"Woosh" of air in plane lavatories.
 

Anybody ever feel the blast of air at your feet through the lav door vent as you flush the toilet? That's some serious vacuum power those airplane lavs have! :D

I also imagine this helps control the stink, too. :)

It's loud too! I always put my fingers to my ears after pressing the flush lever. I remember the first time I heard the noise I nearly jumped out of my skin!

I think this is because the cabin is pressurized and the holding tanks are not. Thus there is lots of airflow going down the chutte. You can test this. Next time you are on the ground use the facilities. The use them once at cruising altitude. Is the woosh the same?? :D

There is/was a significant problem with the A340-600 which introduced a new type of flush, which every time it was used woke up about 10 seat rows either side of the toilet. Not quite clear how this did not come out in the flight trials, I guess the testing crew aren't trying to sleep !

The normal routing of the cabin air supply as well is through the cabin, then out through the toilet units to exhaust. There are valves to control this but you will often feel the slight inward rush of air even when you just go in/out of the door. It prevents the odours getting back out into the cabin. It's a standard air con technique, gets used on trains and buses as well.

I don’t often use the restroom on a plane and tend to forget about this so I’ve been startled a few times by the "whoosh"!

Strangely, I find the whoosh of cold air you get around your feet quite refreshing - don't worry I'm getting therapy :D

According to an episode of Mythbusters, on the ground a typical airplane toilette generates 3 Psi and at altitude it does about 8 Psi. It is a pretty interesting episode if you can catch it.

Whatever happened to the rule that "passengers will please refrain from flushing while train is in the station"?

Those lyrics are disturbing. Not sure I've ever heard that song. :( :confused: :D

Has anyone stayed in the toilet seat while it was flushing? I always wondered what would happen. Seriously!

For a male I would assume it would make all those ENLARGEMENT spam emails redundant, or in my case even more redundant

I saw this on Discovery last night - interesting if a bit sensationalist ! :p

I heard that when Southwest first took delivery of the -700 series (their first experience with vac toilets) one of the standard FA gags was to unroll a roll of toilet paper down the aisle, then stick an end if it in the toilet. Upon flushing the toilet paper would scream past seated passengers at eye level at about mach 3.8 and vanish in a second or two.

The story goes that maintenance put the kabash on that gag after they grew quickly tired of servicing broken lavs.

I'm sure the resident germophobes will warn that this stirs up a cloud of germs and that you should avoid using vaccuum lavs altogether.

Sounds like we need a volunteer! Is anybody reading this on an airplane right know?? come on!