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Avgas Fuel Club (Co-op, Whatever . . . )

Dan Langhout

Well Known Member
Has anyone seen, heard, or had experience with an Avgas "Fuel Club"? I have an opportunity (!?) to help create such a thing here at Moontown. Basically, the club would purchase the tank and pump from the airport and then provide self serve Avgas to members only on a not-for-profit basis.
I am struggling to dig into the details of this and am looking for any info, experiences, lessons learned, etc.

To keep this RV related, I would definitely like to buy cheaper Avgas for my RV-7 through such a club. :)
 
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The key to keeping prices low will be to take full tanker-loads at a time. Do you have enough storage for that?
 
We have this with my flying club, but it's an expensive system. Digital keypad on the pump, everybody has their own code that way it's all logged as to who pumps what. If everybody is honest and diligent about logging what they pump, you could get by with a lot lower tech.

Got a couple of buddies that shared a hangar for a while at the airpark one of them lives at. They had a 300 (I think?) gallon tank at the hangar, and when it needed to be topped off they would go halvzies, then keep track of who pumped what. Pretty sure they just kept track in on a clipboard.

I know that they got a discount on mogas buying in bulk like that, but I don't think it was a huge discount. Obviously more gallons = more discount for bulk buys.
 
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You might try Swift. I believe they deliver ~350 gallon containers of 94UL - but I would assume you will need to buy a full truck of containers to get a worthwhile price.

Carl
 
The devil is always going to be in the details, like “who is responsible for environmental and safety compliance?” If the airport WANTS to sell the pump and tank to you, one has to ask why? They probably aren’t making any money the way it is - and all it takes is for a fire code change to come along that requires a new dike around the fuel farm to require everyone to chip in a few extra thousand one month. And if you have a spill, who’s responsible for the cleanup? Definitely not cheap!

Those are things we talked about at our previous airpark when we tossed around the idea of a community fuel farm. Someone had a chance to pick up a used fuel truck cheap, and said “hey, we can just park it, and he it like a fixed fuel farm!” Then the city inspectors got wind of the idea, and yeah....any idea of saving money went straight out the window.

So....think about all the ancillary costs and complications that go along with the idea!

Paul
 
The key to keeping prices low will be to take full tanker-loads at a time. Do you have enough storage for that?

3000 gallons - enough for a "Bobtail" truck load.

We have this with my flying club, but it's an expensive system. Digital keypad on the pump, everybody has their own code that way it's all logged as to who pumps what. If everybody is honest and diligent about logging what they pump, you could get by with a lot lower tech.

I would love to know which specific system you are using. I have done a pretty deep dive into the hardware that is available.

The devil is always going to be in the details, like “who is responsible for environmental and safety compliance?” If the airport WANTS to sell the pump and tank to you, one has to ask why? They probably aren’t making any money the way it is - and all it takes is for a fire code change to come along that requires a new dike around the fuel farm to require everyone to chip in a few extra thousand one month. And if you have a spill, who’s responsible for the cleanup? Definitely not cheap!

The airport will be responsible for the environmental compliance. The reason for the willingness to sell is low flow volume and the requirement to pay a couple of people to man the line shack all the time on the off chance that someone wants to buy fuel. This is a small privately owned/public use airport.
As for firecode changes or spills - well - good points! Thanks!

+1. What are you going to do differently? Especially if you have a smaller (just members) customer base?

Looking into structuring this as a not-for-profit co-op. Volunteer board members/officers. No one gets paid. Also, insurance is supposed to be cheaper without retail sales (this point remains to be seen :rolleyes:).


Thanks for all the responses!
 
the requirement to pay a couple of people to man the line shack all the time on the off chance that someone wants to buy fuel.

Haven't they heard of self-serve? Practically all smaller airports are now self-serve/automated credit card pumps, for exactly this reason.
 
Haven't they heard of self-serve? Practically all smaller airports are now self-serve/automated credit card pumps, for exactly this reason.

Yep - but of course retail self-serve systems cost $$$. Owner is unwilling to make the investment given the low sales volume. We may run into this issue as well, but currently are looking at much less sophisticated (and $) technology to support a club environment. None of this is a done deal.
 
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