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Deicing Fluids & Equipment

Type I and Type IV fluid makers and the FBO-sized gear that applies it — 200-gal trailers, 300-gal towables, F-550 trucks and 1,200-gal regional deicers — plus TKS fluid, engine preheat and the 400,000-BTU ramp heaters. Sized for business-aviation and GA ramps, not hub deicing pads.

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Deicing at an FBO is three separate purchases that the airline world bundles into one deicing pad. The first is fluid: Type I (SAE AMS1424, heated, diluted, orange) to remove what is on the airplane, and Type IV (AMS1428, unheated, neat, green) to keep it off until takeoff — propylene glycol in every current US product. Four of the makers here produce their own (Cryotech in Fort Madison, Iowa; Clariant Safewing; Kilfrost; Dow UCAR; HOC's SafeTemp in Wichita), and the rest are blenders, relabelers and distributors — D.W. Davies and Aircraft Deicing Inc. both sell Safewing-named Type I and IV in 5-gallon pails, AERO Specialties stocks Dow in totes, Avfuel distributes Cryotech through its network. The compare page lists who manufactures where, the pack sizes and minimums, and who publishes a price.

The second purchase is the machine, and this is where "sized for FBOs" matters. The smallest useful units are hand-carried and cart deicers (Tronair's 2.5-gallon handheld and 55- and 275-gallon dolly units; Aircraft Deicing Inc.'s 25- to 200-gallon carts from $1,415), then towable trailers an airport pickup can pull — Wing Armor's 200-gallon JETstream with a 400,000-BTU heater and a spray gun instead of a basket, GSS's 300-gallon Falcon 320, Snowy Owl's 2,000-litre SO-207 trailers and Polar's 500-gallon Arctic Fox with a 34-foot basket — up to the truck-mounted class an FBO handling regional jets buys once: Polar's Arctic Wolf on an F-550, GSS's 800-gallon Hawk, Global Ground Support's 1,200-gallon G-1200 built for FBOs and commuter airlines, and Vestergaard's 4,000-litre electric e-Mini MY Lite, serviced from McHenry, Illinois. Leasing is stated by Polar and Snowy Owl; nobody publishes a truck price.

The third purchase keeps airplanes from needing the first two: engine preheat and ramp heat. Hartzell Preheat now carries both Tanis (STC/PMA kits for piston, turbine and rotor-wing) and Reiff (PMA band-and-sump systems, no 337 needed), E-Z Heat and the Hornet line make the pads and cowl heaters a GA FBO plugs in for tenants, and the 400,000-BTU Aerotech Herman Nelson BT-400 and Therm Dynamics' flameless 575,000-BTU carts are the ramp heaters that get a cold-soaked business jet started. TKS in-flight fluid (DTD 406B) sits in the same stockroom — CAV Ice Protection is the system OEM and sells the fluid direct, and Kilfrost, D.W. Davies and Aviation Laboratories all stock it. Everything on this page comes from the maker's own site on the date shown on its listing; a dot on the compare page means the maker doesn't publish it.

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Questions about deicing fluids & equipment

What is the difference between Type I and Type IV deicing fluid, and does a small FBO need both?
Type I (SAE AMS1424) is a low-viscosity fluid applied heated and diluted to remove frost, snow and ice; it gives very little holdover. Type IV (AMS1428) is a thickened fluid applied unheated and neat after deicing to keep precipitation from refreezing until takeoff, with much longer holdover times; the makers here state it is for aircraft with rotation speeds of 85 knots or more and not for use below about −20 °F. A ramp that only ever clears frost on a clear morning can live on Type I; one that launches jets into falling snow needs both, which is why the trailer and truck deicers carry two tanks (Polar's Arctic Fox: 500 gal Type I + 160 gal Type IV; GSS Hawk 800: 600 + 200).
Who actually makes aircraft deicing fluid in the United States?
Cryotech Deicing Technology, a General Atomics division, has made Polar Plus LT (Type I) and Polar Guard Advance and Xtend (Type IV) at Fort Madison, Iowa since 2010; HOC Industries blends SafeTemp Type I and IV in Wichita, Kansas; Dow produces the UCAR Type I and Type IV fluids. Clariant's Safewing range names only a Swedish plant on its aviation pages, Kilfrost manufactures in Haltwhistle, England, and LNT Solutions in the UK (with a Canadian entity) — none of the three names a US plant. D.W. Davies (Racine, WI) and Aircraft Deicing Inc. sell Safewing-named Type I and IV in pails and drums, and AERO Specialties stocks Dow UCAR in 55-gallon drums and 230-gallon totes.
What is the smallest deicer that makes sense for an FBO, and what do they cost?
Below a truck there are four tiers. Hand and cart units: Tronair's 2.5-gallon hand-carried deicer and 55-gallon mobile cart, and Aircraft Deicing Inc.'s bundles from a 3-gallon handheld to 60- and 200-gallon carts, with prices starting at $1,415 and immersion heaters set to 120–140 °F. Spray-gun trailers: Wing Armor's JETstream (200 gal Type I, 400,000-BTU heater, 100-ft hose, Honda engine, fits in a Dash 8). Basket trailers an airport pickup can tow: GSS Falcon 320 (300 gal, 11.5-ft working height), Snowy Owl SO-207 (2,000 L Type I + 750 L Type IV, 34-ft basket) and Polar Arctic Fox (500 + 160 gal, 34-ft basket). Truck-mounted FBO units: Polar's Arctic Wolf (F-550, 660 + 264 gal), GSS Hawk 800 and Global's G-1200 (1,200 gal, 32–37-ft working height, Ford F650 or Freightliner M2). Only the cart makers publish prices; the trailer and truck builders quote, and Polar and Snowy Owl state leasing or rent-to-own.
Which deicers are electric or single-operator?
Vestergaard's Elephant e-Mini MY Lite (4,000 L, 12-ton electric chassis, electric or diesel heater) and e-MY Lite (7,600 L, 70 or 140 kWh battery) are fully electric and sold and serviced in North America from McHenry, Illinois; its e-BETA (launched September 2025) is the large-airport version. Single-operator units from the FBO-scale builders are Snowy Owl's SO-2512-SP (2,500 L + 1,200 L, Hatz 75-hp diesel, 34–38-ft basket, remote diagnostics), Polar's Caribou (528 + 264 gal, two 2-million-BTU burners) and Global's G-2200 Single Operator; Textron GSE says its Safeaero 220 is the only true single-operator deicer on the market.
Where do FBOs buy TKS fluid?
TKS is the in-flight ice-protection fluid (DTD 406B / AL-5) for weeping-wing systems on Cirrus, Diamond, Beech, Cessna, Piper, Mooney, Kodiak and Hawker aircraft, and tenants expect the FBO to stock it. CAV Ice Protection, the TKS system OEM (North American operations in New Century, Kansas), sells TKS 406B direct in 2×2.5-gallon cases and 55-gallon drums ($128–$784, worldwide shipping); Kilfrost TKS 406B comes in 1, 5, 25 and 205-litre packs; D.W. Davies sells it by the gallon case, 2.5-gallon pair and 5-gallon pail with field-test tools on request; Aviation Laboratories in Houston stocks 1- to 55-gallon sizes. Tronair makes the TKS reservoir service unit, not the fluid.
Engine preheat: what does an FBO install for tenants, and does it need an STC?
Two families. Tanis (now Hartzell Preheat, Piqua, Ohio) sells multi-point STC/PMA kits for piston (Continental, Lycoming, Rotax, Austro and more), turbine (PC-12, King Air, TBM, Kodiak, ATR) and rotor-wing engines, with a 5-year warranty on the TBM kit; Reiff (same company) sells PMA band-and-sump systems (Standard 50 W per cylinder / 100 W sump, XP 100/200 W) that its FAQ says need no STC or Form 337 on US aircraft. E-Z Heat's flexible sump pads (300 W, under 9 oz, $119–$220, 60,000+ installed since 1984) are FAA-accepted with a logbook entry only, and the Hornet cowl and cockpit heaters from Aircraft Heaters in Kerrville, Texas ($289–$379) need no installation at all. Hartzell's SwitcheOn LTE-M switch ($323 plus $50/yr after the first) turns any of them on from a phone.
What ramp heater do business-jet FBOs use for cold-soaked aircraft?
The 400,000-BTU/h class: Aerotech Herman Nelson's BT-400 NEX-D (diesel, 1,500 CFM, 14-hour run time) and NEX-G (gasoline) from Winnipeg, sold direct and resold by AERO Specialties, and Therm Dynamics' TD500-GSE flameless cart from Tea, South Dakota (575,000 BTU, 5,000 CFM, 78-gallon tank, UL/CSA). Both makers name airlines and militaries as customers; the units are sized for turbine and business-jet ramps rather than a piston hangar, where a preheat pad does the job.
Which standards and training apply to FBO deicing?
Fluids are qualified to SAE AMS1424 (Type I) and AMS1428 (Types II, III, IV), with FAA and Transport Canada holdover-time tables published each season; the makers here cite those specs and LOUT figures (Cryotech Polar Plus LT −27 °F at 63/37, Safewing MP I LFD 88 −27 °F) rather than holdover tables. For the crew, Wing Armor's Leading Edge De-icing Specialists runs an 8-hour "Fly Clean, Fly Safe" program it states complies with FAR 121.629, 135, 125 and 91 and Transport Canada CAR 622.11, Global Ground Support runs factory GSE Academy sessions and VR deicing simulators, and the fuel networks fold deicing into their line-service courses. Fluid quality is checked in the field with a refractometer — AERO Specialties sells the MISCO digital units with Brix and PG/EG Type I scales — and Kilfrost and Cryotech will analyze customer samples.

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