If the wireless Internet connection during your holiday flight seems more reliable than it used to, you

could have the humble potato (nhn nhng, thp km to thank! "hile ma#or airlines offer in$flight "i$%i on many flights, the signal strength can be spotty (kh&ng '(ng ')u, ch*p chn ! +irlines and aircraft makers have been striving to improve this with the growing use of wireless devices and the number of people who don,t want to be disconnected, even -.,/// feet up! 0ngineers at 1hicago$based 2oeing 1o! used sacks (bao t3i, ti of potatoes as stand$ins for passengers as they worked to eliminate weak spots in in$flight wireless signals! 4hey needed full planes to get accurate results during signal testing, but they couldn,t ask people to sit motionless for days while data was gathered! 54hat,s where potatoes come into the picture,5 2oeing spokesman +dam 4ischler said! It turns out that potatoes 6 because of their water content and chemistry 6 absorb and reflect radio wave signals much the same way as the human body does, making them suitable substitutes for airline passengers! 5It,s a testament to the ingenuity of these engineers! 4hey didn,t go in with potatoes as the plan,5 4ischler said! 7ecapping the serendipitous path that led to better onboard wireless, 4ischler said a member of the research team stumbled across an article in the 8ournal of %ood 9cience describing research in which :. vegetables and fruits were evaluated for their dielectric properties, or the way they transmit electric force without conduction! Its conclusions led the 2oeing researchers to wonder if potatoes might serve #ust as well as humans during their own signal testing! ;espite some skepticism, they ended up buying </,/// pounds of them! =ideo and photos of the work, which started in <//>, show a decommissioned airplane loaded with row upon row of potato sacks that look like large, lumpy passengers! 4he sacks sit eerily still in the seats as the engineers collect data on the strength of wireless signals in various spots! 4he 2oeing engineers added some complicated statistical analysis and the result was a proprietary system for fine tuning Internet signals so they would be strong and reliable wherever a laptop was used on a plane! 2oeing says the system also ensures "i$%i signals won,t interfere with the plane,s sensitive navigation and communications e?uipment! 5%rom a safety standpoint, you want to know what the peak signals are, what,s the strongest signal one of our communications and navigation systems might see from a laptop or :./ laptops or -./ laptops,5 2oeing engineer ;ennis @ewis eAplains in a video!

In a nod to the humor in using a tuber to solve a high$tech problem, researchers dubbed the pro#ect 9ynthetic Bersonnel Csing ;ialectic 9ubstitution, or 9BC;9! 4he company says better "i$%i signals can be found already on three 2oeing aircraft models flown by ma#or airlinesD EEE, EFE$G and the EGE ;reamliner!