Daher unveiled a cabin upgrade planned for the TBM900 and 930 fleet that adds an optional, enclosable lavatory in a four-seat configuration of the normally six-seat, single-engined turboprop.
The upgrade is in development as Daher has stretched the endurance of the TBM series to several hours. The improved range, however, created a need for a private lavatory compartment.
“We’re not in the 1950s. We have some options wherever we go. So we need to have some comfort and comfort is privacy, and privacy is you have to have access and a way to go to the loo,” says Nicholas Chabbert, Daher’s head of the aviation business unit.
In addition to the toilet installation, Daher has spent the last 18 months working with suppliers to design a privacy wall that unfolds from an arm-rest of the side-facing lavatory seat, Chabbert says. The challenge was to minimize storage space for the divider while providing maximum privacy in the passenger compartment.
An aircraft equipped with the “Elite” privacy interior can be reconfigured quickly to a six-seat layout without a toilet, he says. Daher is continuing to develop a version of the privacy compartment for retrofitting older aircraft.
