Post moved from the Bergerac €50 for police attendance thread
Aviathor wrote
Bordeaux Merignac always had a avgas apart for a limited period of time.
Of course, you can always choose Saucats and pay 1.75 per litre (as the pilots at Mérignac aeroclub do 
)
It says “reserved for based pilots” on the charts, but I can still serve visitors with no problem.
LFBD has not had avgas for years, according to the published info.
If there is actually avgas somewhere, maybe for locals only, you end up with the “Greek / Italian situation” where you fly somewhere on the word of somebody saying he can arrange it under the table, but then say he’s not there when you turn up… the locals won’t play ball with a stranger who could be anybody and get them into trouble. If the setup can serve avgas to visitors legally then they will be selling it openly because the usual €0.30/litre is very nice money. I’ve seen this a few times and one cannot really work with it unless there is a dead easy Plan B.
If an airport has legally saleable avgas then they should publish it.
Nothing under the table here.
At last information (2 weeks ago) avgas was available at LFBD.
In the case of Saucats, the “based pilots only” clause was added because some people were turning up and expecting instant service from an airfield that is run entirely by volunteers.
The decision was taken by the guy who runs the fuel operation and who is also a mutual friend of mine and Jenny’s (also a member of this forum). I am happy to serve fuel to anyone at LFCS who gives me sufficient notice (I only live 3 minutes from the airfield). Payment is cash or French cheque only. Receipts are issued for all purchases. No reward for me other than helping out fellow pilots. The odd beer is appreciated though!
OK; great. I changed the threat title to cover both airports.
Bordeaux_Jim is right. That is the only reason.
For november the price is 1.80€/l….
Saddened for the increase but it’s due to the price of the barrel of oil
I have often read avout pilots landing at the smaller French airfields, expecting to get fuel immediately, without realizung most of these are club airfields, with ni real “staff”. That’s why I always recommend to get both the TOTAL card and the BP card (along with a normal credit card if course). With these, one is covered at 70% of French airfields, without necessarily needing any staff. The reminaing 30 percent is TOTAL and BP airfields without a proper card reader, plus some airfields with fuel supplies from other sources.
However, I have found in every case that one cannot work out how to work the pump unless one is a French speaker. And in every case I had others around so it wasn’t just me being stupid.
The AIR BP pumps detect your language from the card but then revert to French menus.
The one at Carcassonne was broken.
So IME one usually does need assistance. I certainly needed it at Bergerac.
Obviously one could say one should not travel to France unless one can speak French.
According to my experience, you usually have to only confirm all questions with yes (“oui” in French) by pressing 1, and select pump No. 1, then enter the PIN code and the fuel starts to flow.
On BP pumps, you need to enter the aircraft registration which is more tricky, but isn’t really easier if you speak French.
Peter wrote:
The one at Carcassonne was broken.
It was working on 24th October. With an AirBP card, a pretty reasonable £1.48/litre
