Plane cleaning and waxing

I noticed the crowd in Germany at the European Bonanza Society use the Sonax brand for cleaning.

GA_Pete wrote:

As said, nothing will clean the oily belly of an aircraft quicker and easier than avgas

Baby napkins works just fine on just about everything, and no nasty ingredients (well, you never now for sure )

There is also this waxing/cleaning stuff for boats. That’s what we use regularly. It makes removing bugs a walk in the park. Also there is a world of difference between aircraft. For old timers (Cessnas, Pipers etc) with non-laminar airfoil, cleaning the aircraft is hardly noticeable on performance and speed. For a modern carbon sport plane with laminar airfoils, it is a must:

1. It helps water drain off quickly. Water droplets on the wing can increase stall speed by 50% or more
2. Bugs will have some of the same effect, so it is best to remove them after each flight before they build up. Using wax-cleaner regularly is easiest (as long as you remember to do it regularly)
3. Somewhat easier in the winter, removing snow and ice.

Seriously though, I’ve thought about waxing the Maule and decided against it.

Using the same “science” by which Professor “Lockdown” Ferguson predicted up to half a million CCPVirus deaths in England, I’ve calculated that all that extra weight of wax could add up to 5 seconds to my usual take-off time. It’s a risk no sensible Maule pilot could take…

The Convair 880 wing lacked rivets, but had more drag than predicted. Was the effect of waxing on the stall and spin characteristics of the Mooney tested?

Jacko wrote:

should we wax our bushwheels as well?

Don’t forget to wax the brake disks when doing the wheels.

In the spare time released you should wax your plane

Hmmm, 1.5 % faster – or nearly a whole minute shaved off every hour of flying time. I wonder what I would do with all that spare time.

But, more serious question for Cub and Maule drivers: should we wax our bushwheels as well?

Apparently, that site prohibits hotlinking. I was able to access this document by going to http://cafe.foundation > RESEARCH (on top) > CAFE Reports (right) > Wax Effects on Drag (in the body). Here it is:
Wax_Job_with_PICT_pdf

Best for someone to download the PDF and drop it into the forum. You can do PDFs, as well as pictures.