Exterior Dry Wash at Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi (LIRZ)

Why choose a waterless process at a regional Italian airport?

Perugia sits 697 feet above sea level in the Umbrian hills, ten kilometres from the city centre and roughly halfway to Assisi. Summer heat and the fine dust stirred by the Umbria Airlink bus route leave a visible haze on dark paint, while winter moisture traps exhaust particulate against the belly. A dry wash removes all of it without taxiing to a remote bay or waiting for a wash rack that does not exist at LIRZ.

Waterless chemistry encapsulates dirt at the molecular level and lifts it into suspension within the product film; microfibre applicators carry the emulsion away without scratching gel coat or polished aluminium. There is no overspray drifting onto neighbouring stands, no grey runoff pooling under the APU, and no need to coordinate drainage with the airport authority. The handler appreciates the tidiness, the captain appreciates the speed, and the paint appreciates the absence of hard water.

What changes at Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi for a detailing crew?

The airport operates a single runway—01/19, 2199 metres—with general-aviation movements on a PPR basis. The operator, SASE, requires written notice between fifteen days and ten hours before arrival, copied to Delta Aerotaxi; the FBO lists PPR coordination as part of its service suite, so we fold that into the pre-arrival brief and ensure the request goes out as soon as you confirm the slot. Customs are on site—LIRZ is an airport of entry—and the FBO arranges the officer call-out if your flight is arriving from outside Schengen.

Because the field is not slot-coordinated, schedule changes are easier to manage than at Milan or Rome, but the PPR window means we still need ten hours' minimum notice for an unplanned diversion. One handling agent works the apron, so there is no ambiguity about who escorts our crew airside or where the GPU will be positioned during the wash. Event peaks—Umbria Jazz in July and Eurochocolate in autumn—bring visitor traffic into Perugia, which can tighten stand availability; we watch the calendar and recommend booking those weeks early.

What does the handler expect from a third-party detailing crew at LIRZ?

Delta Aerotaxi holds the airside-pass responsibility, so our team arrives with passport, driving licence and insurance certificate ready for the handler's security log. We bring our own equipment—no borrowing GPU carts or work stands—and we notify the FBO in writing forty-eight hours before arrival with crew names, vehicle registration and estimated time on stand. If the aircraft will remain on the apron overnight, we ask the handler to confirm that external power and chocks will stay in place until we finish the following morning.

The handler expects us to keep the work envelope within the stand markings, to place drip trays under any nacelle we are degreasing, and to leave the area cleaner than we found it. Waste goes into our own bags and travels back to our van; nothing is left for the FBO to dispose of. If we need walkaround access during a busy July afternoon, we ask the handler to position the aircraft nose-in so that the empennage work does not block taxiway sightlines. Courtesy costs nothing, and it ensures that the next PPR approval comes through without hesitation.

How do you document an exterior dry wash for the tech log?

We photograph the airframe in six standard views—port profile, starboard profile, nose quarter, tail quarter, belly aft of the nose gear, and a detail of any area that arrived with visible staining—before we lay a glove on the paint. Those images go into a PDF report that records date, location, ICAO code, aircraft registration, Hobbs or tach time if the crew shares it, ambient temperature, and a checklist of every surface we treated: fuselage panels, wing leading edges, nacelle inlets and exhaust cones, belly stringers, gear doors, static ports (inspected, never touched), and all exterior lights.

After the wash we shoot the same six angles again, append them to the report, and email the PDF to the captain and the flight-department manager within two hours of finishing. If the tech log lives in an electronic maintenance system, we can push the report directly into the airframe file. The documentation proves to the next line station that the belly was degreased in Italy, not left to bake onto the skin for another three sectors, and it gives the chief pilot a timestamped record for the annual appearance budget.

What does a belly degrease involve on a dry-wash turnaround?

Hydraulic mist, oil weeps and landing-gear spray throw a brown film across the belly stringers, gear bays and aft fuselage; left alone, the film carbonises in the slipstream and turns into a tarry layer that a simple dry wash will only smear. We apply a biodegradable degreaser to the affected panels, allow it to dwell for five minutes, then agitate with a stiff brush and wipe with heavy-duty microfibre. Gear bays receive the same treatment, though we mask any exposed cannon plugs and keep all chemistry away from brake assemblies and torque links.

The process adds roughly forty-five minutes to the overall turnaround for a super-midsize airframe, longer if the belly has not been touched in six months. We lay absorbent mats under the nacelles to catch the runoff—it is biodegradable, but the handler still prefers not to see it pooling on the stand—and we include before-and-after belly shots in the photo report. A clean belly reduces drag measurably and stops the next FBO from quoting a two-stage exterior detail when a simple maintenance wash would have sufficed.

How do access and airside logistics work at a single-FBO field?

With one handling agent on the apron, coordination is straightforward: Delta Aerotaxi issues the escort, confirms the stand number, and tells us where to park the van. We drive airside through the service gate, present our pass and insurance, and follow the handler's vehicle to the aircraft. If the jet is cold-soaked from an early-morning arrival, we wait for the cabin door to open and the APU to spool up before we start; waterless product performs poorly on frozen gel coat, and we would rather delay thirty minutes than leave streaks.

The single runway means we occasionally pause for wake turbulence if a regional turboprop departs on 19 while we are working the port wing, but traffic density is low enough that the interruptions are brief. When the wash is complete, we stow the equipment, collect the mats, and escort ourselves back to the service gate under the handler's remote supervision. The FBO emails a copy of the gate log to our office, which closes the loop on insurance and security compliance, and the aircraft is clean, dry and ready to reposition to the next sector within the planned turnaround window.