MINNEAPOLIS (NEWSnet/AP) — Each summer, about 400 workers from Delta Air Lines go to Minneapolis for a three-day de-ice "boot camp.” Employees take part in computer-based training, watch demonstrations by instructors, then practice spraying of a plane.

Campers rotate through in groups of about 10. When instruction is complete, they return to their home base to train 6,000 co-workers prior to October, said Jeannine Ashworth, vice president of airport operations.

Trucks with tanks of deicing mixture park alongside a plane. An operator in a boom-bucket sprays hot fluid that melts ice, but doesn't refreeze because it contains chemicals, mainly propylene glycol.

De-icing "is the last line of defense in winter operations for a safe aircraft,” said Dustin Foreman, an instructor who typically works at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. “If we don’t get them clean, airplanes can’t fly. They won’t stay in the air. Safety first, always.”

A major challenge of the training is getting workers comfortable with the large trucks, said Michael Ruby, an instructor who has been de-icing planes since 1992.

“The largest vehicle that they’ve ever driven is a Ford Focus,” Ruby said. “The trucks are 30 feet long, to say nothing about the boom going up in the air … the first time you’re driving something that big … it’s intimidating.”

Minneapolis is a logical place to learn about de-icing. Delta de-iced about 30,000 planes using its system last winter, and 13,000 of those were in Minneapolis. Boot-campe participants come from all over Delta's network, including places known more for beaches than blizzards.

“I would never have guessed that Jacksonville, Florida, or Pensacola or Tallahassee would need to de-ice aircraft — and they do, so we train employees there as well,” Ashworth said.

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