Received this from Transair:
Looks like a neat product for the Rotax crowd. At least those based at small airfields.
Avoids messing around with several standard jerry cans and makes refuelling more clean and straightforward.
55-60 litres is a typical refuel for most microlights and 2-seat permit types.
Doubts:
- not strictly legal to carry in your car?
- might need two people – one holding the nozzle into the tank and the other working the rotary pump
Silly of them not to disclose the price. Usually when they do this, the price is, well, silly..
Both planes in the pictures are going to need way more than 55 litres, so what does this have over three 20 litre jerrycans which at least a normal person can lift into a car or onto the back of a pickup?
Imagine trying to get a ~50kg item into the back of the car in the bottom pic… it’s roughly the weight of a washing machine. One would need a ramp (a piece of wood). One may not need to get it into the car (because usually it will be empty at that point) but you likely still need to move it about.
If one can work by filling a tank sitting in the back of a car and never moving it out of the car all the time it has any fuel in it, one may as well get one of the ferry tank products and then you get decent capacity.
This underlines the whole issue of fuelling a plane of any useful size from jerrycans. Unless you can drive the car right up to the plane, and have a pump, you need to be built like Geoff Capes. It’s one of the downsides of farm strips and for those who cannot sort out a fuel facility of some sort is one reason why not everybody escapes to a farm strip to get away from airport politics as soon as they get a chance.
Here in the UK, IME, petrol stations ban filling of anything plastic over 5 litres.
Nothing secret about the price – but very expensive. Still, if it solves a problem…
I can see it is a good solution for the “60 litre problem” but that’s about it. If you need 80 litres then it’s no better than four 20 litre metal jerrycans (plus a pump) which at least you can fill without any hassle.
The only way IMHO you will be able to fill this tank (in the UK, at least) is by opening the back of the car and shoving the pump nozzle into it very fast before the attendant notices, by which time it will be a fait accompli.
How much is a 12V electric fuel pump?
I briefly considered it as a means to get mogas to the avgas-only airport for our TMG. 55 litres is close to average of what we add when fueling. My experience with jerry cans is not that good. This tank could just be in the car when filled and stay there when pumping to the TMG so no heavy lifting required. But there is a no-fueling-in-hangars-law and logistics with several pilots flying the TMG would probably prevent it from working well.
Who is an “attendant”?
At small strips without any refuelling facility, this will be no problem at all. Everybody will use jerry cans or something.
Then there are airfields that do sell only 100LL. When “someone” objects , pilots usually say “my plane needs lead-free fuel and you don’t sell it, so I have to do this”. The jobsworth will say “but the aircraft IS approved for 100LL” and the pilot will say “yes, but only as emergency option”.
Anyway, I guess, usually, the pilot will win this discussion in the end.
No need to discuss about big airports (which anyway are rarely used by microlights and 2-seat permit types).
Most of these aircraft have tank capacities of between 60 and 90 litres, so I would say 55-60 litres will solve 95% of all situations.
It’s a compromise. As you say, it will be borderline to shove this 50kg-thing (when full) out of the car trunk. But it should be just about possible.
The price is steep.
boscomantico wrote:
Who is an “attendant”?
The petrol station attendant. Peter was talking about filling the portable tank, not the aircraft.
But that should be easily solved. Use an automatic station without any attendants!
OK. I presumed that such device would be used 95% to fill it up at the roadside forecourt and then refuel the aircraft with that fuel.
Petrol stations are not IME totally unmanned. You need someone to sort out stuff, deal with confused customers who can’t work the pump, mop up fuel spills, empty the garbage, etc. So if they see somebody doing something they don’t like, somebody will eventually come out and say something.
Obviously you will get away with it the first time…
If this was a solution for me (in terms of volume) I would make up a metal tank with a pump on it. In fact this product is curious because the moulding tooling must have cost close to 100k. Any one of many metal bashing shops can fabricate a tank from stainless steel.
Again, it might be different in the UK ( 
…), but elsewhere, forecourt operators aren’t really interested where exactly you put the fuel that you buy. As long as you buy their fuel, they are happy. The reason they install videocameras is merely to avoid theft.
