What makes airplane toilets so ‘extraordinary’? Flight experts explain why they suck — in a good way
NY Post
Airplane toilets suck … literally.
Airplane toilets are anything but a simple touch-and-flush operation. Flight experts wowed travelers after revealing the “extraordinary” amount of engineering that goes into allowing people to safely do their business at 40,000 feet.
In general, the airplane setting takes the most mundane tasks — from heating water to, well, using the lavatory — to new heights of difficulty due to safety concerns.
“Everything is twice as hard on a plane as on the ground,” Al St. Germain, an aviation industry consultant who’s worked for airlines including Delta and United, told CNN.
Flushing airplane toilets with water is prohibited due to aircraft weight restrictions — not to mention that the water would slosh out of the bowl upon hitting turbulence.
Fortunately, scientists devised a Plan B: Air. That’s right, waste matter is sucked out of the plane using a differential pressure (rather than the passive siphon system employed by most terrestrial toilets) in a system patented by James Kemper in 1975.
It was a flashback to NYC in the 1990s.
The killing of Iran’s tyrannical Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday in an unprecedented joint military attack by the US and Israel called Operation Epic Fury set off widespread celebrations from Iranians around the world — as President Trump said it would give them their “greatest chance” to “take back the country.” Meanwhile, in Iran, a lack of internet has made it impossible for Iranians to easily communicate daily conditions. Over a period of three days, with limited VPN connection, an eyewitness currently in Tehran — who, for her safety, is concealing her identity — shared her account of life under a country in the midst of battle with The Post’s Natasha Pearlman.
After exactly 120 years, the curtain has fallen on the Theater District institution Barbetta, with the iconic Italian restaurant having served its final course Friday night.