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Our method

Aircraft paint is not automotive paint.

That sentence is the whole difference between a company that details aircraft and a company that details cars and also takes airplanes.

The substrate

Less material, more materials.

An exterior finish on an airframe is a system. Conversion coated or anodized aluminum, or composite, then an epoxy primer, then a polyurethane topcoat. It is engineered thin, because weight is a design constraint and every pound of paint is a pound of payload. Automotive clear coat is thicker and far more forgiving of correction. There is simply less material on an aircraft to work with, and what comes off does not come back without a repaint.

The airframe is also not one material. Within a few feet of each other sit clad aluminum, magnesium components, acrylic windows that craze permanently under the wrong solvent, elastomeric de-ice boots that harden and crack when treated like paint, composite radomes and fairings, and exposed sealant. None of them tolerate the same chemistry. Treating them as though they do is how a five year repaint cycle becomes a three year one.

All of it is also moving. Skin temperature runs from well over 100 degrees on a ramp to well below freezing at altitude, and aluminum, composite, sealant and paint each expand and contract at their own rate through that range, on every flight. Coastal aircraft repaint sooner than inland ones for the same reason they corrode sooner. None of this is caused by cleaning. All of it is made worse by cleaning badly.

The exterior finish system on an airframe A cross section showing four layers: a polyurethane topcoat of 2 to 3 mils or 50 to 75 microns, an epoxy primer beneath it, a conversion coating or anodize layer, and the aluminum or composite substrate. Beside it, a scale comparison showing the topcoat against a human hair of roughly 70 microns, illustrating that the entire decorative layer is about the thickness of one hair. Polyurethane topcoat 2 to 3 mils. 50 to 75 microns. Epoxy primer Conversion coating or anodize Aluminum or composite Expands and contracts through roughly 180 degrees of skin temperature in flight. The finish is a system, not a coat of paint Layers shown exploded for legibility. Not to scale. What that thickness actually is Topcoat, 50 to 75 microns Human hair, about 70 microns Drawn to scale against each other. Correction takes material off the top band.
Everything a polish touches lives in the top band. There is about a hair’s thickness of it, it is engineered thin because every pound of paint is a pound of payload, and it does not come back without a repaint.

TACT

Time, Agitation, Chemical, Temperature.

Every cleaning process on earth is governed by four variables. TACT is the shorthand, and the useful part is that they trade against each other. Reduce one and you have to raise another to get the same result. That is not a preference, it is how cleaning works.

On an airframe, that leaves time.

Time is the one an untrained or underpriced crew cuts, because cutting it is invisible on the day. It becomes visible three years later, in the finish, in the boots, in the brightwork, and in the appraisal.

Four variables. On an airframe, three of them are capped.

  • Time The only one left. No ceiling. Costs labor, damages nothing.
  • Agitation Capped by the finish. Past the cap it removes material that does not come back.
  • Chemical Capped by the substrate. Bounded by the least tolerant material within reach.
  • Temperature Capped by the substrate. Heat accelerates chemistry, and everything chemistry does.
Lower one variable and you have to raise another to get the same result. Three of the four cannot be raised on an aircraft, so the one a professional operation spends is time. It is also the one an underpriced crew cuts, and cutting it is invisible on the day.

The work area

Most of an airframe is not paint.

A wash is usually described as though an aircraft were one continuous painted surface. It is not. It is a painted surface interrupted, constantly, by things that must not be sprayed, flooded or scrubbed.

Some of those things are expensive to get wrong. A drain mast or an access panel seal is a route for water to reach somewhere it will sit and start corrosion that nobody sees for a year. A bonded lap joint is the same problem with a longer fuse.

And some of them are not about money at all. The probes and ports that feed the flight instruments are inches from surfaces a crew is working on, and the accident record contains what happens when they are covered by somebody who did not know what they were covering, and then not uncovered.

This is the part of the job that does not show up in a finished result, which is exactly why it is worth being explicit about. Knowing what is on the panel in front of you, and what it does, is the difference between a wash and a hazard.

Ten things on an aircraft exterior that must not be treated like paint Ten cells, one each for a radome, pitot tube, static ports, angle of attack vane, total air temperature probe, drain mast, antennas, sealed lap joints, de-ice boots and access panels. Each carries a short note on what an aviation authority or manufacturer says about protecting it. Four are marked as life safety items. The diagram shows that an aircraft exterior is not one continuous painted surface but a painted surface interrupted by sensors, openings, seals and bonded joints. An aircraft exterior is not one surface. Ten things a crew works around. Gold marks the ones where the consequence is not cosmetic. Radome
A rain erosion and lightning stack. Not decoration.
 Pitot tube
On the protect list. No adhesive tape, ever.
 Static ports
Tape here has killed people. Flagged covers only.
 AoA vane
It moves. Protected by procedure, not by hand.
 TAT probe
Same no adhesive rule as pitot and static.
 Drain mast
An opening. Pressure puts water inside.
 Antennas
On the protect list. All of them.
 Sealed lap joints
Moisture in a faying surface starts corrosion.
 De-ice boots
Mild soap and warm water. MEK attacks Estane.
 Access panels
Seals. Another way in for water under pressure.
The static ports note is not a figure of speech. NTSB Safety Recommendation A-96-141, issued after the loss of Aeroperu 603, records that masking tape was applied to the static ports before the airplane was cleaned and polished, and that three ports on the left side of the fuselage were still obstructed by that tape in the wreckage. The recommendation to the FAA was to require standardized, highly conspicuous covers with warning flags, because adhesive tape could easily be overlooked. Everything else here is the same principle at lower stakes. A pressure washer treats an opening, a seal, a sensor and a bonded joint exactly the way it treats paint, which is the problem. Nothing above is drawn to scale and no aircraft type is depicted.

Chemistry

One product cannot be right for a whole cabin.

A cabin holds wool, leather, veneer, acrylic, polycarbonate, anodized trim and coated display glass, within a few feet of each other, and every one of them fails in a different way.

That is not a figure of speech. The specifications that govern aircraft cleaning do not set a single tolerance and test everything against it. They run a separate test per material, because no one test predicts another. Acrylic is checked for stress crazing while it is held under bending stress. Paint is checked for how many pencil grades of hardness it loses. Aluminum is checked by weight change. Carpet is checked by setting it alight.

So a product used across all of them is not efficiency. It is a decision to accept damage on whichever material is least tolerant, and to find out which one that was later. We match the product to the material. That is slower, it needs people who know the difference, and it is the reason the interiors we look after age the way they should.

Six cabin materials and what each one is named against Six rows, one per cabin material: acrylic window, polycarbonate, anodized trim, finished leather, wool carpet and display anti-reflective coating. Each row shows how that material fails and lists the agents its source names as damaging. No two rows carry the same list, and the wool carpet row fails by losing its fire retardant treatment rather than by chemical attack at all. The diagram shows that a single cleaning product cannot satisfy every material in one cabin. One cabin. Six materials. No two prohibited lists alike. Each list is what that material’s own source names. Where a source does not name an agent, nothing is shown, rather than assumed. MATERIAL FAILS BY NAMED AS DAMAGING Acrylic window FAA AC 43.13-1B 3-25(a) Stress crazing Ammonia Alcohol Acetone Lacquer thinner Abrasives Polycarbonate Sheet manufacturer data Chemical attack Ammonia Ketones Amines Strong alkali Alcohol Anodized trim AAMA 609 & 610 Finish corrosion Strong alkali Acids Fluorides Abrasives Finished leather The Leather Institute Bond breakdown High pH Alcohol Strong solvent Abrasives Wax Wool carpet Gulfstream GAMPS 12-26-00 Loses fire retardant Aggressive cleaning Display AR coating Avionics manufacturer Coating attack Ammonia Any cleaning agent
Two facts settle the argument, and both are checkable. AMS1550B, the specification for aircraft interior hard surface cleaner, states in its own scope that the cleaner shall not be used on interior fabrics of aircraft. And a cleaner qualified to that specification publishes a pH of 9.50 to 11.50 at its working dilution, while the leather guidance prohibits any high pH cleaner outright. One bottle cannot satisfy both. Worth adding: no aviation cleaning specification we could find states a pH limit at all. They test outcomes on the material instead, which is why the wool carpet row here is a flammability problem rather than a chemistry one.

Products qualified for aviation, not adapted to it

We use cleaners that conform to Boeing BSS7432 and AMS 1526C.

  • Boeing BSS7432 is Boeing’s evaluation procedure for airplane maintenance materials. It is the test regime that establishes a material will not damage the airframe it is used on.
  • AMS 1526 is the SAE Aerospace Material Specification for aircraft exterior surface cleaners of the water-miscible, pressure spraying type.

Two of the products we use, Swype and Dend, come from a product company our ownership founded. We built them because what we needed did not exist at the standard we wanted, and we say so here rather than leaving it to be discovered.

The method is written down

Every service we perform has a standard operating procedure, and every team member works inside the platform that holds it. That is what makes the standard portable. The procedure at Teterboro is the procedure at Scottsdale because it is literally the same document.

See the platform

Credentials

The part nobody asks about until something goes wrong.

NBAA memberNational Business Aviation Association.
SFBAA memberSouth Florida Business Aviation Association.
Background checked team membersEvery person who touches an aircraft.
Drug testing programCompany administered, applied across the organization.
Fully insuredGeneral liability, hangarkeepers and commercial auto. Certificate on request.
Environmental complianceWastewater and environmental regulation observed at every field.
Health benefits for team membersTurnover is the enemy of a standard.
Documented SOPsWritten procedure for every service, at every base.

Common questions

Answers before you ask

Can washing damage aircraft paint?

Yes. The most common causes are excessive agitation, chemistry that is too aggressive for the substrate, and pressure or water directed where it does not belong. All three come from compressing the time available rather than adjusting the method.

What is the difference between a dry wash and a wet wash?

A dry wash uses a chemical and a controlled wipe to lift soil without free water, which is why it is the standard method in hangars and at fields with wash rack restrictions. A wet wash uses water and is appropriate when the soil load, the facility and the aircraft all allow for it. Neither is universally correct.

How often should an aircraft be washed?

It depends on where it is based, what it flies through and what the finish is. Coastal salt air, industrial fallout and de-ice season all shorten the interval. We build a schedule around the aircraft rather than quoting a number.

Are your products FAA approved?

There is no such thing as an FAA approved cleaning product. What exists are OEM and industry material specifications, and the products we use conform to Boeing BSS7432 and AMS 1526C. Any company advertising FAA approved chemicals is describing something that does not exist.

Do you carry insurance?

Yes. General liability, hangarkeepers and commercial auto. A certificate is available on request.

From the Flight Deck

Written on the method

All of the Flight Deck
Seasonal and Regional  ·  October 7, 2026

The first de-ice event of the season, and what a whole winter of residue does

Thickened fluid dries in the quiet corners of an airframe, rehydrates into a gel many times its original volume and can freeze in flight.…

 Exterior and Finish  ·  September 15, 2026

What deferring exterior care actually costs

The cost is not the wash you skipped. Condensation evaporates each morning and leaves the salt behind, so a deferred interval is not one…

 Standards and Compliance  ·  July 9, 2026

Cleaning frequency and corrosion control, according to the people who wrote it down

FAA AC 43-4B names washing as an element of corrosion control and sets no interval for it. What fills that gap is the Navy,…

Get in touch

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Tail number, airport, dates. We will come back with a plan and a price, not a brochure.

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(833) 432-2378 info@allengroupe.com 1515 Perimeter Road
West Palm Beach, FL 33406