Toilets!

[Pin Head]

Hi
Happy with how the vacuum toilet works but was there was an alternative type. I remember on the 767 there was kind of like a motor driven flush with less of a rush of air and more water involved to clean and push the muck. How does that one work please?
Kind regards
Pin

[STBYRUD]

Sort of a semi-closed loop system, each toilet has its own waste tank that is precharged with the famous blue juice. Its flushed with fresh water from the tanks, then the bowl prefilled with recirculated (lightly filtered) liquid from the waste tank. Just as disgusting as it sounds...

[oldpax]

Better than sitting on an "Elsan"in turbulence with"Rakasan"splashing round your nether regions!(Shack man)
On the shackelton on occasions the elsan would be (slowly)poured down a flare shute.

[Pin Head]

Awesome guys. So there must be multiple toilet servicing points with this old fashioned type if toilet? I guess it's the type where if the flap is not flapping you can see down nearly into the tanks? :)

[Willit Run]

We have both types in our fleet. Hands down, I will take the vacuum type every time.
The recirculated blue juice is so stinky. If your a man, there ain't no room for your feet whilst standing up and tends to increase the splatter factor hence, mess!

After 14 hours with a blue juice special, you grow to appreciate the vacuum type. much more pleasant on the olfactory system.

[riff_raff]

One of the most difficult engineering challenges faced by NASA was the design of the toilet used on the Space Shuttle and ISS. The liquid urine wastes were collected, filtered and recycled as potable water. The solid wastes were collected by vacuum and deposited against the sides of a cylindrical receptacle liner by a spinning impeller. This prevented the solid waste from floating back into the crew cabin.

One thing that every astronaut notes when first entering a space station (like Mir or ISS) is the odor of sewage.

[underfire]

You ought to see the design for the toilet on a saturation diving system habitat meant to be on the bottom at 800 feet..

[riff_raff]

I was told by an engineer that did design of galleys/lavatories at Boeing for many years that the aircraft delivered to the Aussie airlines always had extra lavatories because the Aussies were big beer drinkers.

Can't confirm if it was actually true, but it sounds like it could be legit.

[wanabee777]

We were dispatched from SYD to LAX with one of the three lavatory waste tanks inop on a 777.

About 4 hours remaining in the flight, a few lavatories started shutting down because the two functioning waste tanks were reaching their capacity.

Luckily, we made it to LAX without further incident, however, it almost caused us to divert into HNL to have the lav tanks serviced.

Talk about an expensive pee break!