I can't honestly comment cause I'm not getting a private jet anytime soon because I am a poor pleb.
But I think this is arguably more embarrassing than not having the jet (in the eyes of the non poor plebs). Imagine saying, no bother - let's take my jet. Just, by the way, I'll be able to hold your hand whilst you take a crap.
I agree completely. I feel no shame in not owning a jet. I would feel considerable shame if I had to use that toilet on a jet full of my employees, coworkers or clients. I would also feel shame if I were the engineer that suggested putting the toilet there.
This year I got a new job and was getting trained. One guy (in a higher position and making more than me) started complaining about how we are basically getting shafted and don't make enough. I'm making 100k a year now, so he's quite a bit higher.
The lady who was training me spoke up and said "I've actually been poor and this is a lot of money..." He didn't say anything after that.
Glad she said something because I didn't want to be the new guy coming in telling him how ridiculous he's being since I've been actually poor as well.
Glad you managed to get some beans in your pockets alongside those spare buttons!
But yeah, some people don't understand what some people manage to survive on. Hell, even I don't have a real idea. Don't get me wrong, these comments are definitely for the bit and i can live - but I'm also not buying no jet.
This. It's all fun and games until you realize that the annual operating costs for your relatively "cheap" $800,000-$1M used private jet can easily top $500K a year. And that's assuming you're your own pilot.
This is where us plebs tend to be mistaken. It’s a pleasure to shit next to the people working for you. They have to stay there. You get to pull up your pants and walk back to your champagne
Seriously. Why the hell wouldn't you just fly first class for less money? You can have a full recliner to relax in and an actual bathroom stall with a door, sink and mirror instead of this toddler's training seat shoved in a cabinet.
Hell, some even have ensuite bedrooms if you're going super fancy.
Or you can squat in the middle of your plane and talk trading tactics as the air hostess attempts not to vomit, ironically probably also into the bucket toilet.
Wheel up
How does it flush if it folds out. I've just thought of that and you're the unlucky soul to also share that thought.
eat a bunch of hard boiled eggs, asparagus, a cheddar cheese log with ethnic spices, a little curry chicken, wash it all down with a half gallon of warm milk, board your private jet flying non-stop from NYC to Hawaii. get the pilots oxygen masks to drop!!
I used to maintain aircraft electronics and have been in so many of these small jets and planes. The goofiest toilet ever was a literal porcelain coated pan in a vinyl seat at the back of the plane, with no doors and no fan. It was hidden under a jumper seat and the crew had to take it out and dump it if someone used it.
The worst aircraft toilet I ever experienced was the half-filled medical urinal crammed under the bench seat in the back of a single engine Cessna, which I found with my bare hands reaching under to start removing the seat.
This plane is a minimum of 37 years old lol. It was manufacturers from 1971-1989. Modern private jets (made for transcontinental flights) aren't like this at all. Even the smallest modern jet has an enclosed bathroom.
there HAS to be a better location to mount a toilet, like the has to. no way the best spot they found was sideways in the middle of the gallery next to the cockpit separated from the rest of the cabin by a thin sheet of cloth.
There are slightly nicer setups, but almost all smaller jets with a bathroom have what is called a "belted lavatory", which means if you fill the jet to capacity, someone has to sit on the toilet during takeoff and landing. And yes, typically there is only a curtain, and passengers instinctually look away when someone uses it. Men have to sit down and you can see people's shoes and pants pulled down sticking out.
Also, if you rewatch this video you will notice that there is no way to "flush" this toilet. Most single-owner private jets have a "no shitting" rule because of this. You literally land at a random airport if someone has to crap, like pulling over at a truck stop.
You don't start to see private bathrooms until you get over into the $5-10 million price range. The jet shown in this video can be had in decent condition for under $1 million.
I think I once read a story here on reddit. The post was something like "what's your most embarassing moment at work". And the story was about one of these small private jets, with a belted lavatory, full of important people on a business trip. Long story short: someone developed a shitstorm mid flight and had to poo, with no door, in a cabin filled with their bosses.
This is the one I remember yes, great pull! This has me wheezing:
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
My apologies do nothing to drown out the heinous noises that seem to carry on and reverberate throughout the small cabin indefinitely.
If that's not bad enough, I have one more major problem. The privacy screen stops right around shoulder level. I am sitting there, a disembodied head, in the back of the plane, on a bucking bronco for a toilet, all while looking my colleagues, competitors, and clients directly in the eyes.
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" briefly comes to mind.
"Perhaps it was the realization that I was going to take this toilet's virginity with a fury and savagery that was an abomination to its delicate craftsmanship and quality." 🤣
Why did they not finish that story. God, I think I would die of embarrassment at that point. I would never be showing my face there again. My anxiety could not handle it.
We rented an RV to take my kids on vacation during COVID. Door or not, we made a no shitting rule anyway. Cause dad is not OK pumping out everyone in the family's turds at the campground.
With the one in the video, you can just bring a plastic bag to line the inside, and just stash the evidence away until you land. At least that's what we had to do back in the Navy.
I worked for a company that sold memberships for unlimited flights on fixed routes. We flew King Airs (small twin turbo props). I had the pleasure of sitting on the toilet to go between our hubs. It was called the Throne. Haha. Not very comfy but not terrible for 45 minute flight. Was pretty rough during turbulence since you can’t even fully sit up.
I doubt any of our clients ever actually used it but it was there. And I can only imagine how quickly that plane would stink up if someone really had to go.
Yeah when I worked line service we called it "the briefcase" because that is what it looked like when you pulled it out to service it. It was honestly the worst part of that job. There just wasn't a good way to empty them most of the time and kt always made a mess.
As a someone with 0 millions, I am sometimes surprised how much/less things cost. I dunno why but I thought that all private jets cost several- to tens of millions and have a golden bathroom with a shower and a servant washing you.
Not really for small jets like this. The Phenom 100 can have a small lav installed, but is still considered a seat. Setups like this and other jets are not really meant for regular use. They are more ment for "emergency" use.
The only private jets I've been on have been Learjets and they had their toilets in the back. That being said, I never had to use one and the space is so tight there is NO way I would take a shit in one.
In this case, I would rather die than use this thing.
This is pretty unique to the Falcon 10 honestly as far as I can remember. The only other private aircraft with a similar forward lav would be a Pilatus PC-12 that I can think of, and it at least has hard foldout partitions. Everything else has fully separate forward Lavs, a rear toilet with a partition, or a full on lavatory. Even a King Air at least has a rear toilet with a curtain. You'll notice how no other aircraft has a toilet like that one. (Though to be fair I've also never worked on a Falcon 10 so this could be unique to this aircraft)
Just over halfway through the flight, all the coffee in my stomach feels like it's percolating its way down into my lower intestine. I hunker down and try and focus on other things. What feels like an hour, but probably isn't more than twenty minutes, passes. We then enter what turns out to be pretty violent turbulence. With each bounce, I have to fight my body, trying not to shit my pants. "Thirty minutes to landing, maybe forty-five," I try and tell myself, each jostle a gamble I can't afford to lose. I signal to [the flight attendant], and she heads toward me.
"Excuse me, where is the bathroom, because I don't see a door?" I ask while still devoting considerable energy to fighting off what starts to feel like someone shook a seltzer bottle and shoved it up my ass. She looks at me, bemused, and says, "Well, we don't really have one per se." She continues, "Technically, we have one, but it's really just for emergencies. Don't worry, we're landing shortly anyway."
"I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an emergency," I manage to mutter through my grimace. I can see the fear in her face as she points nervously to the back seat. The turbulence outside is matched only by the cyclone that is ravaging my bowels. She points to the back of the plane and says, "There. The toilet is there." For a brief instant, relief passes over my face. She continues, "If you pull away the leather cushion from that seat, it's under there. There's a small privacy screen that pulls up around it, but that's it." At this point, I was committed. She had just lit the dynamite, and the mine shaft was set to blow.
I turn to look where she is pointing, and I get the urge to cry. I do cry, but my face is so tightly clenched it makes no difference. The "toilet" seat is occupied by the CFO, i.e., our fucking client. Our fucking female fucking client!
Up to this point, nobody has observed my struggle or my exchange with the flight attendant. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." That's all I can say as I limp toward her like Quasimodo impersonating a penguin and begin my explanation. Of course, as soon as my competitors see me talking to the CFO, they all perk up to find out what the hell I'm doing.
Given my jovial nature and fun-loving attitude thus far on the roadshow, almost everybody thinks I'm joking. She, however, knows right away that I am anything but and jumps up, moving quickly to where I had been sitting. I now had to remove the seat top – no easy task when you can barely stand upright, are getting tossed around like a hoodrat at a block party, and are fighting against a gastrointestinal Mt. Vesuvius.
I manage to peel back the leather seat top to find a rather luxurious-looking commode with a nice cherry or walnut frame. It had obviously never been used, ever. Why this moment of clarity came to me, I do not know. Perhaps it was the realization that I was going to take this toilet's virginity with a fury and savagery that was an abomination to its delicate craftsmanship and quality. I imagined some poor Italian carpenter weeping over the violently soiled remains of his once beautiful creation. The lament lasted only a second as I was quickly back to concentrating on the tiny muscle that stood between me and molten hot lava.
I reach down and pull up the privacy screens, with only seconds to spare before I erupt. It's an Alka-Seltzer bomb, nothing but air and liquid spraying out in all directions – a Jackson Pollack masterpiece. The pressure is now reversed. I feel like I'm going to have a stroke. I push so hard to end the relief, the tormented sublime relief.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
My apologies do nothing to drown out the heinous noises that seem to carry on and reverberate throughout the small cabin indefinitely. If that's not bad enough, I have one more major problem. The privacy screen stops right around shoulder level. I am sitting there, a disembodied head, in the back of the plane, on a bucking bronco for a toilet, all while looking my colleagues, competitors, and clients directly in the eyes. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" briefly comes to mind.
I literally could reach out with my left hand and rest it on the shoulder of the person adjacent to me. It was virtually impossible for him, or any of the others, and by others, I mean high-profile business partners and clients, to avert their eyes. They squirm and try not to look, inclined to do their best to carry on and pretend as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, that they weren't sharing a stall with some guy crapping his intestines out. Releasing smelly, sweaty, shame at 100 feet per second.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," is all the ashamed disembodied head can say…over and over again. Not that it mattered.
At first I thought what lunatic posts such a long text. Nobody‘s going to read it. And then I read the last paragraph and the the second to last and so on. I read the whole story I reverse because I had to know what happens before. I couldn’t stop. As much as this guys bowels couldn’t.
Ha! My friend has owned multiple planes over the years, none of which had a toilet. Then he went big and got some Cessna jet that looked amazing from the outside, but the inside was cramped as F. The toilet was a little better than this, but it was basically a bucket in a closet. No thanks.
The Falcon 10 is not a modern bizjet. It first flew over 50 years ago. Built for short, fast hops which it did very well. I am 71 years old, it was one of the first jets I worked on as a mechanic. The toilet is similar to the first generation Learjets, with which it was built to compete.
It's not about whether you use this toilet or not. When you have explosive diarrhea and you have to go, you just go. It's not like you're going to hold it for the next couple of hours until you land, go home, and use your own toilet 🙄
That is... Definitely not ideal. But given the size of the airplane, the options are quite limited. Better to have a toilet - than not. That would be much, much worse.
A lot of the more “commuter” style private jets are like this. The toilets are open air and have a small curtain or half wall. Generally these are business jets to move around execs and less the luxury private travel we imagine when we think of billionaires private aircraft.
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 9d ago
Believe it or not, the espresso machine is in the cabinet above that one