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Various media have recently reported on an interesting new prototype invention Tatarenko Vladimir Nikolaevich – the detachable aeroplane cabin.

The cabin is designed to detach itself at any time necessary during a flight, allowing the passengers to land safely via parachutes automatically deployed from the ejected capsule. Given the nature of the “soft” landing, the idea is that the aeroplane could then land on water if necessary.

You can view the promotional video, here:

Our thoughts

Without meaning to sound unduly complacent, air travel these days is quite simply so safe that, other than the psychological benefits to nervous passengers, it is difficult to see how the detachable cabin is really necessary. We are heavily in favour of radical designs to make our roads a safer place, and of course tweaks to aeroplane design that ensure they are safer still. However, the lengths this design goes to, and the questionable nature of its effectiveness, in any event, leaves us somewhat unconvinced.

In addition, given the airtight and precise structural engineering of aeroplanes, the more technically-minded might well argue that any aeroplane that includes a design allowing it to voluntarily break up may be more susceptible to failure in any event.

You’d also have to be exceptionally unlucky, but there’s also the possibility that the parachute might gently land you on top of an oxygen-starved mountain peak, or in Perfect Storm seas.

We’ll keep an eye out, but we’d guess this won’t be the new normal any time soon…