Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
Back in 2002, with avgas prices hovering at a ridiculous $2/gallon (Imagine! I just paid $7.50/gallon in Des Moines yesterday), I decided to build a fuel truck that would eliminate the inconvenience and danger of fueling from 6-gallon gas cans.
Here's what it looked like:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/fuel_truck.htm
At the time, a friend wanted to buy mogas from me, so he paid for a gauge with a "gallon meter" that keeps count of how much we've pumped in total. Today, it tripped over to 10,000 gallons.
In that time, the original Nissan pickup truck (for which I paid a whopping $1800) died (the frame rusted through), and I moved the tank/pump assembly to my "new" 1995 Toyota T100. It now looks like this:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/new_mighty_grape.htm
I paid a grand $2500 for the "new" truck (and immediately put $2K into it), so for $4500 I've got a great 4x4 work truck that doubles as a fuel hauler. It's got 186K miles on it, runs like a top, and I drive it every day.
Those 10,000 gallons have been pumped into the three different airplanes I've owned in these six years, without so much as a burp. If you figure an average cost savings of about $1.50 per gallon, we've pocketed a cool $15,000, which has paid for both trucks, the installation costs, and a good portion of our next aircraft engine.
Best of all, it's safe, easy, quick, and we use it all the time for a hundred other things, from fueling our lawn care and snow-removal equipment, to offering fuel to folks who have run out of gas in front of our hotel.
And, finally, best of all -- all three planes run better on unleaded regular gasoline than they do on that nasty blue 100LL. All three of our planes (a '48 Ercoupe, a '75 Warrior, and a '74 Pathfinder) were designed to run on 80 octane fuel -- which hasn't been available for years. The mis-named "100 low-lead" actually has four times more lead in it than our engines were designed to run on, and -- as a result -- you have lean aggressively to prevent spark plug fouling when using it.
Not so with unleaded mogas, naturally. As a result, you can run your engine cooler, and cleaner. Just ask any mechanic what he finds when he opens up an engine that's been run on unleaded mogas, versus avgas, and he'll tell you that the blue stuff just packs your low-compression engine full of crud. Mogas engines, in contrast, are pristine inside.
Those 10,000 gallons have been burned at every temperature, at every altitude, in engines ranging from 85 to 235 horsepower. Not once have we heard a sputter, miss, or stumble. Guys who talk about mogas as if it's some sort of "inferior" airplane fuel are just spreading old wive's tales.
If you figure that my transfer tank holds 55 gallons, that means that I've run 200 tank-fulls through that truck, into my airplanes. With an average fuel burn of 10 gallons per hour, that's 1000 hours of absolutely trouble-free flying, and $15,000 in our pockets.
That's a win-win situation, all the way around!
Here's what it looked like:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/fuel_truck.htm
At the time, a friend wanted to buy mogas from me, so he paid for a gauge with a "gallon meter" that keeps count of how much we've pumped in total. Today, it tripped over to 10,000 gallons.
In that time, the original Nissan pickup truck (for which I paid a whopping $1800) died (the frame rusted through), and I moved the tank/pump assembly to my "new" 1995 Toyota T100. It now looks like this:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/new_mighty_grape.htm
I paid a grand $2500 for the "new" truck (and immediately put $2K into it), so for $4500 I've got a great 4x4 work truck that doubles as a fuel hauler. It's got 186K miles on it, runs like a top, and I drive it every day.
Those 10,000 gallons have been pumped into the three different airplanes I've owned in these six years, without so much as a burp. If you figure an average cost savings of about $1.50 per gallon, we've pocketed a cool $15,000, which has paid for both trucks, the installation costs, and a good portion of our next aircraft engine.
Best of all, it's safe, easy, quick, and we use it all the time for a hundred other things, from fueling our lawn care and snow-removal equipment, to offering fuel to folks who have run out of gas in front of our hotel.
And, finally, best of all -- all three planes run better on unleaded regular gasoline than they do on that nasty blue 100LL. All three of our planes (a '48 Ercoupe, a '75 Warrior, and a '74 Pathfinder) were designed to run on 80 octane fuel -- which hasn't been available for years. The mis-named "100 low-lead" actually has four times more lead in it than our engines were designed to run on, and -- as a result -- you have lean aggressively to prevent spark plug fouling when using it.
Not so with unleaded mogas, naturally. As a result, you can run your engine cooler, and cleaner. Just ask any mechanic what he finds when he opens up an engine that's been run on unleaded mogas, versus avgas, and he'll tell you that the blue stuff just packs your low-compression engine full of crud. Mogas engines, in contrast, are pristine inside.
Those 10,000 gallons have been burned at every temperature, at every altitude, in engines ranging from 85 to 235 horsepower. Not once have we heard a sputter, miss, or stumble. Guys who talk about mogas as if it's some sort of "inferior" airplane fuel are just spreading old wive's tales.
If you figure that my transfer tank holds 55 gallons, that means that I've run 200 tank-fulls through that truck, into my airplanes. With an average fuel burn of 10 gallons per hour, that's 1000 hours of absolutely trouble-free flying, and $15,000 in our pockets.
That's a win-win situation, all the way around!
).
