Jet engineering is going holographic.
Passenger jet maker Airbus has created a Microsoft HoloLens app to train engineers and cabin crews.
The app lets you train from anywhere while wearing the standalone headset “via a holographic coach or an interactive, shared 3D virtual system,” according to a press release.
The app is part of Airbus’s greater plan to use Microsoft’s mixed reality technology for training, an Airbus spokesperson told VRScout.
“The result of the prototype is very positive and we are studying the roadmap for future development and implementation,” the spokesperson said.
Airbus, a Microsoft HoloLens partner since 2017, developed the software for its A350 XWB line of planes. The jets first took to the skies in 2013.
The company worked with Japan Airlines (JAL) to build the app over the course of 12 weeks, the spokesperson said.
JAL, which is also a Microsoft HoloLens partner, already had experience using the headset to train its own jet engineers. Microsoft demonstrated JAL’s app last year.
The Japanese airline purchased 31 A350s from Airbus in a deal worth as much as $9.5 billion in 2013. The future engineers and crews of the 18 A350s the airline launches in 2019 will be the first to use the app.
But training might not be the only thing Airbus uses the HoloLens for.
Airbus has also “collected more than 250 different use cases for the HoloLens” ranging from in-flight entertainment to communication, the spokesperson said.
Image Credit: Airbus
