How Do Airplane Toilets Work?

by Willy Volk on

The typical home toilet is a bowl filled with water… as I imagine you know. When you flush that toilet, gravity pulls pulls the water down the pipes and into the the sewer system. Because gravity is a major player, your home toilet is called a gravity toilet.

However, an airplane can’t use a bowl filled with water — or, at least it can’t do it very conveniently. Every time the pilot hit turbulence, the lavatory would be covered in water.

Instead, modern airplane toilets are vacuum toilets. The flush works in two stages. First, a small quantity of water is is released. Second, a powerful — and often frightening-sounding — vacuum is activated for a few seconds. During that unsettling sucking sound, a valve in the sewer line opens, and the vacuum in the line sucks the contents out of the bowl and into a tank, which is later cleared out by a lavatory service cart.

[Photo: TheMachineStops]

Airline Lavatory Tips

by Willy Volk on

Over on the Poop Report, (“Your #1 Source, for Your #2 Business”), a flight attendant has provided several excellent airline lavatory tips. Though some of the tips seem, well, obvious (“Wear shoes”…I’m shuddering at the thought of the alternative), the tips are interesting, if not always feasible. In brief, she claims:

  • Do not touch anything.
  • Roll up long pants.
  • Not all lavs are created equal.
  • Time your washroom breaks carefully.
  • Use an unused pouch of coffee grounds — or full face masks — to prevent odors from attacking you.
  • Do not wait until the last minute to go.

These are reasonable, of course, though I have three more:

  1. Go before you board the plane.
  2. Stop playing in there.
  3. Wipe up the splashes after you make them.

[Via Jaunted; Photo: ACME-Nollmeyer]