7 ms·

Deicing fluid is expensive, $24/gallon or more, and an airliner might a few hundred gallons or more to deice. Also, when deicing is needed, it's fair to say _l

Deicing fluid is expensive, $24/gallon or more, and an airliner might a few hundred gallons or more to deice. Also, when deicing is needed, it's fair to say _lots of airplanes_ are in contention for a limited amount of deicing equipment leading to costly delays which can compound and cause system-wide consequences. Suffice to say, any improvements to deicing aircraft quicker and more efficiently certainly has strong economic incentive. If buying this software + some oculuses results in even a couple of minutes faster deicing or a few gallons of fluid saved on each airplane this would be an easy sell to airport FBOs.

zamnos 4y ago
The difficult part is in training. Training in proper conditions is really hard because when those conditions are present, it's all hands on deck and the instructors can't be instructing because they're out actually deicing planes. So there's a bottleneck for new deicers to come on board. Plus the cost of the fluid (and the highly specialized vehicles), like you mentioned. The use case is a bit more clear compared to for welding, when anyone can just pick one up from Harbor Freight for < $150.
- mwbajor 4y ago
  I deiced airplanes at newark airport during college. The deicing company just grabbed anyone they can practically off the streets. Training was 4 hours on a saturday in the fall. In the winter, folks would slam into planes all the time and someone would have to come out and look at it and make sure it was ok. There were no "instructors". At the time, the 3 main airports around NYC was the same group of people so it wasnt just EWR. Its alot more refined now, (this was 15-20 years ago) but from what I hear, its not much better.
  - awad 4y ago
    How was the pay?
    - qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
      I do it now. $20 / hour here. Depends on location. Pay is a slight premium above McDonald’s but not much.
      - mwbajor 4y ago
        Yea, back in ~2004 it was I think $16 the first year, and if you were good, $18 bucks after the second year. If you did it for > 5 years you became something like a supervisor.
- runjake 4y ago
  > The difficult part is in training. Training in proper conditions is really hard because when those conditions are present, it's all hands on deck and the instructors can't be instructing because they're out actually deicing planes. I've never seen it this way. In the US military, de-icing duty falls on a minimally-trained E-1/E-2. We get about an hour or two training that includes some grave warnings. While it's inculcated in you from day one not to kill aircrews or crash planes, about the only de-icing training you get is to make sure there's no residual ice on the wings and especially it's moving surfaces (eg. flaps). Source: I spent countless hours de-icing large military aircraft as a one-striper, in an open bucket, in blizzards. It's an experience.
  - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
    > We get about an hour or two training that includes some grave warnings. Can you share examples of those warnings?
    - l_theanine 4y ago
      Not the person you’re replying to, but a little common sense would imply warnings along the line of “if you don’t do this properly, a crew of innocent people fall out of the sky and fucking die whilst screaming all the way down”
    - runjake 4y ago
      Roughly: “If you don’t do a thorough job, you will kill the flight crew and they will not make it home to their families. If the first part doesn’t bother you, you’ll also be court martialed and in a brig for a long, long time.”
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    Did any of your training focus on controlling cost the way a commercial airport would?
    - runjake 4y ago
      No, quite the contrary. The emphasis was “go hog wild, do a good job”. No mention of budgets or saving money ever.
- netsharc 4y ago
  Clueless question: couldn't they put up a mock-up of a plane (or several of different shapes and sizes) on a field, and use a cheaper liquid with similar properties, for the training purposes? Maybe The last thing would be the limit of needing to wait for cold weather to train new sprayers.
  - qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
    The parent poster makes training sound a lot more complicated than it really is. I de-ice planes currently. The training was about an hour in the classroom, 20 minutes of how the truck works and then a trainer in the headset the first couple (live-actual) planes you do.
Scoundreller 4y ago
> $24/gallon or more Is that what the airport pays for fresh stuff or what the airline pays? I understand it that bigger airports with snowier weather will recycle it. Not that they can recapture it all...
- mwbajor 4y ago
  There was a guy at where I worked that would pump it from the deicing truck into the fluid recycling truck when no one was looking. He owned the recycling truck and also worked in the deicing operation (this was jersey...) Eventually he got busted.
  - whitemary 4y ago
    Sounds about right haha
mwbajor 4y ago
Alot of airports used to make it to cut costs. Some also had special drain systems for reclaiming the fluid. Others had a subcontractor company come and suck it up as you sprayed the planes. There was also type 1 and type 2: Type 1 was the watery antifreeze like stuff, type 2 was jelly-like meant to spray on the plane as it was waiting to take off to keep the ice from reforming. Type 2 was much more expensive than type 1 and the first thing you learn is to not use type 2 unless told to. There was also IR tents at some of the NYC area airports but they only served planes smaller than a 737. I think the port authority removed them about 10 years ago.
- sethhochberg 4y ago
  I fly out of JFK pretty regularly in regional jets and the IR tents are still there - though I’ve never been on a plane there that got anything other than conventional deicing. Unsure if they’re actually active.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Can’t find any info on the IR deicers getting decommissioned. Newark’s could handle a 757 and JFK’s could handle a 787 and 747.
k_sze 4y ago
I get the feeling that this should be the job of (giant) robots or drones. The number of aircraft models is quite limited (relatively speaking, compared to, say, cars on the road), and the aircrafts should all have well-known geometry that robots or drones can be programmed against.
- cpgxiii 4y ago
  The problem is accurately perceiving the remaining snow/ice coverage on the airplane, unless you have a guaranteed-clear-on-first-pass solution (you don't). Sure, you can get it "mostly" clear with current CV, but you have to be absolutely clear or serious incidents will result (some aircraft suffer significant aerodynamic consequences from ice less than 1mm thick). Neither airport operators nor airlines will seriously consider a robotic solution unless it outperforms human operators, and the potential liability is high barrier to entry.

zamnos 4y ago

The difficult part is in training. Training in proper conditions is really hard because when those conditions are present, it's all hands on deck and the instructors can't be instructing because they're out actually deicing planes. So there's a bottleneck for new deicers to come on board. Plus the cost of the fluid (and the highly specialized vehicles), like you mentioned. The use case is a bit more clear compared to for welding, when anyone can just pick one up from Harbor Freight for < $150.

mwbajor 4y ago
I deiced airplanes at newark airport during college. The deicing company just grabbed anyone they can practically off the streets. Training was 4 hours on a saturday in the fall. In the winter, folks would slam into planes all the time and someone would have to come out and look at it and make sure it was ok. There were no "instructors". At the time, the 3 main airports around NYC was the same group of people so it wasnt just EWR. Its alot more refined now, (this was 15-20 years ago) but from what I hear, its not much better.
- awad 4y ago
  How was the pay?
  - qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
    I do it now. $20 / hour here. Depends on location. Pay is a slight premium above McDonald’s but not much.
    - mwbajor 4y ago
      Yea, back in ~2004 it was I think $16 the first year, and if you were good, $18 bucks after the second year. If you did it for > 5 years you became something like a supervisor.
runjake 4y ago
> The difficult part is in training. Training in proper conditions is really hard because when those conditions are present, it's all hands on deck and the instructors can't be instructing because they're out actually deicing planes. I've never seen it this way. In the US military, de-icing duty falls on a minimally-trained E-1/E-2. We get about an hour or two training that includes some grave warnings. While it's inculcated in you from day one not to kill aircrews or crash planes, about the only de-icing training you get is to make sure there's no residual ice on the wings and especially it's moving surfaces (eg. flaps). Source: I spent countless hours de-icing large military aircraft as a one-striper, in an open bucket, in blizzards. It's an experience.
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  > We get about an hour or two training that includes some grave warnings. Can you share examples of those warnings?
  - l_theanine 4y ago
    Not the person you’re replying to, but a little common sense would imply warnings along the line of “if you don’t do this properly, a crew of innocent people fall out of the sky and fucking die whilst screaming all the way down”
  - runjake 4y ago
    Roughly: “If you don’t do a thorough job, you will kill the flight crew and they will not make it home to their families. If the first part doesn’t bother you, you’ll also be court martialed and in a brig for a long, long time.”
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Did any of your training focus on controlling cost the way a commercial airport would?
  - runjake 4y ago
    No, quite the contrary. The emphasis was “go hog wild, do a good job”. No mention of budgets or saving money ever.
netsharc 4y ago
Clueless question: couldn't they put up a mock-up of a plane (or several of different shapes and sizes) on a field, and use a cheaper liquid with similar properties, for the training purposes? Maybe The last thing would be the limit of needing to wait for cold weather to train new sprayers.
- qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
  The parent poster makes training sound a lot more complicated than it really is. I de-ice planes currently. The training was about an hour in the classroom, 20 minutes of how the truck works and then a trainer in the headset the first couple (live-actual) planes you do.

Scoundreller 4y ago

> $24/gallon or more Is that what the airport pays for fresh stuff or what the airline pays? I understand it that bigger airports with snowier weather will recycle it. Not that they can recapture it all...

mwbajor 4y ago
There was a guy at where I worked that would pump it from the deicing truck into the fluid recycling truck when no one was looking. He owned the recycling truck and also worked in the deicing operation (this was jersey...) Eventually he got busted.
- whitemary 4y ago
  Sounds about right haha

mwbajor 4y ago

Alot of airports used to make it to cut costs. Some also had special drain systems for reclaiming the fluid. Others had a subcontractor company come and suck it up as you sprayed the planes. There was also type 1 and type 2: Type 1 was the watery antifreeze like stuff, type 2 was jelly-like meant to spray on the plane as it was waiting to take off to keep the ice from reforming. Type 2 was much more expensive than type 1 and the first thing you learn is to not use type 2 unless told to. There was also IR tents at some of the NYC area airports but they only served planes smaller than a 737. I think the port authority removed them about 10 years ago.

sethhochberg 4y ago
I fly out of JFK pretty regularly in regional jets and the IR tents are still there - though I’ve never been on a plane there that got anything other than conventional deicing. Unsure if they’re actually active.
Scoundreller 4y ago
Can’t find any info on the IR deicers getting decommissioned. Newark’s could handle a 757 and JFK’s could handle a 787 and 747.

k_sze 4y ago

I get the feeling that this should be the job of (giant) robots or drones. The number of aircraft models is quite limited (relatively speaking, compared to, say, cars on the road), and the aircrafts should all have well-known geometry that robots or drones can be programmed against.

cpgxiii 4y ago
The problem is accurately perceiving the remaining snow/ice coverage on the airplane, unless you have a guaranteed-clear-on-first-pass solution (you don't). Sure, you can get it "mostly" clear with current CV, but you have to be absolutely clear or serious incidents will result (some aircraft suffer significant aerodynamic consequences from ice less than 1mm thick). Neither airport operators nor airlines will seriously consider a robotic solution unless it outperforms human operators, and the potential liability is high barrier to entry.