When you fly do you like the view? Plane by plane, the ranking of window sizes
When it comes to fuselage width, and thus onboard space for passengers, Airbus has almost always [...]
When it comes to fuselage width, and thus of space on board for passengers, Airbus almost always gets the better of Airbus, considering similar types of aircraft in terms of capacity and flight range.
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But on the subject of window width, and thus of cabin brightness (assuming one travels during the day and not, as the Americans do, with all or most of the shades down even when it is sunny outside) and of the 'view' one has of the panorama below, the argument is completely reversed.
Flying in Italy and Europe, where jets of the A320 family are widespread, we all have present Airbus' own narrow-cabin aircraft windows-franchise windows..
Following the trend launched by rival Boeing with the 787, the European manufacturer has enlarged the portholes on its newest long-haul jets, the A330neo and A350, from what is found on the A340 and A330ceo.
But the windows mounted on the A320's neo have maintained the risible size of those that have distinguished ceos for 30 years: 22.9cm base by 31.2cm height. Not enough, Airbus' home portholes have. a shape tending toward the oval, which further reduces the glazed area compared to what would be obtained by simply multiplying base by height.
On the A320 family competitor, the Boeing 737 (in its various generations), the window measures 25.4cm base by 35.6cm height, dimensions that the Boeing 'baby' shares with the larger 727, 757, 767,747 (up to the -400 series). The Almost rectangular shape of the glass surface makes these portholes particularly scenic compared to those in the A320 family.
Aware that it is, in this field, a step below par, when Airbus found itself in the hands the A220 placed great emphasis on, among other things, the size of the aircraft's portholes, which are 28cm base by 40.6cm height: that is, 5cm base and more than 9 in height more than the A318, A319, A320 and A321 (ceo and neo). And the largest of all those installed on Airbus aircraft. However, it should not be forgotten that what is now called the A220 was designed by Canada's Bombardier (as 'CSseries'), becoming Airbus only following the acquisition of the North American manufacturer by the European one.
If you switch to the wide-body aircraft, the absolute ruler of the category (and of all passenger planes plying the skies today) is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, whose portholes (but perhaps they could be called 'windows') measure 27.2cm base by 46.7 height. The other 'greats' made in the USA, the Boeing 777 and the Boeing 747-8 follow at a considerable distance with 25.4cm base by 38.1cm height (With the Boeing 777X having windows with a larger glass area than the 16% compared to its predecessors 777-200 and 777-300.
At Airbus, the A330 neo and A350 are the most scenic aircraft, thanks to their portholes from 24.2cm base by 34.3cm height; a big leap forward from the 22.9cm by 31.3cm of A330ceo and A340 predecessors.
The trend of the industry is, therefore, to mount larger and larger windows, to give more 'breathing room' to the cabins of the future, thanks to materials such as carbon fibers that make fuselages increasingly 'elastic' and able to absorb the expansions and contractions resulting from cabin pressurization and depressurization.
Criterion that is likely to be expected for future commercial aircraft designs. The largest windows of all, however, mounted them an airplane from almost seventy years ago: the British turboprop Vickers Viscount, which had huge elliptical windows of 48cm base by 66cm height.
