Hello

well, the question is in the title. A cargo compartment's height is 1,70 metres. A LD3-container's inner height
is even less, about 1,63metres and aren't the toilets built into these LD3-containers, e.g. in Lufthansa's A340-600?
But there are a couple of youtube videos where adults stand upright, my guess is about 1,8metres.

Do mechanics actually remove part of the floor/beams or how does it work?

Those toilets are not installed inside the containers, obviously. They are installed where a part of the cargo hold would have been. You can have LD3-size crew rest containers attached to them that are sitting in the cargo hold when needed.


Gruß, masi1157

The L-1011 lower galley/lower lounge (PSA) had lowered floor beams compared to the normal C-1 or C-2 cargo compartments.

One thing to remember is in a cargo bin area of the belly you have the container handling system installed in the floor. that takes up at least 6-8" (15-20mm). So if you were to put a permanent crew structure or passenger lav in that space the floor can be lower in the bilge area. There is a lot of room under the cargo bin floor. Too have a flat floor with a good size pallet area they have to leave a lot of empty space in the bilge.

Dalmd88 wrote:

One thing to remember is in a cargo bin area of the belly you have the container handling system installed in the floor. that takes up at least 6-8" (15-20mm). So if you were to put a permanent crew structure or passenger lav in that space the floor can be lower in the bilge area. There is a lot of room under the cargo bin floor. Too have a flat floor with a good size pallet area they have to leave a lot of empty space in the bilge.

That brings up a question I've had. Let's say you're starting a flight at an airport with a remote stand and it is just pouring rain, with the passengers all getting rather wet while boarding and all the luggage getting wet while being loaded into the hold, etc. Is there a path for all that water to go, like a boat? Does it just eventually make it to the airplane's bilge and gets valved overboard?

Apols for going a bit off topic.

ClipperYankee wrote:

Dalmd88 wrote:

One thing to remember is in a cargo bin area of the belly you have the container handling system installed in the floor. that takes up at least 6-8" (15-20mm). So if you were to put a permanent crew structure or passenger lav in that space the floor can be lower in the bilge area. There is a lot of room under the cargo bin floor. Too have a flat floor with a good size pallet area they have to leave a lot of empty space in the bilge.

That brings up a question I've had. Let's say you're starting a flight at an airport with a remote stand and it is just pouring rain, with the passengers all getting rather wet while boarding and all the luggage getting wet while being loaded into the hold, etc. Is there a path for all that water to go, like a boat? Does it just eventually make it to the airplane's bilge and gets valved overboard?

Apols for going a bit off topic.

There are indeed bilges and drains just like on a boat. The drain masts are heated so the water doesn't freeze.

Dalmd88 wrote:

One thing to remember is in a cargo bin area of the belly you have the container handling system installed in the floor. that takes up at least 6-8" (15-20mm). So if you were to put a permanent crew structure or passenger lav in that space the floor can be lower in the bilge area. There is a lot of room under the cargo bin floor. Too have a flat floor with a good size pallet area they have to leave a lot of empty space in the bilge.

15-20cm, not mm. Big difference there

ClipperYankee wrote:

Is there a path for all that water to go, like a boat? Does it just eventually make it to the airplane's bilge and gets valved overboard?

Oddly enough, an excellent picture appeared this week of the bilge drains. They are open on the ground and close with increased cabin pressure.

On the few A330-200s and the DLH A340-600s with lower deck toilets the floor structure was modified to create the necessary standing height. One reason why this feature was not popular was that although there were design schemes (on the A330 at least) to insert a structural plug to bring the floor level back to the standard cargo compartment height the added complexity and downtime of having to rip out the existing toilets, replace the stair opening with seats and install extra main cabin toilets with water and waste connections to compensate for the removal of the lower deck ones was always going to be too much hassle. AFAIK DLH never envisaged converting their -600s back to regular lower deck configuration.

DL_Mech wrote:

Oddly enough, an excellent picture appeared this week of the bilge drains. They are open on the ground and close with increased cabin pressure.

I see the drain masts. What are the buttons, for lack of a better word, along the keel?

Also a good view of LED landing lights on the Max.

They are the bilge drains. The drain masts are for things like lav and galley sinks usually.