THIS is your captain speaking, your plane is about to become invisible!

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus wants to build a passenger plane with a completely transparent fuselage, German news magazine Der Spiegel has reported.

At the push of a button the captain would a send an electrical pulse through a hi-tech ceramic skin making the main body of the plane see-through.

The extraordinary design would allow travellers to look down on cities and landscapes thousands of feet below or gaze up at the heavens, giving them the sensation of floating unassisted through the sky.

While the proposal might seem far-fetched, it is one of a number of plans being considered by engineers at the European aerospace giant.

"Passengers in an airplane like this would experience flight in a completely new way," Airbus' head of research and technology, Axel Krein, told Der Spiegel.

Other developments envisaged by Mr Krein's team include an aircraft skin that can repair itself in the event of cracks or breaches and streamline engines that are embedded in the plane's fuselage rather than attached to its wings.

"We told our engineers to give their imaginations free rein. What emerged were completely realistic visions of flight in the year 2050," Mr Krein said.

"Our people are grounded in reality, after all. And most of the necessary technology already exists."