Aircraft interior lavatory
AssigneeB/E Aerospace, Inc.
InventorsDonald F. COOK, Liberty HARRINGTON, Philipp Steiner, Robert K. BRAUER, Trevor Skelly
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A lavatory for an aircraft cabin includes a wall having a forward wall portion disposed immediately aft of and substantially conforming to an exterior aft surface of an aircraft cabin structure, such as a passenger seat, that is substantially not flat in a vertical plane. The forward wall portion includes a forward projection over an aft portion of the adjacent passenger seat. The forward wall portion can define a secondary space in the interior lavatory space, which can provide an amenity stowage space, and can include design elements providing visual space.
Claims18
(canceled)
An aircraft lavatory for an aircraft, the aircraft lavatory comprising:
- an aft partition;
- and
- a forward partition, including
- a forward-extending upper portion,
- an aft-extending mid-portion, and
- a forward-extending lower portion, wherein
- the forward-extending upper portion, the aft-extending mid-portion, and the forward-extending lower portion combine to define a first aft-extending recess disposed between the forward-extending upper portion and the forward-extending lower portion, wherein the first aft-extending recess is configured to receive an aft-extending seat back of a forward-positioned passenger seat therein, and
- the forward partition further defines at least one second aft-extending recess proximate to a lower end of the forward partition, the at least one second aft-extending recess being configured to receive at least a portion of an aft-extending seat support of the forward-positioned passenger seat therein,
- wherein the forward partition is configured to accept loads from the aft-extending seat back;
- wherein the aft partition and forward partition define a lavatory space disposed therebetween.
A method for reducing a volume of unusable space in a cabin area of a passenger aircraft, comprising:
- replacing at least a previously-installed forward partition of a pre-existing aircraft lavatory in the cabin area of the passenger aircraft with a contoured forward partition, wherein
- an outward facing vertical surface of the previously-installed forward partition is substantially flat, and
- the contoured forward partition comprises
- at least one first recess configured to receive at least a portion of an upwardly and aftwardly inclined seat back of a passenger seat therein, and
- at least one second recess configured to receive at least a portion of an aft-extending seat support of the passenger seat therein;
- and
- installing the passenger seat in front of the contoured forward partition;
- wherein, upon installation,
- the at least one first recess receives at least a portion of the upwardly and aftwardly inclined seat back, and
- the second recess receives at least a portion of the aft-extending seat support,
- thereby reducing the volume of unusable space in the cabin area by reducing or eliminating gaps that existed between the previously-installed forward wall and the passenger seat.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.