Watch those fuel receipts

[tonycondon]

At south bend yesterday I requested that the FBO top the tip tanks and put 15 gallons in each wing. After we returned for the game I was charged for 44 gallons of fuel. hmmm i know I had waaay more than 7 gallons burned out of each tip tank. Turns out they only topped the tips and had put nothing in the wing tanks, just missed it on the order sheet. walked back in and let them know and they were very quick to get a truck back out to gas up my wings. Considering they were extremely busy the service was pretty good. I think they had something like 150 airplanes on the ramp, and everyone was starting to leave.

 

[jesse]

Yeah--you've got to really check it. I've had several FBOs fail to follow the instructions.

The 'line guy' at Gastons filled the DA-20 up to about 40% when I asked for him to top it off.

 

[CJones]

I've caught that several times in the RV. The baffles in the wing tanks are so small that if you simply fill it till it gets to the rim of the cap, a few minutes later it will 'settle' to around 1/2 tank. I make it a point to tell the line guys - "If you haven't filled an RV before, fuel it slowly because the baffles are small and it takes a while to get it 'full' - I'm expecting around XX gallons to top it off."

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

My little sister, on her student solo cross country, asked to have the tanks filled, but didn't check. She ran out of gas about 1/2 way back and had to put down in an onion field. (no damage) At least she was able to do the forced landing thing well.

 

[mikea]

How about checking the fuel level (at all 4 tanks) and sumping after refueling?

I did have once where the bill said like 25 gallons, when I was expecting 50. When guy in the FBO saw me checking all four caps he ran the fuel truck back over to me at high speed.

 

[tonycondon]

On a 421 your odds of getting Jet A are above average. I always waited until the fuel truck pulled up to confirm it was the LL100 truck. If you do your run up and one or both of the cylinder head temps seems extra high - do not take off.

yep, the line guy made sure to ask and verified that it took 100LL. And I always check the truck to make sure it says 100LL in big letters on the side. Particularly with over 100 jets parked no the ramp and the place running like a mad house, just asking for that mistake to be made.

How about checking the fuel level (at all 4 tanks) and sumping after refueling?

I did have once where the bill said like 25 gallons, when I was expecting 50. When guy in the FBO saw me checking all four caps he ran the fuel truck back over to me at high speed.

works well when you can actually see into the tank to check, and/or if you are getting the tanks topped off.

 

[SCCutler]

I have had two fueling errors to deal with;

1. At TLH, when I went to preflight, one tank was under 1/2 full. The FBO first tried to say that the fuel drain was leaking and that it was my problem, but I asked that he come out and see just how low the tank was and how minimal any "leaking" was (there was evidence of a couple of drips, maybe). Once he looked and saw just how low the tank was, he said, "Hmmm," and waved the truck over with his apologies. They give excellent service at Flightline.

2. At a large airport in the American south, I parked a plane with a large FBO on an extremely busy weekend, with a top-off order. When I came to fly home, they could not find a fuel ticket, and declined to collect a ramp fee (I did not really need the fuel, was buying it as a matter of form). Then, when I got to the plane, it was full-to-the-brim with sparkling blue go-juice. So when I went back to the counter to pay for it, the counter girl (who was overrun with jet-drivers and millionaires) told me, "Look, don't worry about it, I have no idea how much gas we gave you and we've inconvenienced you enough already." She declined a tip, too, but I did tip the line guy who gave me a cart ride back to the plane.

About a year and a half later, the plane's owner called me and told me that the FBO's business office had sent him a bill (they had sold-out to another outfit, and were closing out old accounts). I said it was my hickey, but (of course) I'd just submit the invoice to the club, so it was net-net anyway. He told 'em to pound sand, and they went away.

 

[kgruber]

At south bend yesterday I requested that the FBO top the tip tanks and put 15 gallons in each wing. After we returned for the game I was charged for 44 gallons of fuel. hmmm i know I had waaay more than 7 gallons burned out of each tip tank. Turns out they only topped the tips and had put nothing in the wing tanks, just missed it on the order sheet. walked back in and let them know and they were very quick to get a truck back out to gas up my wings. Considering they were extremely busy the service was pretty good. I think they had something like 150 airplanes on the ramp, and everyone was starting to leave.

You let someone fuel YOUR airplane and weren't there to watch???

 

[gprellwitz]

My fueling story was where I'd requested something like 10 gals per side, but they topped it off. Since I was flying two ladies on an Angel Flight and that would put me over gross, I had to tell them to pull some off. The nice thing is that they fessed up when they caught the mistake and tried to make up for it. I just wasn't going to take a chance, though, with an Angel Flight mission.

 

[tonycondon]

You let someone fuel YOUR airplane and weren't there to watch???

yep. god knows when they actually got to fueling the airplane. im pretty sure it was before halftime since there was no water in the fuel when i sampled it. considering that they had 150 airplanes on the ramp and my fuel order got thrown in a huge stack with the rest, i decided to go to the football game.

 

[CJones]

You let someone fuel YOUR airplane and weren't there to watch???

If I fly south in the summer, I tell them not to fuel the plane when I arrive. Then I call ahead about an hour before departure and have them top it off to prevent the fuel from expanding and blowing out the vents. I'm just a tightwad like that.

 

[gprellwitz]

If I fly south in the summer, I tell them not to fuel the plane when I arrive. Then I call ahead about an hour before departure and have them top it off to prevent the fuel from expanding and blowing out the vents. I'm just a tightwad like that.

No, these days you can just say that you're being "environmentally sound." It's a win-win, you tightwad!

 

[flyingcheesehead]

On a 421 your odds of getting Jet A are above average. I always waited until the fuel truck pulled up to confirm it was the LL100 truck. If you do your run up and one or both of the cylinder head temps seems extra high - do not take off.

The chances of that happening have been greatly reduced since the Hoover nozzles came about... It's the 100LL in the turbine that can happen fairly easily.

How about checking the fuel level (at all 4 tanks) and sumping after refueling?

Let's see YOU visually check the fuel level on a 421. They're not small airplanes. I believe they do have fuel gauges that are certified as being correct throughout their entire range, though, so you can actually check the gauges and trust them. They don't have enough resolution to get down to the gallon, but they do at least work.

You let someone fuel YOUR airplane and weren't there to watch???

On my big trip, I think there were only two times where I even got fuel out of a truck. I bought (cheap) self-serve the rest of the time. No errors there.

However, at the home drome, I'm almost never there to watch. We park our planes on the south ramp, while the FBO, flight school, etc. are all on the east ramp. When I'm done flying, I just call the FBO, tell them I'm back, and they'll send a fuel truck and a tug to top the plane off and put it back in the hangar. I do visually check and sump the tanks before departing, though.

 

[tonycondon]

Let's see YOU visually check the fuel level on a 421. They're not small airplanes. I believe they do have fuel gauges that are certified as being correct throughout their entire range, though, so you can actually check the gauges and trust them. They don't have enough resolution to get down to the gallon, but they do at least work.

i dont know about that Kent. the gauges are not tied to floats like in the 172 or 182 etc., but are weight capacitors on the tank, so they are a little more reliable. the main tanks can be adjusted so they read correctly at full and empty (and presumably in between). the aux tanks can only be calibrated to read true when empty, which is when it really matters anyway.

 

[sba55]

On a 421 your odds of getting Jet A are above average. I always waited until the fuel truck pulled up to confirm it was the LL100 truck. If you do your run up and one or both of the cylinder head temps seems extra high - do not take off.

That's if you're very, very lucky. If you're not so lucky (maybe you got 50% 100LL still remaining and were topped off with JET A), you won't be able to tell the difference by sumping (that mixture will look exactly like 100LL by itself) and your engine won't break in the first few minutes. It will break badly, but probably only after you've taken off.

-Felix

 

[drizzt76]

I learned a lesson at OMA a last summer. We parked the UH-60 on the ramp and talked to the line guy. He fooled us into thinking he knew where the pressure port was and said "We fuel these all the time." I thought the fuel ticket seemed low but never gave it a second thought and was in a hurry. If you open the port after a pressure fill, usually but not always, a gallon or so will spill out. So I check the fill about 1/2 through the startup when you apply AC power from the APU (the gauge only works on AC power). He only gravity filled one side. They filled the other side up very quickly and we were on our way. Now I stay and watch no matter how busy I am.

 

[imQ]

As a former line guy, I trained a bunch of kids over the years. I used to tape a list of aircraft names, and types of fuel to the clipboards in the trucks. Failing that, I used to tell everyone NOT to fuel an airplane if there was any question at all. I'd rather get yelled at for not fueling, than mis fueling. Still, it took a kid defueling an airplane with a 5 gallon bucket to get the message across. (Do you know how long it takes to get 750 gallons of Jet A out of a Hansa using the 5 gallon bucket method? I don't, because the poor kid was still working at it when I went home 5 hours later. Luckily the plane in question didn't have a trip that day.)