"Air-security devices provide new level of comfort"

Friday, May 24, 2002

Air-security devices provide new level of comfort  
By BRAD HAWKINS
WFAA-TV 


Ever since the attacks on September 11, aviation engineers have been
looking for new ways to keep planes and passengers safer. 

Some of that new technology is on display this week in Fort Worth for
airline industry professionals. Inside booths at the Fort Worth
Convention Center, the people who sell the airlines inside amenities of
comfort and safety are showing off their latest and greatest. 

Among the devices shown are an airline seat airbag for low-impact
collisions, and different kinds of lights, in all different colors, to
illuminate passenger cabins effectively while soothing weary travelers. 
 
Trevor Lindley of Britain's Page Aerospace Limited said the altered
light can be beneficial to passengers. 
"Some people even say it helps with jet lag, because it affects the way
your brain reacts to certain conditions inside," Lindley said. 

In the airborne world since 9/11, old standbys such as the miniature
soft-drink cans can be viewed as modern weapons. 

A Japanese firm's product to roll with the flow removes bottles and cans
from the cabin, giving flight attendants a small bar-style nozzle to
fill glasses with a passenger's choice of beverage. 

Surveillance cameras are not cheap, but can give the cockpit crew
warning of trouble in the back. 

"Basically, in all commercial aviation, there's time when the pilot
needs to leave the cockpit for one reason or another, or a flight
attendant needs to enter that cockpit," Jamco America's Michael Yeates
said. "It's imperative that the pilot knows who's at the door." 

The research to redesign those cockpit doors started days after the
attacks. Boeing has sold 3,300 of the doors to the airlines, at a cost
of $39,000 each. 

"(The door) has to withstand shots from a 44 Magnum, or a
nine-millimeter handgun," Boeing's Celina Clawson said. "(or) b rute
force, someone actually trying to break down the door." 

Fort Worth-based American Airlines will start installing the new doors
in maintenance bases over the summer. 

"If this gives the flying passenger, as well the cabin attendants, an
additional sense of security, then we've done our job," Clawson said. 


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