Jay Honeck wrote:

Jay, Ni
Clearly you must earn a lot more than I do, Ray! $55 per trip to the
airport (which, as Montblack stated, is less than 1 mile away) is worth
every moment spent messing around with it. (Actually, bringing the
truck to the hangar is MUCH easier than bringing the plane to the
self-serve pumps...)

Heck, I used to refuel Atlas from 6-gallon jerry cans, and I thought
*that* was worth it. Fueling from the Grape is simply heaven compared
to THAT nightmare.

Our average flight is a bit less than an hour each way, or between 1.5
- 2.0 hours 'round trip. This translates into from 22 to 30 gallons of
gas, so we get roughly two flights per trip to the gas station,
sometimes more, sometimes less.

Since we usually fly twice a week, we're saving (at least) $2860 per
year in fuel costs -- AND we're feeding Atlas a fuel that he is much
happier burning. It's a win-win all the way around. (Actually, right
now the price differential is $1.71 per gallon -- so the savings just
jumped to $4891 annually....)

We have an account at the gas station and get a substantial discount
because we do volume purchasing with their company. (The station is
owned by a grocery store chain that we do a lot of business with...)
All I have to do is sign for it, and they bill me at the end of the
month. It works great.

Anyone who doesn't build their own Mighty Grape is just flushing $100
bills down the toilet, IMHO. It's really not that hard to do, and (if
you shop around) you get a nice truck to drive in the bargain.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"



Jay,

See, I'm coming from a different land here too. I can't get my own car
onto the field to load babies into the airplane, much less a truck full
of gas. If I am willing to drive 50 minutes to the airport instead of
20, I can get onto the field (closest airport that allows private
vehicle access) after jumping through all the right hoops. Yes, I do
make a good living, and my time and the hassle are worth something to
me. If my plane could use mogas (it can't, there is no STC for it, as
the min octane requirement is 96), and I could get a truck onto the
airport to refuel it, etc, then it MIGHT be worth it. Fact is, I buy
close to 60% of all my avgas away from home and I do shop around for
lowest Avgas prices, so it would take me much longer to amortize the
cost of equipment over the savings. You have an advantage of lower
fuel burn and the ability to tanker around the same volume of gas that I
can.

So, I think its great that you can make the grape work for you. There
are a lot of us out there that for a multitude of reasons doing so is
either impractical (airport access, not enough fuel taken on at home vs
total fuel used, permits), or impossible (engines 250 HP).