Fun trying to buy Aviation Fuel
So I’m sure most of you have a similar story, but after a telephone call with my local municipal airport, where I was informed that they would in fact sell me 100LL over the counter, I proceeded to the airport only to meet with another person who informed me that this was “against the law”. Of course after reading all of the horror stories online about people trying to buy AV gas for off-road use I fully expected this.. And when questioned by his boss the guy that I originally spoke to walked his story back completely. Also fully anticipated..What I did not expect was the harsh reaction and treatment I received when I asked where this policy/rule was written so that I could read it for myself. This triggered much anger from the airport manager who first blamed his fuel supplier (which it turns out he gave me the name of the wrong supplier) then the EPA, then the FAA and in the end could not/would not produce a single document or source to back up his policy of not selling fuel over the counter. He could not even produce a written policy governing his own airport. What was strange was as I turned to leave he told me to never try to buy “this” again. Challenge accepted.
So this afternoon I filled out a public records request to the City who runs the airport (who also made a tidy 186k last year in avgas sales revenue according to the 2022-23 city budget), I asked for any airport or city policy which prohibits such sales of avgas for off-road use. Of course prior to doing this I did some checks of FAA and EPA regs and I can find nothing that limits 100ll sales to aviation only, although all three of my local airports gave me the same spiel. So since this is a public entity and I am a tax payer. I plan to needle them a bit. However if any of you have experience with this and can point me to a governing document that does in-fact limit sales of 100ll to airplanes (or their owners) only, then I’ll gladly back down. Right now it seems that this “regulation” is just urban legend propagated to protect and preserve the last remaining leaded transport fuel for the use of aviation community only..
BTW, This all may be for naught since I am told by Dietmar that I can get the same performance from 93 octane pump gas, but until I compare it to 1:1 with 100ll on the dyno I’ll always be wondering…sorry Dietmar!!