface seems kind of enticing. Kind of.