Why are potties called"blue rooms"?

[stepwilk]

I did a quick search and didn't come up with an easy answer, so let me ask you folk:

Why are airliner potties to this day called "blue rooms" in the trade? I believe the term goes back to DC-3 days, if not earlier. Were the originals all painted blue?

[sycamore]

Stephen, have you ever flown in an aircraft with an `Elsan`,,before the plumbing became the norm..?The air was `blue`,and it was partly filled with blue disinfectant....A place not to linger longer....

[Speedbird48]

Stephen,

Think about Blue fluid and turbulence with the potty at the very back of a DC3!!! (and many others of that era until main drainage came to the aviation world.)

Brian.

[A30yoyo]

Don't chunks of 'blue ice' fall off landing aircraft?

[stepwilk]

Not buyin' it, yet...

At the age of 75, having flown DC-3s, I probably have been in an airplane with whatever Elsan means...electrically sanitary?

[Brian Abraham]

Stephan, a gentleman of your background not knowing what an Elsan is?

About Eslan (http://www.elsan.co.uk/about-elsan.html)

Even a feature on the WWII Lancaster, company began in 1924. Contained a blue disinfectant liquid as stated by sycamore, and in the link.

[happybiker]

Is this a bog standard thread! :ooh:

[stepwilk]

Admittedly, I did a search for "Elsan," and found that it's a totally Euro, mainly Brit, concept and product. it's as unfamiliar to Americans as Marmite and Vegamite, though you're right, perhaps I should be more worldly and be aware of it.

I remember maybe 20 years ago driving around England on an assignment for a major U.S. travel magazine and being bewildered by the number of hand-scrawled signs I saw for "boot sales." How could so many people be interested in buying large shoes that "boot sales" would be so popular?

I finally realized that it meant people were selling used crap out of the trunks of their cars. In the U. S., the same signs would say "yard sales," and a Brit might wonder why so many Americans were selling their lawns.

[Brian Abraham]

Tis OK Stephan, I remember going into the PX at Pensacola as a 20 something Aussie in 1966 and asking the lass behind the counter at the stationary department for a rubber. Education comes slowly, and sometimes not at all.

[JEM60]

STEPWILK. I hope you found out the difference betweem the US 'Fanny', and the English one..........I was on a AA treble 7 recently with a very nice American girl on her first trip out of country to England. She asked me about the difference between American nuances and British ones, and was very pleased I pointed out THAT difference. She was travelling in a group that really needed information!!.

[philbky]

Most Brits, seeing a Yard Sale sign, wouldn't link a yard to a lawn. A "back yard" in the UK normally relates to an area at the back of a house (particularly the older terraced houses) enclosed by a wall, with stone or concrete formng the surface and, in the majority of cases, substituting for a garden.

Back to Elsan. To my knowledge (and I had a number of dealings with Elsan in the 1990s) they have been supplying their sanitation products to airlines and air forces around the world since the 1930s (other brands are available :))

Having said that, sanitation products for toilets on public transport generally turn the water blue. There are two reasons for this. The first is to show the sanitisation has taken place.

The second is that blue is associated with fresh, clean, water in the public mind (the result of years of marketing by manufacturers around the world, considering fresh, clean water is clear!). More importantly other colours don't really work in water. Anything with a green or yellow shade could be aligned to urine, red to blood and other shades do not give the clarity to the water that blue does.

[stepwilk]

Most Brits, seeing a Yard Sale sign, wouldn't link a yard to a lawn. A "back yard" in the UK normally relates to an area at the back of a house (particularly the older terraced houses) enclosed by a wall, with stone or concrete formng the surface and, in the majority of cases, substituting for a garden.

Okay okay okay, they'd wonder why so many Americans were selling an area at the back of the house enclosed by a wall, substituting for a garden.

Jeez.

[philbky]

Wow stepwilk, do you always react like that when someone points out an error?

[stepwilk]

Yes, absolutely. The lack of a sense of humo[u]r drives me right up the wall.

[philbky]

Not quite sure where humour comes into this. I just made a comment to point out that to Brits a yard is different to what Americans call a yard, so your surmise regarding lawns wouldn't work.

The separation by a common language does have its funny side such as when my CEO, when leaving a dinner for 15 extremely important and influential Floridians at a reasonably early hour as he had to catch a flight very early next day, asked me, knowing I am an habitual early riser, to "knock him up in the morning".

With very quizzical looks flashing around the table, I quickly explained the difference in meaning the Atlantic had brought between the two cultures.

[A30yoyo]

Stepwilk...Did you write up the phenomenon of car-boot sales in England? It started in theThatcher period, I think , mid-eighties(blame her!)I was addicted to them from about 87-93....now I don't like 'em much....still hear of people buying for £10 and selling for £1000 but it's less common and harder work. I bought a beautiful 24inch Pan Am litho tin DC-7C toy from a dealer for £75 and I know he paid £5 for it at a 'boot'!!

[stepwilk]

The humor comes into it because I was simply trying to make a slight joke--a Yank parallel to "boot sale"--and you deconstructed it, which can be done to pretty much any joke ever told.

"A dog walked into a bar and asked the bartender..."

"In fact dogs can't talk, stepwilk, so it would have been impossible for him to ask for anything."

My surmise about talking dogs therefore wouldn't work either.

[merlinxx]

Ooo night shifts with Rakasan & Coke for breakfast:mad:

[Shackman]

.....and back to Elsan.

After many years flying with the Elsan 'down the back', and the once smelled never forgotten odour, I seem to remember that it started out at the beginning of the sortie one colour (Blue?) and turned green once 'visited' - although it could have been the other way round. Certainly the craftily applied bunt at the most suitable time was an early introduction for new crew members, although rapid avoiding action when your captain was disposing of a large amount of Honkers Stew does lead to a lot of s**t coming your way (but although I can't remember whether his flying suit had turned blue or green the air in the cockpit was most definitely BLUE).

[philbky]

Stepwilk, everyone knows dogs can't talk but, in your yard sale quip, you took it as a given that Brits understand that, in the US, a yard is the term for a domestic garden and would include a lawn - which the vast majority don't. Thus the "humour" would have been lost on most Brits whilst the talking dog joke would still work.

Interesting that you pick up on that and totally ignore the fact I'd tried to give you some information to help answer your original question.

[teeteringhead]

Shared an office with an exchange USAF guy once and asked to borrow a rubber ......... I learnt about language from that.

Discovered that the cousins are confused about "stones" (as in 14 lbs) too ....

[Mechta]

Two stories both told to me as true:



Two Halifax bomber pilots had a bet that the Halifax could not be looped. The winner discovered that it could, but unfortunately went negative G at the top, thus emptying the contents of the Elsan all over the roof, rapidly followed by the rest of the interior, as positive G was restored. The ground crew had to be bribed with large amounts of beer and cigarettes to do the necessary.
A male British officer on a course at NATO headquarters was asked by a female American officer at what time they had to go for breakfast in the morning. The British officer responded, 'Don't worry, I'll knock you up in the morning'. The female US officer put a complaint in, resulting in the British officer being disciplined and sent on a course to learn the nuances of 'American English'.

[Blacksheep]

Memories of "Racasan Dan, the sanitary man" and a recommendation - never shake hands with a man with blue fingernails.

The RAF Andovers had a toilet with a footpump operated flush. On the VVIP Mk2 version, the toilet was chrome-plated but otherwise identical. On one occasion, with HM's sister as the only passenger, the Loadmaster was summoned to the prescence and HRH led him to the Blue Room. She pointed to the footpump and asked him to press it for her, so he gave it a good hard stamp - at which a jet of blue liquid shot straight up his trouser leg. "Yes. It did that when I pressed it, too." said HRH. We replaced the gland seal that very night.

Well, that's one way to write up a cabin defect. :)