I was waiting for this one!

You owe me a new keyboard... :-D

Well said! Although learning what evolutionary marvels they are makes me feel a bit bad about using my deodorant and a lighter as a flamethrower to drop dozens of the little sods from the air above my food-waste bin...

It is honestly my first living memory. My Dad woke me up, age 4 years, 5 months to watch on our tiny black and white telly sometime in the small hours (in the UK I think it was 4am?). Several years later I earned a week of detentions at school for staying in the TV room to watch the first shuttle launch rather than going to German class. Very happy to have witnessed both events.

And you can prove this how?

Where is your analytical study?

The amount of time flown where this system could conceivably provide a better view for the pilot (that is one that allows him to perform his function more effectively) could well be a lot longer than when it does not. If it improves overall fleet safety then it's better.

This has nothing to do with 'marketing types' and 'blue sky thinkers'. Since the A380 Airbus have used a rigourous systems-engineering based approach to product design, starting with an analysis of the functions that the product is required to provide. This is a clear resut of the requirement to provide pilots visual information, i.e. the 'need' in you Patton argument

If it provides better information more often than it provides worse information compared with an alternative implementation then it's bought its way onto the product. If it's lighter or cheaper than the alternative then the weight and cost can be used in other systems or structure to improve overall safety or cost of ownership.

If someone comes up with an idea that has some merit it gets patented.

The aircraft industry is nothing like the software industry.

No. He did not. Details of execution are unimportant at the concept stage because they will be designed, analysed and tested to work at least as well as a transparency and last for thirty years in extremes of temperature, humidity and abuse.

The only thing that really counts in commercial aviation is price. Windows are heavy and expensive. Pilots are heavy and expensive. Once the industry can demonstrate safe operation without one or the other, they will be designed out.

Lack of popularity in the USA FTFY

...in the couple of months that have passed since the Microsoft/Nokia deal...

This device was developed by Nokia long before the buyout and is ready to go to market, the Nokia name still moves lots of product in the key market for this device: India. Get them hooked, in two years Windows phone OS will displace this temporary line (it's already started with the 8.1 hardware spec, which effectively permits any Android-capable hardware to run Windows Phone, on-screen buttons, no camera button etc...) Most consumers won't even know they're changing OS. Microsoft would be stupid to ditch this.

Wow! Nice to hear from the "horse's mouth", so to speak. Thank you. Funny that it now seems impossible for something to have been developed for a Windows mobile OS and only later ported to Android.

It was ported to Windows Mobile, not to Windows Phone

I have the developer preview of Windows Phone 8.1 on a couple of devices and the 'Swype-style' keyboard does seem to work quite well.

I used up my mod points tonight, and well you did post AC so it's kinda a waste. That said I agree with you. Why is it that my W8.1 tablet (ok its i5) boot up in a few seconds whereas my W8.1 phone takes over a minute? Same kernel.

Possibly. What is it made of? Without the full drawings and a week to think about it it's hard to say exactly what causes the effect.

Funny how that reminds me of the day job...

I know there are examples flying, albeit briefly, but not one I can get from Target that flies me to work and back all week before refuelling with a nuclear pill...

This is simple. You are making the air near the missile move at Mach 7.

The temperature of the air will be around ten times ambient, so 3000K, which is more or less the stochiometric temperature for hydrocarbon fuels.

Read this for details of the isentropic flow relationships.