Expert Opinion
AIN Blog: Technology at the Speed of Light, Or Pretty Darned Close
   The new Lumin cabin management systems uses a combination of wireless and fiber-optic technologies to increase bandwidth to 80 gigabits per second, enough to allow each passenger to simultaneously access the Internet or view movies.
The new Lumin cabin management systems uses a combination of wireless and fiber-optic technologies to increase bandwidth to 80 gigabits per second, enough to allow each passenger to simultaneously access the Internet or view movies.

At this year’s NBAA convention in Orlando, new cabin technology was holding court, eliciting a chuckle from a day-one visitor who remarked, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, “This stuff will probably be outdated by the time the show ends.”

That might have been an exaggeration, but not by much. In the world of green cabin completion, designers, engineers and the owners begin spec’ing a cabin a year before a Boeing Business Jet, for example, actually rolls into the hangar where the cabin components will be installed. And even if all goes smoothly, it will be another eight to twelve months before the finished airplane is delivered to the owner, depending on the complexity of the project and any work-order changes. So it should come as no surprise if the technology originally called for in the cabin has been bypassed by new technology before customer delivery.