..........but it was a WD40 equivalent
Careful. It is not generally understood outside the engineering fraternity that such fluids can have adverse effects if sprayed about without engineering consideration and approval.
I thought I had been quite careful John? If you read my full post again I made it quite obvious that I did not know exactly what the substance was. By saying it was a WD40 equivalent, I meant a product that dispersed water and protected against corrosion like WD40 does, NOT that it was actually WD40.
Perhaps I should have used 'type of' or 'sort of' in place of 'equivalent' ?
Whatever the SAR ground crew used that day, (and we are talking about the 1980's here), it was dispensed from about 10L sized cylindrical containers that were pressurised, and the substance was sprayed on through 3' long spray lances.