Why Don't Aircraft Toilets Have Windows?
 

I have always wondered...

Why Don't Aircraft Toilets Have Windows?

Cheers:ok:

BB

Privacy. Frosted glass is too heavy.

Some do. In BA, premium washrooms do have windows. When you slide the lock, the glass changes to frosted magically. It must have an LCD film in it. Very swish.

But when I am changing into my pyjamas before pushback I always lower the blind - I really am suspicious of technology and it doesn't seem to "frost" on the ground. I'd hate to be ejected from my flight for inadvertantly flashing my netherbits at the world at large.......

So you can't sneak out of the window without paying. ;)

It also discourages people from hanging around more than strictly necessary to enjoy the view.

And a fine site you will look on a dark and stormy wet winters night when the aircraft aborts TO and evacuates you! Running over the muddy grass, in the pouring rain, in your panjams and slippers! Often wondered why people change before and not after TO.

Why Don't Aircraft Toilets Have Windows?
 

They do On Etihad.

I always get a laugh when I go in to find the previous person had pulled down the window blind obviously worried that someone outside may be able to see them sitting on the throne.

Save money on production? Perhaps there is some saving on a plain panel, rather than the window and it's fittings.

Oooh, a loo with a view. If there was a shelf of magazines in there, I'd probably try booking it.

Im pretty sure its a Boeing/Airbus thing. I've never seen a Boeing aircraft lavatory with windows, but every Airbus lavatory has had a window.

Not every Airbus lavatory has windows - the one I was on last night didn't. There was supposed to have been a complaint from an American woman on Concord that somebody could look in on her while she was on the loo. that was when they were over the Atlantic.....

VC10 does! :ok:

yes but they are are outside !!

Because the Neighbours were complaining of too many scantily clad people using the loo.

Never mind the frosted/clear glass debate, why don't the windows open so you can clear the previous toilet user's reasty fumes from the air ?

R

To stop pigeons coming on board....

hi,

Two aircraft that I have been on have windows in some of the toilets;

(1) BA 747 in First class - the forwardmost toilet has a window)
(2) Finnair A340- business class toilests had windows ( VS A340 did not IIRC)

Regards

TBS

slightly changing the subject a bit... still on the window topic though,

why is there at least 1 row with a plain wall and not a window, notibaly the 737-800 or i think the 767 (ba anyway) in front of the wing, is it a structural thing on an aircraft?

That gap in the windows is where the air conditioning ducting runs up to the over head panels from the air cycle machine just forward of the gear:ok:

If you ever sit there you can clearly hear the air rushing through the duct.

But, to get back on topic, why didn't Boeing route the duct through one of the toilets?

Is the gap in the windows (forward of the wing) for protection in the event of an uncontained engine failure?

I'd imagine its just down to the position of the packs as to why the ducting is routed this way and better to have no window rather then extra weight of more ducting routing it through one of the toilets!Anyway imagine us men having a window to look out when where in the toilet,god help the poor woman using it after us!!

Your talking complete boloxs rafo
http://www.smartcockpit.com/data/pdf...nditioning.pdf

Because they want you to focus on your aim, not the view.

No windows in the lavatories on the JetBlue A320s that I flew on last week.

"Your talking complete boloxs rafo"

So where exactly is the air con routed on the 738 smudgecat??

I think all airline toilets may have windows but not to allow passengers to gaze out at the clouds.
I recently sat in row one of an aircraft. A lady went into the forward lavatory. I was reading the inflight magazine but I was waiting for her to come out.
I was engrossed in what I was reading so I wasn't watching what was going on.
After 10 minutes I got up and tried to open the lavatory door. It was locked so I thought the lady was still inside.
I realised she had been in for a while and as soon as a cabin crew member came to the front of the aircraft I pointed this out to him.
He too believed she was still in the lavatory and lifted the receiver of the phone above the cabin crew seats.
He dialled a number and listened intently. He then went to the lock on the lavatory door and appeared to flip it up, presumably revealing some kind of very small window.
He peered in and realised there was no-one inside. The door had somehow locked itself when the lady came out.
As I was reading I had not noticed her go past my seat.
Presumably the flight attendant's use of the phone means they must also be able to listen to what's going on in the toilets.

Examples of loos with a view

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22.../holiday32.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2166/...f024484810.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/98/24...f342715803.jpg

AA
 

Some American Airlines B707`s fwd toilets (A + B) had a window.
More of a small porthole...but you could see out ok.

As you see described above, there are a range of options which have been fitted over the years for window/no window, independent of type or operator. Because what an airline gets from the aircraft manufacturer is essentially a standard empty aluminium tube, with windows where the manufacturer saw fit. Airlines then each do their own internal arrangement of seats, galleys and toilets to meet their particular requirements and standards, also changing these with time, and windows in the toilets comes an awful long way down the priorities. Obviously in widebodies there are mid-cabin toilet units where you can't have a window anyway.

Boeing have a bad habit of taking sometimes one, sometimes several, window positions abeam the wing leading edge, as described above to route their various technical services, leading to a window-seat-with-no-window arrangement; Airbus seem to have managed to avoid this. Likewise on some rear-engned jets you can find one or more windowless rows at the back.

THe Hawker Siddeley 748 as configured by British Airways some years ago had a rear toilet with not only a window, but the emergency exit in there as well.

Not on a jet, where big problems tend to go out of the exhaust anyway, but on propeller planes you are on the right lines, and you will find on these that not only is there no window directly in the plane of the propellers, but if you look at the fuselage from the outside at this point you may see strengthening strips attached to the fuselage. When propeller de-icing is in use (the black strips along the edges of the propeller blades), tyically in cold, wet clouds, the ice will be slung off the props by centrifugal force and hit the fuselage just here, actually quite hard, a bit disconcerting for someone at a window (but a good sound for the aircrew to hear it working). No window there also reduced prop noise in the cabin a bit.

Showing my age
 

The old Bristol Britannia's had little round windows as I recall.

On the flight deck have a cctv network installed post 9/11 so that we can 'see' what is happening in there - and in the cabin crew bunk areas - not to mention the lie flat bed areas. The cameras can be switched (in full colour) onto the displays in front of us at our command. It helps pass the nighttime hours on longhaul.

The phone call you saw was the cabin crew member phoning the flight crew to ask them to tell them what was happening using the cctv, not the cabin crew member listening in. We are specially vetted as flight crew to have acess to possibly very personal information, much as the operators of the latest 'see through' scanners in the sirports are. Cabincrew are not so authorised.

I hope that puts everyones mind at rest.

Big Brother rules

TopBunk - is that also the case on short-haul jets such as the 738 and A320?

Eastern Airways Saab 2000 aircraft have a little window IIRC

RTG!

They used to polish the Aluminium toilet bowl surround to a mirror finish on the VIP VC10 when it did Royals, I often wondered if The Queen used to appreciate the fact the top of the toilet was like a mirror. :cool:

I don't believe HM Queen actually ever needs to go to the loo. And Never on an aeroplane.

Flew once on a DC-6 with a large window in the bog. Very nice too - and so was the flight !!

Suzeman

NutLose; Got to correct you they were brand new toilets that is why they shone. Can't do it now as they are grey plastic- no class!

Nope they are stainless steel with a PTFE coating!