Aircraft

Pagani highlights the open sky in Airbus business jet cabin

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Airbus and Pagani team on the Infinito cabin
Airbus and Pagani team on the Infinito cabin
Airbus and Pagani team on the Infinito cabin
Airbus' ACJ319 "Elegance" cabin is quite attractive itself, but we can see how Pagani has helped raise the bar
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If you're currently crammed into an uncomfortable airline coach seat, hanging onto the Internet by the thread of dodgy, overpriced in-air Wi-Fi, you might want to just bookmark this article for later. It'll only frustrate and enrage you. Otherwise, read on to find out how Airbus' already luxe, spacious ACJ319neo corporate jet has improved that much more with help from the Italian hypercar experts at Pagani. Imagine yourself cruising high above the congested earth below, sipping champagne and letting your eyes wander between the flat-panel TV and views of the blue sky above.

Airbus Corporate Jets' ACJ320 business jet family already enjoys spacious, comfortable cabin designs. Airbus uses the family's wide, tall cabin to create open spaces loaded with amenities like bedrooms, conference/dining areas, wraparound sofas and entertainment systems. These jets are more like comfy apartments than any aircraft the average traveler is accustomed to.

Airbus' ACJ319 "Elegance" cabin is quite attractive itself, but we can see how Pagani has helped raise the bar

To experiment with an even more dynamic ACJ319neo cabin design, Airbus partnered up with Pagani to create the Infinito (infinity in Italian). Both companies showed something special in Geneva this past March, Pagani with its Huayra Roadster and Airbus with the Pop.Up modular flying car concept created with Italdesign, and last week the Swiss city hosted their announcement of the new cabin collaboration.

Pagani's design team was tasked with creating the initial Infinito design, and Airbus' team applied its aircraft-specific expertise to massage that vision into a finished cockpit that reflects the over-the-top worlds of both corporate jets and seven-figure sports cars.

With open-air views of the sky fresh on its mind from its latest roadster, Pagani helped create a different open-air experience in the Infinito cabin. The sky ceiling stretches over top passengers displaying a live feed of the sky above. Should staring at the sky become boring, other images can also be displayed on the ceiling.

Passengers will keep comfy and entertained below that strip of blue sky, enjoying entertainment from the comfort of a specially prepared lounge. The sofa looks like a series of sports car seats, complete with quilted leather and carbon fiber frames. That high-back sofa stands in front of a long console and large wall-mounted television.

Airbus and Pagani team on the Infinito cabin

A carbon-fiber framed wall separates the lounge from the conference/dining area and can switch from transparent to opaque at the push of a button. The conference area includes a table with seating for six and a few scattered single seats for more personal work and relaxation. The seats feature the same carbon-fiber, quilted-leather styling as the sofa, albeit with an armchair structure.

The carbon fiber and quilted leather clearly tie in with Pagani cars, as do the soft-leather carpets split by wood aisles. Sculpted metal hardware and LED mood lighting further embellish the design, and curvaceous valences and surfaces bring a hint of nature into the fold.

Airbus and Pagani presented the Infinito cabin design at last week's European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBASE).

Source: Airbus

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5 comments
Nairda
One day we will look back on this and wonder what the big deal was about having a flying caravan with a glass roof.
In the mean time, well done Airbus.
Bob
While this looks nice, you may not always want to see what is around you. I fly often and usually try to get a window seat but what I have seen over the years is a bit unnerving. While aircraft can fly safely in crowded airspace, I have viewed several near misses that were much too close. My last night flight was on a small commuter jet that was scheduled to fly through a storm front. I looked at the radar on my phone as I got on board and told the copilot that a new storm was building about every five minutes along our planned route and maybe they should cancel the flight. He said they had radar and it would be no problem. I shut off my phone and got on the plane. During the flight there was almost constant lightning around the plane and we changed course many times. As we neared our destination I could see out the window that they were trying to fly through a small gap between two rapidly building thunderstorms. I warned the stewardess to sit down and buckle up because it was going to get really bad. Just as she did, we hit the worst turbulence I had ever been through. We made a rough landing a couple minutes later. As I got off the plane, the young pilot and copilot were visibly shaken and the stewardess thanked me for warning her about the turbulence before we hit it. It turns out that we had just missed a tornado which was hitting a town just outside of the airport. I'm not sure I want that window seat anymore.
Fritz
What you see? Above there is only sky... I like more the Illusin/Tubolev sky café nose view.
Douglas Bennett Rogers
At night, you could turn the lights out and see the stars!
Ralf Biernacki
The other posters all miss a crucial detail: there is no glass ceiling. It is not apparent in photographs, but the ceiling is covered by a display screen, showing, to quote the article: ". . .a live feed of the sky above. . ." It would be immediately obvious to anyone actually on board, just as it would be obvious to you if the windshield in your car were replaced with a TV showing a feed of the road. I'd much rather have the small but real windows that Pagani boarded up---presumably because they would show the fake ceiling in a bad light, pun intended.