Hi Dennis,
Yes the salt water was an issue as the engines had magnesium compressor casings. The inside walls would grow whiskers from the contamination until the compressor blades scraped the walls. They sprayed large amounts of fresh water into the idling engines and also particles of walnut shells to cleanse the casings. Fresh water was also sprayed into the the engines before shutdown on the ramp.
Before introducing the above procedure they experienced power losses of up to 40% due to salt contamination! I don't think the spray will be an issue for us but the model will have the auxiliary intakes so we could blank the main intakes for takeoff and open them once airborne. Extensive taxi tests will be needed to ascertain if it will cause us a problem although we are designing a solution, but in the quest to keep things simple we won't integrate it if we don't need it.
Its worth mentioning this will be a fresh water model only
