Question on aircraft detailing

B

bullmastiff

New Member
My little brother is interested in starting a airplane wash/detailing business? I told him I will pay for all his startup for a cut!!! Anybody have any expereince doing it, or at least somekind of idea what equipment is needed? THnaks
 
A hose, a bucket, a rag, some soap
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How old is he?
 
Don't forget the insurance, did I mention insurance, maybe a bond or something like that. This is more of a legal question ... R2F ... help me out here.

Jim
 
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As usual there are places to go:

http://www.topoftheline.com/airdetman1.html

http://www.globalair.com/discussions/phillip/article~/msgID=641

http://www.wingwaxers.com/index2.html

<a href="ttp://www.jetstreamproducts.com/acdetailmanual.htm" target="_blank">ttp://www.jetstreamproducts.com/acdetailmanual.htm</a>

The main question is how old and how knowledgable is your brother? Most people won't let just anybody touch their airplane. An uneducated person can do some serious damage.

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He is 21, and instrument rated........I understand you can wash a plane with soap, water, and a bucket.....From what I hear at the FBO, EPA does not like aircraft washed off like a car, especially on the tarmac. Someone mentioned "dry wash", it seems to be nothing but chemicals, wiped on and off
 
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He is 21, and instrument rated........I understand you can wash a plane with soap, water, and a bucket.....From what I hear at the FBO, EPA does not like aircraft washed off like a car, especially on the tarmac. Someone mentioned "dry wash", it seems to be nothing but chemicals, wiped on and off

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OK well then he's knowledgable enough and responsible enough to be a real professional. It is hard work but I know two guys who parlayed their detailing contacts into flying jobs so you do get an opportunity to network.

Those websites look like good places to start.

I know that one of the guys always used dry processes. The websites mention some chemicals.

Dave
 
We used to wash our planes with water until a student wanted to really get the pitot static system clean and endend up filling the instruments with water.

Now we use the dry wash - I don't like it because in my own opinion I think they are just waxing the dirt into the paint.
 
In A & P school we were taught to use chemicals made for aircraft sometimes. There was more to it than I thought.
 
This is seems like a good way of having an income. I would wash airplanes but It is too much responsibility. If anything goes wrong I can't afford to pay for it and I know my parents wouldn't either. Good luck to your brother with this job. Will he be hiring people to work for him?
 
We did that for my flying club and all we used was the stuff that you use for cars. Even to the point of the Mr. Miyagi, wax on, wax off deal!
 
I used to wash quite a bit of airplanes when I was in HS. We used a regular wash and then we had some very high end wax with an electric buffer that we would use in certain areas. Waxing is the most difficult job/time consuming job especially on larger corp a/c.
 
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We used to wash our planes with water until a student wanted to really get the pitot static system clean and endend up filling the instruments with water.


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You mentioned static ports and washing planes, this reminds me of the AeroPeru 757 crash in ’96. They put masking tape over the static system while they washed the fairly new 757, someone forgot to take it off. The flight crashed into the ocean, killing all 70 on board. more info
 
Where I work, we regularly wash airplanes (bizjets) with water. We tape the static ports and pitot tubes with red electrical tape and leave about 3 feet extra hanging off. This will always be extremely visual, so as to not allow anyone to forget to take it off. It is standard procedure for us to triple check all static ports and pitot tubes clear after washing.

As for the crash of that 757 with taped up static ports, sure that was caused by the taping of the cleaning crew, and they should've no doubt taken the tape off, but a thorough preflight by the pilot would've prevented that.
 
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As for the crash of that 757 with taped up static ports, sure that was caused by the taping of the cleaning crew, and they should've no doubt taken the tape off, but a thorough preflight by the pilot would've prevented that.

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You are correct, but with take off at 12:32am local time, preflight would have been done in the dark and masking tape could blend quite well, not to make a excuse.
 
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This is seems like a good way of having an income. I would wash airplanes but It is too much responsibility. If anything goes wrong I can't afford to pay for it and I know my parents wouldn't either. Good luck to your brother with this job. Will he be hiring people to work for him?

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Brian, If you can't afford to repair something damaged (if that ever were to happen), then how do you have money to fly!
 
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This is seems like a good way of having an income. I would wash airplanes but It is too much responsibility. If anything goes wrong I can't afford to pay for it and I know my parents wouldn't either. Good luck to your brother with this job. Will he be hiring people to work for him?

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Brian, If you can't afford to repair something damaged (if that ever were to happen), then how do you have money to fly!

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Who says I have money to fly?
 
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This is seems like a good way of having an income. I would wash airplanes but It is too much responsibility. If anything goes wrong I can't afford to pay for it and I know my parents wouldn't either. Good luck to your brother with this job. Will he be hiring people to work for him?


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Brian, If you can't afford to repair something damaged (if that ever were to happen), then how do you have money to fly!


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Who says I have money to fly?

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Well you said you take lessons in a 172 out of FXE..flying isn't cheap
 
Well those were actually just like 3 lessons which my parents owed me from birthday and christmas.
 
As I write this, hubby is washing the flight school's planes where he works. He made a deal w/ the owner that for every plane he washes, he gets one hr.free flight time in the plane (a 150). The warbird guys suggest Dow's Scrubbing Bubbles for the real dirty stuff. It is taking 3 hours per plane to wash them.
 
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