Preventive De-icing

oreana123

Active Member
I dispatch an aircraft from a northwest gateway every Monday at about 1830 local. This aircraft (usually an A-300) is received on the previous Saturday AM. Since the aircarft is on the ground for 2 days, it goes through a couple of thaw freeze cycles, often daytime temps are above freezing and nightime temps plummet.

Our de-ice dispenser truck is relatively new. It holds 1500 gallons of type 1 de-ice fluid. I have seen the de-ice truck almost emptied from over an hour of solid de-icing, trying to remove contamination from an Airbus popsical. The station manager tells me that de-ice fluid costs $18/gallon, due to costs of materials, application and mtx on the truck. Let's say 1000gallons @$18= OMG!!!

I devised a plan to try to avoid this kind of expenditure. In co-operation with my gateway manager, we pre-emptively applied a coat of type 1 to our aircraft today. The weather forecast is for snow showers over the next 2 days. Daytime highs will be in the mid 30-s friend, so the freeze/thaw cycle will definitely occur. Before I left the gateway today, it was snowing, and the snow was a kind of sticky pellet that occurs in this area. Attaching itself to any exposed material, this snow is very difficult to remove during a quick turn, and if left for the weekend-well you know.

As a control for this experiment, the fuselage forward of the cabin door was left uncoated. The cost was 100 gallons of heated de-ice fluid type 1. I will report the results on Monday night, but it looks as if the base coat of de-ice fluid is going to make for an easy de-ice procedure on next Monday night.
 

airbusfxr

Well-Known Member
UPS has unlimited money, why save a penny? I would just go by the AOM, GOM, etc etc and let the gateway people worry about it. SDF, ANC, RFD etc etc pours glycol by the hundred thousand gallons, if you save the company any, you will only get a letter (or fired) if something were to go wrong.
 

Lineandinitial

Legio patria nostra
oreana,
Good luck and thanks for trying to help.
UPS doesn'y use anymore Glycol than any other Major airline.
Believe it or not, they know how to do many things well.
 

oreana123

Active Member
Airbusfxr, I know that I have stuck my neck out. I can retire if it comes to that. I have notified the important people of what I did. And the weather has been as predicted: it snowed for hours on Saturday AM and PM, Sunday temps rose to 40 degrees friend, and tonight deep freeze.

Lineandinitial, I don't think you are necessarily correct for two reasons. 1. the crew that does the de-icing here are subcontracted workers. The overturn of workers is constant, it'll be a new guy every week. Even if the subcontractor has a good attitude, he will probably find a new job asap. It is on me to make sure the aircraft is de-iced correctly, and I do visual and tactile inspections prior to departure, but the actual de-ice nozzle man is new at his job. 2. Fedex has a different approach to de-icing. They have a deice machine that BOTH blows hot air and dispenses de-ice fluids. One of the major consumers of de-ice fluid is the technique of sweeping the melted snow off of the wing after melting it. Fedex avoids much of this fluid sweeping by blowing hot air.

Many airports have designated areas for de-icing that involves recovery of fluids. Our airport has holding ponds that allow added enzymes to break down the de-ice fluid, afterwards it goes into our water system.
 

oreana123

Active Member
Well I dispatched my Airbus this evening. The aircraft required an additional 100 gallons of type 1 fluid. This kind of situation historically required 800-1000 total gallons to resolve, savings: $9-12 K. Less impact on the environment as well.

It was apparent that this technique was going to work from the first, the falling snow never accumulated and what did stay on the horizontal surfaces slid off the back by the inboard flaps and by the elevators.
 

Pacman

Active Member
oreana123,
Initiative and not being afraid to think could save millions. You have probably invited a bunch of IE people to your gateway. Better get out the petty cash and buy some clipboards for them in advance of the visit.
Good thinking hope your idea saves time, money, and that you are recognized.
 

over9five

Moderator
Staff member
Strange that UPS has never tried this before. Highway crews started pre-treating roads a couple years ago.

Maybe they just needed someone to get the ball rolling. Nothing wrong with saving $9-12K once in a while!
 
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