dannyh said:
Has anyone had experiance in cleaning airplanes? Any and all info. would be a big help. I tried doing a search on this bbs and had no luck.
I used to work a very busy airport line service in my teens perhaps before pressure washers came out.
Lemme tell ya, a teenager can inflict a lot of damage on a plane if careless.
I washed and waxed close to 500 planes in my 3 year career.
We used a soap with a brand name called Brulen or Brulin. Blue and yellow can....and boy did it cut grease particularly on the underbelly and the landing gear.
I don't know about it's enviro quality...but it would melt the skin if you didn't wear gloves and glasses.
I think a responsible PW owner/operator would do quite well at plane washing and....my life experience suggests the risk of damage to the plane is much less than hand washing......and cut the time to perhaps an 1/8 of a brush washed plane.
I once washed a WW2, C-117 flying box car modified for fighting forest fires. It was covered with dirt, dust, oil and fire retardant slurry....called borate at the time.
At 17 yo, I negotiated my price....a ride on a fire mission.
I did....took me three days...a Friday Saturday and Sunday.
Tuesday we took off to Montana and dropped one load in a box canyon.
It scared the sh1t outta me and would never do it again.
I'd rather was the plane and get paid cash! Even today.