Washing a plane recommendations

murphey said:
Bucket of water, large towels. Get the towels sloppy wet, put on the leading edges to soften the bugs. Take dry towel, wipe off the bugs. Repeat as needed.
Unless you know exactly what solvents are in Honda polish, don't. Dealing with relatively thin aluminum.
There are degreasers specifically for airplanes. Spray or wipe on, then off with clean towels.
Do not use anything with citrus or lemon.
See if any CAP cadet squadrons or 99s are having airplane wash parties in your area for fund raising. Save yourself the trouble.
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murphey said:
Plain boring Pledge. But it does contain lemon so keep it away from metal, wipe it off immediately. Get a 5 gal bucket from Home depot, bring water. You'd be surprised what you can do as CAP.

Do you have a large lockable metal cabinet or box to keep supplies at the airport? We're in "carports" and have a cabinet that's chained to one of the metal posts, as is the engine heater. We also domlots of Orides, so we keep headsets and cushions in the cabinet. Talk to the MX officers at the other squadrons about what you can and cannot do, as well as recommendations on cleaning supplies. And a small stepstool to clean windows, check oil, a few extra quarts of oil, etc.

Next - on the checklists - require crews to clean leading edges and windows after EVERY flight. If they don't, ding 'em. Work with the squadron commander to enforce the rules. After X dings, they are grounded for some period of time. The log books list who last flew, so you always know who didn't cooperate.
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What's wrong with the lemon/citrus? These people sell such a product for planes https://planeperfect.us/products/bbb . Here's one from Aircraft Spruce: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/pages/cs/degreasers/lpspresolve.php
The d-limonene terpene which makes it useful as a degreaser has the structure below- not something that attacks metal.

70px-Limonene-2D-skeletal.svg.png
 
We used a similar system to clean aircraft in the Navy (before everything was low-IR grey), when a wash rack wasn't available:

 
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Pay someone with the right equipment and know-how,
or
fly through a rainstorm; the harder the better. Perhaps spray some soap on it first.
 
I would not use out door spigots for washing airplanes because you do not know the salt content of water and by pushing so much water through small crevices you are risking corrosion.
Instead I use 4-5 gallons of distilled water and wipe the whole airplane down with wet towels and then dry. A quick spray wax and some rubbing and done.
 
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