Teague
Seattle-based Teague got more attention than it bargained for last spring when it announced the launch of its new AirShield technology .
“ I don ’ t think we expected quite the reception we got from the airlines and suppliers and the general public ,” said Anthony Harcup , the senior director for airline experience at the Seattle design shop .
“ We ’ ve been engaged fairly heavily . We have a launch airline ,” he said . “ It ’ s gone really well .”
The AirShield is perhaps the simplest of the proposed fixes to reduce COVID-19 spread in the skies . It takes advantage of the existing aircraft infrastructure to create a column of air that keeps each passenger ’ s breath from spreading outside their immediate area .
The spark for the effort was a well-documented super-spreader event in China , Harcup said . In that case , one infected person sitting next to a restaurant ’ s air conditioner infected a host of other diners , as the cool air carried the virus particles he exhaled far across the room .
AirShield prevents that from happening . Any virus-infected water droplets a passenger might exhale would be pushed down to the floor , where the existing intakes would suck them into HEPA filters that take out more than 99.9 percent of contaminants every two to three minutes .
“ It ’ s effectively an opportunity to optimize the airflow , turning it into the most-hygienic airflow you can have for passenger experience ,” he said .
Teague has done computer modeling on the way the air flows and set up simulated A320 and 737 interiors . The simulator testing confirmed what the computer models projected .
The biggest benefit to airlines , he said , is the low cost and simplicity . How simple ? “ A decent , Tier-1 airline using their own ground staff could do three or four ( planes ) overnight . That ’ s where we arrived as a napkin-based calculation ,” he said .
“ Airlines are really on their knees ,” Harcup said . “ They need to have something that they can fit quickly and buy in volume . They can buy a volume of these off the shelf and fix them themselves .”
16 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS