Airbus A300F4-600 (N161UP)

I miss the Murray DC-8s that used to come in to Buffalo about 6 years ago...definitely an alarm clock to wake up to
I don't know the glycol prices out west
when I deiced at KBUF it was 22 a gallon for type IV (green, antiice) and 16 dollars a gallon for Type I (red ,deice)

easy to dump a few hundred gallons on a single application

Thanks for this shot gary

Sam, I've caught numerous clicks of paxbirds departing RNO with "green skin." That stuff costs $22. a GALLON?? Geesh! Could you think back on your experience to take a rough guess as to how many gallons would be needed to deice an A320 or a B737? I've watched (from a distance) the "Iceman" guys showering that green stuff on ... they must use a whole bunch of gallons of it. $22.00 a gallon! Does it spray out as a (sort of) "mist" or does it pour out as from a showerhead? In my pic here, it seems to be a "mist," but in my pic taken several years ago (at ORD at night) it was running down over the windows like it was raining out.

Being a mist it appears to be type 1..heated to 180 degrees F. It's a 55/45 mix of isopropelene glycol and water...it's pressurized like a firehose...the green type 4 is under less pressure and comes out like a sludge...
Steam means it's hot...so type 1 deice not type IV anti-ice

A 737 or a320 is all different depending on experience of the iceman and the total accumulation on the aircraft. Every airline different, some say just spray critical areas (wings tail nose) others say zero contamination on whole bird...average on a medium size jet would be 40-100 gallons

If it was watery it was deice...melts the contamination..think of it like a car wash...removes it...Antiice is like car wax..protects the aircraft from contamination buildup...depending on precip and temperature type 4 good for 2-20 minutes...

Sam, thank you for explaining the difference. I've seen steam (like above), green, and also the red type. I never knew there was a difference (ie: anti-ice or deice). I appreciate the info very much. I have one more question that you may or may not know the answer to. When the green sludge (type IV) is being used, by the end of the day, there must be thousands of gallons of the stuff on the ramp. Where does it all go? I mean, does it all get ... just ... washed down into the sewer system?

Gary, I'm no expert but I think that at nearly all major airports that regularly deice, it has to be captured in tanks and not just washed into the sewer system like the old days, think EPA. I'm not sure if they can recycle it or not either.

Sure it expensive, but compared to the cost of human lives it's cheap.

Sam touched on holdover times, that's the time you have from the beginning of deicing to take off. It varies as to temp and kind of precip, you may have as little as 10 minutes to get off the ground. The company I used to work for had a portable sprayer that the mechanics sprayed Type IV on our planes before they pulled them out of the hangar. It gave us a longer holdover time than the regular hot deice. It's kind of thick, snotty and slippery, I believe it's supposed to shear off at around 90kts.

Jim is correct, at KBUF we had certain drains that were used for collection of fluids, they would clean it and separate itand reuse it somewhere down the line, most major airports have a deice line on the ramp where you can't spray past...those drains beyond that line go to runoff to creeks or to water treatment facilities

Deice fluid is pretty much concentrated antifreeze...isopropyl glycol...it'll kill your dog and any wildlife that comes in contact...or mutate it.

We had a natural gas deice tent a plane would taxi through and melt contamination...worked too good, burned the paint and damaged plastics and composites...it lasted 2 seasons then it was torn down . That was on north side of field by prior

You can't put 4 over precip...you have to go from nose to wing to tail to other wing type 1 then whole process with 4...if it heavy precip it sometimes sticks before you can start process of 4 so you gotta do 1 all over again...causes delays and wastes fluid...every airline had strict set of rules for deice application...but sometimes you had to break the rules in order for departure...wing 1 then 4, tail 1 then 4, other wing 1 then 4...gives pilot just enough time to high speed taxi and scoot.