I’ve checked the web page referred to in eurogaguest1980’s letter. It says:
The use of any self-serve is an implied confirmation by you that you are a professional user.
Other language versions of the web page, including German, say the same thing. That reinforces my impression that this is just a symbolic CYA action by BP and that nothing will change in reality.
Given that commercial activities even in “small” aircraft now use turbines to a large extent, I expect that non-commercial activities account for a sufficiently large part of BP’s AVGAS business that they don’t want to lose it.
Airborne_Again wrote:
The use of any self-serve is an implied confirmation by you that you are a professional user.
Everybody with a sense of language and context understands what “professional” is supposed to mean here.
Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that if translated in German, it doesn’t get deformed by local BP branches (as “professionell” and “gewerblich” have the same translation into English) but I wouldn’t always expect the worst. And as you say, why would BP want to kill all the self-serve, B2C business? Doesn’t make sense.
AFAIK there is a law coming into force in the EU that only allows “professionals” to handle fluids containing Cumene in aviation. The law contains an exception for private individuals fueling their cars with diesel. However, they forgot to add an exception for private individuals fueling their aircraft. Efforts to change the text at last minute apparently failed. I believe this chemical is only found in Jet A and not Avgas (edit: I was wrong, it’s in both). Now we can only hope that there will be a pragmatic approach by all countries, to view all pilots as professionals. After all, they have more knowledge on fueling than the average motorist using diesel.
What a cockup.
Indeed. It‘s things like these (regulating unnecessary stuff in an absurd manner) ehich which people here in Europe hate the EU. And rightly so. Hoards of Sesselfurzer (seat farters) that sit in offices and create regulation all day
long. Of course, it’s all for the sake of safety, security, etc.
The supreme irony of this is that professional pilots, of jets at least, always use the fuel truck. I’ve never seen a Citation lining up beside the pumps at Cannes (actually the pumps there are only Avgas). It’s us flyers-for-pleasure who use the self-serve pumps. Luckily it says “professional user” and not “professional pilot”, leaving open the question of “user of what”.
In France I suspect nobody will care. If they said “octogenarian marathon runners who speak fluent Hmong” nobody would care either. However it may be different in more but-these-are-the-rules countries like our friends outre-Rhin.
OK, so BP idiots in Germany have indeed translated it with the word “gewerblich”. Still, I am not a tiny bit worried, no matter if it will be corrected or not.
The bottom line says Avgas must go directly to aircraft. Not to a private bowser or can.
johnh wrote:
The supreme irony of this is that professional pilots, of jets at least, always use the fuel truck. I’ve never seen a Citation lining up beside the pumps at Cannes (actually the pumps there are only Avgas). It’s us flyers-for-pleasure who use the self-serve pumps.
I think this more down to the type of engine rather than the type of operation (private, commercial etc.). On a turbine each start degrades the engine and quick restarts after fueling are especially difficult as the engine might still be very hot. So for JetA1 it is usually a lot easier to bring the fuel to the plane than the plane to the fuel. But some smaller airfields obviously have fixed JetA1 installations.
Also when doing training on a turbine most try to fly to places where one can pay online so the engine can simply keep going.
Update: AirBP has issues a corrected German version of the info letter.
It is no longer the legally quite precise “gewerblich” (commercial), but you guess it “professionell” (professional, maybe with broader possible meaning than in English).
I would now also lean towards this being a CYA towards a useless EU regulation.
