Perhaps the only thing that would make the screaming babies and armrest wrestling of a long flight bearable: reclining your seat back all 5 degrees back and enjoying a nice cold draft beer.
Apparently Dutch airline KLM feels the same, because they recently announced plans to bring a beer tap onboard their flights, giving their passengers the pub experience at 35,000 feet. KLM initially planned to launch their beer tap service this month, but had to postpone it to next month in order to secure the necessary safety certificates.
Creating a beer tap that functions at high altitude was no easy task. The decreased air pressure means that traditional taps wouldn't work, instead only dispensing foam. Pressurized taps would work, but typically use CO2 canisters, which are banned on airplanes. Beer taps that use air pressure do exist, but were too large to fit inside a catering cart. To solve this problem, the engineers at Heineken decided to remove the cooling apparatus from a pressurized tap, and opted to turn the entire cart into a giant thermos to keep the beer kegs cold.
The resulting tap is small enough to use on an airplane, and apparently delivers the same taste as on the ground. Kudos to the Dutch for inventing a way to actually make us look forward to our boarding call.
Source: Fox News Travel
