NOW MULTI-SCREEN, EVEN ALOFT 

How often when heading home during long jet flights have you been looking forward to seeing the inflight movie only to find, seconds after it starts, that you had seen the same flick the week before. Why can't airplanes have multi-screen theatres that are now the rage? Theatres where you can select from a choice of three, six or even ten movies.

Well, now you can. At least on some British Airways routes. Yes, dear traveller this and more is just about to enter the entertainment picture in the sky.

Now, the latest in travel entertainment. Each seat has a small television screen in its back, connected to a video selection control that lets passengers take their choice of six channels of TV, no longer tied to the tyranny of flight crew moods.

This is the premiere, (well not really the first, some private jets and a few Middle East aircraft have had something similar) for the ordinary fare-paying passenger in the European skies. A fourmonth flight-testing of the system is now underway on some British Airways economy flights. These screens for individual viewing at any time, are part of the new first class enhanced service on British Airways beginning March 1, 1989.

The high resolution, three inch liquid crystal screen are designed for an aircraft's varying light levels, allows selection of six different movie productions, including sports, music, news, popular tv shows, feature films and children's programs. Sound arrives via electronic headsets so nearby passengers are not disturbed. Shows rotate approximately every four hours depending on flight duration. Total change of show packages will occur every month.

A similar version has just been patented by Sony in Europe (Patent #277 014 if you're interested). This system works like satellite television in apartment buildings. They have a bank of receivers (VCRs in the aircraft), each playing a different movie. A cable, under the floor of the aircraft, carries all the signals and is designed to "leak" weak FM signals throughout the aircraft. Now built into each seat, along with the individual TV, an antennae picks up signals and carries them to the screen. You select the show you desire. This way a wide selection of films is constantly available to all. You watch when you want to. Not when some flight attendant decides to put you under boob tube control. The same set can carry hi-fi sound and video games and you can even operate both simultaneously.

It doesn't stop there. Sony says the same system could also incorporate a word processor, along with a floppy disc drive and printer. Passengers could work on corporate reports or compose letters to send back home before they even land. As they leave the plane they would receive a floppy disc containing their data, or a paper print-out if they had so instructed the seat-back unit computer.

Coming next: Transmission of such data via modem or fax from the plane while en route. Leaves more time to do something worthwhile at your destination instead of pushing all that paper there.

This new inflight entertainment in Britsh Airways aircraft is called Airvision and is a co-production between Philips Electronics and Warner Bros.

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