Thread: About the flying loo

Pretty good article. Have spent way too much time changeing or unblocking the stinky things.

You first think you've made it in aviation when you fly an aircraft with buttons on the roof.

But when you fly an aircraft with a proper flushing (vacuum) toilet, you know you really have.


The KingAirs I used to fly in the RFDS had a small funnel under the seat that was linked to a tube that the expelled the air underneath. I never used it, not keen about picking up and using a funnel that someone else had peed into and which probably were never cleaned.

On our skiplanes in Antarctica, we couldn't use normal portable blue loo type toilets as the water would freeze. Instead, we had a square box (about one foot cubed) with a very secure lid, and this was used to pee into. When it got full after a week or so, it was taken down to station and emptied into the ocean. Sounds gross, but it didn't really stink in the cold. And the other business was done in a garbage bag, double bagged and your responsibility to get back to the station and put into the furnace.

Years ago a passenger used the aircon recycle induction grate in a Twin Otter we were operating out of Port Hedland as a toilet. I was very glad I had transferred to another base shortly before it occurred so I wasn't the unfortunate LAME that had to clean out the fowl mess

Blue ice build up on the drain from the forward Loo can ruin your day as a pilot, we lost a couple of JT8D's from B727's a few years ago, maybe a lot of years ago now!

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletter...90_115_116.pdf

Problem not restricted to fuselage mounted engines either, so watch out if the "blue stuff" hits the fan