Everyone is familiar with the process of car washing: flushing, foaming, wiping, and checking. But how do you clean an aircraft that is tens of meters long and weighs dozens of tons? Human or machine? What are the professional requirements? On May 10, the reporter walked into Urumqi International Airport and had a close encounter with the plane "beauticians" of China Southern Airlines Xinjiang Branch.

It is understood that during flight and parking, the aircraft will be polluted from many aspects such as the atmosphere, ground, oil pollution and fuel exhaust gas, and composite pollutants mainly composed of dust and oxides will be deposited on the surface. It will not only affect the beauty of the aircraft, but also one of the causes of aircraft corrosion, and will also lead to increased aircraft fuel consumption. Therefore, aircraft cleaning is very important.

At 10:30 p.m., the aircraft cleaning team of the production support workshop of the aircraft maintenance base of China Southern Airlines Xinjiang Branch came to the 31 apron to prepare to clean the B-1950 aircraft. The 45-year-old Wang Hongwei is in charge of the cleaning team. The oldest of the 12-person team, Liu Liu, has been engaged in this work for 15 years and is the master of the newbies in the team.

According to Wang Hongwei, every time a cleaning task is performed, the entire team will go together. Even so, it still takes almost two and a half hours for an aircraft to be completely cleaned and passed the inspection. "This is only the time to clean a Boeing mid-sized passenger plane. If it is a large wide-body passenger plane like the Boeing 777, the cleaning time will be doubled." It is understood that the cleaning cycle of an aircraft is usually 30 to 45 days.

The first step of cleaning an airplane is similar to washing a car, and it is also a water pipe flush. After rinsing the water, the workers each held an aluminum alloy telescopic rod, and the front end of the rod had a sponge brush soaked in cleaning solution, which was continuously wiped back and forth. "Cleaning the plane is a technical job, and the force must be controlled just right!" Wang Hongwei said. If the force is too light, the dirt will not be wiped off. If the force is too heavy, it will damage the surface of the plane and directly affect the normal flight the next day. More delicate parts like discharge brushes, sensors, and cockpit glass need to be more careful. Sometimes brushes cannot be used, and workers have to wipe them slowly with towels.

Wang Hongwei said that the dirtiest place on the plane is not the wings and the upper part of the plane, but the belly of the plane. There are a lot of oil pipelines and drains concentrated near the belly. After dust and sewage stick here, it is most likely to form airflow marks and rust. This stubborn stain is the most troublesome place for cleaning workers, and it often needs to be soaked in cleaning agent before being wiped off.

Different from the normal routine of going to work during the day and resting at night, the cleaning of the aircraft is always carried out at night. This arrangement is mainly to match the working characteristics of the aircraft during daytime operation and nighttime maintenance. "We are all busy working at night. Last winter, we rushed to the airport in the middle of the night several times, but the plane had a temporary breakdown. We had to wait until the troubleshooting was completed before cleaning." Wang Hongwei said.

After a series of processes such as washing, drying, and wiping the aircraft, inspector Wang Chen and duty supervisor Lu Shengxian of the aircraft maintenance base began to check and accept the cleaning effect. Lu Shengxian introduced that April and May are the most dusty and sandy months in Xinjiang, and the surface of the plane gets dirty very quickly. Beginning in April this year, the first job of the duty supervisor at work in the morning is to check the appearance and cleanliness of all the planes. If an aircraft is found to be particularly dirty, it must be photographed and sent to the maintenance control center, and at night, the cleaning team will receive additional aircraft cleaning schedules. Wang Hongwei bluntly said that this work has a plan, but there are also great variables. "On the rainy days of this season, you definitely don't need to wash the plane, you can sleep peacefully."