Airline Pilot Central Forums

I was sitting on the ground at KORD as a pax and watched the deice truck spray the wing with Type I fluid. At the end of the boom they had these red "whiskers" with balls at the end of the whiskers. The boom operator bounced the whiskers off of the wing after spraying fluid on the wing.

My question is: was he using the "whiskers" as feelers to check the surface of the wing for what the FAA / NTSB / NASA call the tactile test? Thus ensuring a clean wing with no ice / frozen contamination on the wing hidden by the fluid.

Here is a document talking about the Ground Ice Detection Systems (GIDS). I had never heard of this. I have given ground continuation training about deicing to C-5 crews and seeing this in person would answer the question of how are we supposed to check the wing with a "tactile test".

Safe Skies,
Steve