Bugs and flies
 

This is the worst year I can remember for sheer quantity of squashed bugs on wings and canopies.
I took my tmg to France on saturday and when I got back there was more bugs than white wings showing.
On Sunday I had to stop towing gliders after an hour to clean the canopy as the bugs were impeding lookout.

Anyone know why it's so bad this year?

Any recommendations for bug removal without scratching paint/gel?

Squirt bottle of water with washing up liquid. Synthetic chamois. Spray the area and allow to soak for a minute before wiping off.

Tescos sell those sponges with a mesh cover on one side. Use loads of water, Soak them as ST says.

Worth getting them off before they dry on.

Plexus gets them off windows very well, and it is the only stuff I ever apply to my windows.

Anything used for standard aircraft cleaning should get them off the paint. There is a specialised "bug remover" in the pilot shops but I don't recall that it does anything special.

Bugs do not slow the plane down. Mine is now covered in them but still does exactly the same speed for the fuel flow :)

Another vote for plexus.

I'd be very slow to endorse washing up liquid. That is perhaps the harshest cleaner of all. A presurized pump type garden squirty bottle with water, and aircraft shampoo (Nuvite Citricut etc) and a bug remover sponge is ideal. Quick spray, wipe and then a synthetic microfiche cloth to finish. Jobs a good un.....Only reason I know washing up liquid is bad news is we have a own a plastics company.....specialist knowledge indeed.

Flying with a clean windshield is a joy!

I agree with IO and Irish Seaplane, we only ever use plexus on our club aircraft windows, any automotive wash will get them of the paint on leading edges etc

Last time I arrived at Le Tou in summer the ATL looked like a flypaper!
Must be a lot of bugs transiting over the sea?
Anyway a big box of baby wipes had the leading edges clean in no time.

i was expecting some scientific answers on the flies - maybe the huge increase in rape in the UK is encouraging them?

with regard to the comment about about bugs having no performance impact that is incorrect. High performance sailplanes are often fitted with in flight bug wipers and performance tests have been carried out highlighting the benefit.

having bugs on the wings must impact the laminar flow and thus reduce the lift produced requiring more throttle - maybe though its a negligible amount? - any boffins out there care to comment?

Not so many resident entomologists on PPRuNe nowadays eh? :rolleyes:

Given IO540's comments, probably it is a negligible reduction, maybe within the accuracy of a flowmeter anyway.

Maybe the dry spring had something to do with fly populations, it certainly only takes a minor climate difference at a critical fly life cycle point to make a massive difference in the population that year.

When I arrived back last evening after a 30 minute flight, I could not believe the amount of bugs on my RV6. Took over 30 minutes to clean off with autoglym bug cleaner on the wings and cowling and autoglym plastic glass cleaner on the canopy. Always best to clean them off immediately before they sit and harden up over a week.

Its exactly that kind of Daily Mail-esque conjecture that brings us all down.

Washing up liquid is corrosive. Never use it on a plane.

That said, I don't know what is best. I pay a young enterprising lad £60 or so to do it :)
They do say it is very hard to get a conviction these days...

You would think bugs would slow a plane down, and maybe they do with some aerofoils. Rumour has it that some hi-perf (uncertified) designs are so critical they don't even like raindrops. But I've never seen any difference on my TB20, between clean and dirty.

Don't know if it is related to insect population, but we have far less swallows this year. Only two years ago they made a swirling storm around the trees - absolutely wonderful - but this year I've only seen one pair.

On the painted surfaces, try a "Bounce"* sheet slightly dampened.

Bounce is the fabric sheet that your wife puts in the tumble drier to "soften" the clothes. Available at all supermarkets.

Fleet flyer
Not conjecture-purely a personal theory to spark some debate- which has prompted some useful responses.
Please contribute if you have something to add (which I note you did not) otherwise please take your unhelpful condescending insults elsewhere - it is exactly those sorts of posts that 'bring us all down' not mine looking to share knowledge.

Io540 - like the comment on the rape conviction rate!!!

My post was intended to be a joke. IO540 obviously got it as I'm sure the vast majority of readers did. I was perfectly aware you were referring to oil seed rape and not human sexual assault.

Its just that I really can't abide what these plants get up to. Probably down to imported oil seed and not indigenous varieties.

IO540 recently reminded us of the staggering statistic that half the UK's population is below average intelligence. I think this bears consideration in this case.

I now know how ken Clarke feels- i am going to stay off the subject of rape forever!!!

You may find that was more to do with the downdraughts being produced along with the rain, than the droplets themselves. Falling rain evaporates slightly, latent heat absorption cools the air, making it sink. Heavy enough rain also imparts momentum onto the air due to friction, also causing it to sink.

I wouldn't use it on a plane because the cast iron body might rust and the cutting edge of the blade might be blunted. But then, I've never noticed any flies or bugs on it. :}

I do use a tiny amount of it in the water bottle to break the surface tension when using it on the aircraft canopy. At this time of year, it needs cleaning after every sector, sometimes four or five times a day.

Recommended for canopies by the chief engineer of a big helicopter company I used to work for. Been using it for years on aircraft canopies with no problems.

Mind you, he also said use nothing harder than a pilot's soft hand to wipe the bugs away to avoid scratching the plexiglass. I showed him my knarled old DIYer's hands (mine were far rougher than his) and he said "For Christ's sake, get yourself a chamois leather"! :eek:

We're not talking about using enough to work up a load of lather here. As I said, just a drop in the water does the trick. The aircraft gets washed, waxed and dried off by the professional cleaners about twice a week.

How corrosive are insect remains, in any case? I'll bet they're a lot worse than a drop of Fairy liquid.

Back on topic - right at the beginning someone said "squirty multi-surface cleaner". Perhaps that was too subtle, so I will name the magic bug solvent I use as "Pledge".

Intended for polishing furniture, the waxy liquid acts as a mild solvent for removing dead bugs from the leading edges if you have let them dry to a crust. Spray a LOT on - we are not polishing furniture here, we're softening corpses - wait a few moments, and then wipe 'em off. It definitely works better than water.

And no, I don't recommend it for the windows.

It depends on how the wing was designed: if it was designed as a laminar flow wing, then bugs will have a measurable impact on its performance.
A conventional wing, on the other hand, does not rely on any significant portion of the profile having a laminar boundary layer, so any bugs, rivets, dents etc. won't make that much of a difference.

Are most light aircraft wings laminar flow or conventional?

Most are not laminar flow. I believe this is to do with the difficulties in manufacturing a flawless surface (no exposed rivet heads, panel edges,etc).

I drive a composite aircraft with a flawless wing that is not designed to be a proper laminar flow wing. I still clean the bugs off the leading edges if there has been a noticeable build up. This is as much about evening up stall behaviour as maintaining performance and is based on guesswork rather than empirical evidence.

I'm far more concerned about dead flies on my prop though. I've never noticed degraded performance due to flies on a wing but a prop covered in flies is less efficient and I'm sure it could be proved. My prop gets proportionately far more fly coverage than my wings. I clean my prop whenever I think its needed as a fuel saving measure.

Laminar flow wings are the exception, as far as I know. Not only for the smoothness required for the surface, but also because you need to use a laminar profile and they are not so good at high alpha/low speed (they stall earlier and more abruptly).
The P-51 Mustang springs to mind as an example of laminar wing (maybe the SF-260 too? can't remember). Nowadays I believe it's almost exclusively high-performance gliders.

and most kit/plans built canards?

presumably propellors are laminar flow?

on a seperate note Halford's do an excellent sponge for £1.99 that is for removing bugs - it has a plastic netting over it that is not abrasive. a wash with that in water that has some MER polish in it -then dried off with a clean cloth- worked wonders today.