Aircraft lavatory
The intense cold of high altitude required crews to wear many layers of heavy clothing, and the pilot might have to take violent evasive action with little warning causing the bucket to tip over sending waste in all directions.
Male glider pilots undertaking extended soaring flights may wear an external catheter that either drains into a collection bag or is connected to tubing that dumps the urine to the outside.
If the latter approach is used, care must be taken when designing the system so that the stream of urine does not make contact with other parts of the aircraft, where it may eventually cause corrosion.
Recently, many regional airlines in North America have commenced the trend of eliminating the refilling of hand-washing basin potable water tanks in order to reduce weight, fuel consumption, and service costs.
Lavatories on modern aircraft are very expensive, and include features that have required substantial upfront and long term investments by the world's airlines to design and develop.
Airlines and aircraft manufacturers continually research ways to improve lavatory design technology to increase functionality and reduce costs of production, while maintaining adequate levels of safety, hygiene, and comfort.
[6] Some of the advantages of vacuum flush technology systems, from aircraft designers' perspective, is the increased safety attributes through less risk of corrosive waste spill over into recesses around the lavatories which can be difficult to protect.
Additionally, vacuum flush systems are considered to be less odor-inducing and substantially lighter in weight, saving fuel by reducing the need to carry large reserves of blue recirculating water.
[9] Waste bins are fitted with halon fire-extinguishing bottles and "oxygen-smothering flapper lids", and the toilets equipped with smoke detectors.
At airports with higher volumes of passenger traffic, lavatory agents usually use trucks adapted with large tanks on board that do not need to be emptied as often, often colloquially called honey wagons.
