Fuel Drums

Transport the Fuel to Your Stranded Aircraft Location

Overview

Every now and then, an aircraft becomes stranded due to no available fuel. Maybe you rent an aircraft only to find that it has little or no fuel on-board and there is no retail fuel available for purchase at that airfield. Maybe you mis-planned your flight, or had more of a head-wind than planned, and you arrived with too little fuel to continue your journey. The solution is to buy bulk fuel (or, a "fuel drum") from another airfield and transport it to your current location.

Finding Bulk Fuel for sale

You cannot simply carry a fuel can up to a retail fuel pump and buy a few gallons. FBO Operators who sell fuel need to specifically offer a "bulk fuel" service in order for you to buy a drum of fuel from them. FBO Operators may (or may not) opt to sell some of their fuel in bulk, so it's not quite as easy as just finding a near-by airport with fuel for sale.

NOTE:

Make sure you select the correct type of fuel - 100LL or JetFuel

Look around the region using the airport search box at the bottom of the airport page.

Purchasing the Bulk Fuel

If an FBO sells wholesale fuel, you will find this in the "Goods" section at the bottom of the airport page as a Commodity For Sale . This will tell you who is selling it, what the price per kilogram is and the amount available. (note: FSE Fuel is 2.668 kg per gallon). You must purchase the correct fuel type in your name by clicking the 'Buy' link at the far right and purchase a suitable amount. Do not click the 'Buy for group name' link if you are a member of a group.

Enter the amount of fuel you wish to purchase on the next screen, and click the "Buy" button.

Note: If you have accidentally purchased bulk fuel for your group, use the "Transfer Goods" feature to transfer the fuel to your "personal" account.

Preparing the Fuel for Transport

Now that you own a small amount of fuel, you will need to create a "Goods Transfer Assignment" in order to load that fuel into your MyFlight page as an FSE Assignment that can be loaded onto an aircraft and moved from one airport to another.

Go to the "Goods" menu and see a list of all of your commodities you may have purchased. Click the "New assignment" button next to the fuel you wish to transport.

Complete the assignment creation form and click "Add" at the bottom.

TO: Enter the destination ICAO to which you wish to move the fuel
Amount (Kg): Typically, the total amount of fuel that you purchased.
Note: You do not have to move ALL of the fuel if you do not want to, or you can break up the fuel into multiple, smaller assignments (example: large volume of fuel but only a small aircraft with small payload capabilities).
Pay (each): Typically, this is just left at $0
Note: If you want to assign a job payout for someone else to complete this assignment, enter the payout value here. If you are creating multiple, smaller assignments, each assignment will receive the same pay out value.
# to Create: Typically, this is just left at 1.
Note: if you want to create multiple, smaller assignments, enter the total number of assignments you want to end up with.

NOTE: Your new assignment will be placed at the airport in the public list of jobs at that airport. You should collect that assignment into your MyFlight queue now if you plan to fly this assignment yourself. If you are preparing this assignment for someone else to ferry the fuel to your stranded location, let them know the assignment is ready to be collected.

Transport the Fuel to Your Stranded Aircraft Location

You can find the new assignment you just created either at the normal airport page, in the public assignment list, or in your Transfer Assignments page (Menu: GOODS > TRANSFER ASSIGNMENTS). Add this assignment to your MyFlight queue and move it just like any other assignment.

Once this assignment arrives at its intended destination (ideally, the airport at which you have a stranded aircraft), it will automatically be re-converted into "bulk goods", viewable in your Goods page again.

Refuel From Your Fuel Drum

You can now use your fuel, and "refuel" your aircraft through the normal refuel page, accessible from your MyFlight page.

TIP: Make sure you cancel the rental of the aircraft you used to move the fuel and have rented your stranded aircraft! Otherwise, you will pouring your hard-won fuel into the wrong aircraft.

At the top of the Refuel Page, you will see a list of providers (all of the FBOs who sell fuel) as well as your local fuel drum.

Things to be aware of

You can only refuel from your own fuel drum (meaning that the fuel is listed in your List of Goods on your Goods page). If the fuel is in someone else's List of Goods, or in a group's List of Goods , you cannot use the drum to refuel the aircraft. If a group, or someone else, purchased this fuel drum for you, they will need to transfer it to you before you can use it.
Using a fuel drum on a rental aircraft means you will pay for the fuel twice. First, you will buy the drum. Second, you will still pay the normal "fuel charge" to the owner as part of the rental agreement. If you are renting dry, you will still pay the owner for the amount of fuel you consumed on the next flight, even though it was "your fuel" that you purchased in the drum.
Due to decimal points, there will always be some fuel you cannot use. If your page says 18 gallons of fuel in a fuel drum, you might only be able to use 17 (think of it as fuel at the bottom of the drum you cannot siphon out). After you use your fuel drum, you will most likely have a "1kg Fuel" listed in your List of Goods.

You can "combine" multiple drums by simply locating them together at the same airport. If you have three (for example)1kg Fuel Goods at different airports, and you move them to the same airport and you will see "3kg Fuel". You can pour this roughly 1 gallon of fuel into your aircraft and have another 1kg left over. Or, you can take it to an FBO that buys fuel and sell them the remaining 1Kg.

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