There are much more obvious ways to ground an airplane than to park a
truck in front of it. They could have telephoned you, or left you a
note. In our club, we ground an airplane by tying a rag on the prop,
writing a note in the aircraft tachsheet, and calling the crew chief for
that aircraft. Parking a car in front of the hanger is only going to
**** someone off.




"Dan Luke" wrote in
:

You have to take off at dawn to pick up an Angel Flight patient 200
miles away, so you call the FBO the night before to have the airplane
pulled out and fueled.

When you arrive at the airport, you find the fuel truck parked in
front of the airplane, blocking it. The FBO is locked up and no one's
around. Checking the gauges reveals that fuel has been added. You
call the FBO's number, but all you can do is leave a message on the
answering machine asking what's going on.

It's time to go; you could push the plane away from the truck and taxi
away, but now you're wondering: did they block it for a reason? Is
the fuel contaminated? Did someone notice something dangerous about
the plane that you don't see? Did you forget to pay your fuel bill?
What???

In the event, I did an extra careful preflight, took large fuel
samples, did an extended run-up and took off with no problems. Would
you have?