Jet-A on your hands and carpet

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ingramleedy
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Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by ingramleedy »

I just learned how smelly Jet-A fuel can be with just a few drops. (at least its not lead poisoning).

I was using my new sump tester and put it away in my bookbag, wow! Just a couple of drops can be pretty bad odor and the smell infected by book bag and most everything in it and my hands. After a long soak in Vinegar and baking soda and few washes it came clean. :-)

Just a couple of drops can really spread on the stick from your hands or get on the carpet from your shoes. Now I have a sump tester case and a plastic bag to store it! (Thanks to a few threads I read here)

Are most of you wearing gloves when testing your fuel to prevent it getting on your hands? Or are you using any special magical wipes that can get the odor off? I'm curious how you handle it. Thanks!

-Ingram
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Colin
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Re: Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by Colin »

Always gloves. With the DA42 that stuff can go in the nose baggage area, which is for dirty and smelly stuff. I have a tupperware container with a tester in a Ziplock and a box of gloves. My ferry pilot suggested treating the carpet up there with Stainmaster, which I did. He said that three drops of fuel up there will get wicked into the cabin and fill it with fuel smell. I have *always* felt the cabin smelly a little bit like fuel. When we fuel, they will ignore my warnings, overfill it, and we wind up with some on the ramp. Then a passenger will walk through it unaware, and now the cabin smells like fuel.

I wish I had single point fueling that was on a different plane, just fed my engines in flight.
Colin Summers, PP Multi-Engine IFR, ~3,000hrs
colin@mightycheese.com * send email rather than PM
http://www.flyingsummers.com
N972RD DA42 G1000 2.0 s/n 42.AC100 (sold!)
N971RD DA40 G1000 s/n 40.508 (traded)
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Boatguy
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Re: Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by Boatguy »

Similar to Colin, the tester is wrapped in a cloth, and stored in a zip lock bag. Then that bag, and gloves are stored in an airtight food container (which can be difficult to open after flying above 10,000').

I ALWAYS observe fueling and instruct the ramp attendant to "fill to bottom of the tab" where the retaining cable for the cap is terminated. None the less, some ramp attendants still overfill. One thing I found to reduce that was to step away and never talk to them while they are fueling.
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chili4way
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Re: Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by chili4way »

Yes, gloves. I use nitrile examination gloves. Suggestions if you use the metal-topped Diamond-provided sump tester (DA40NG):
  • if you use a ZipLoc bag to store your tester, put a screw thread protector over the pointy Phillips head end to reduce the risk of puncturing the bag. I double bag my sump and put the gloves in the bag with the sump.
  • use the black poking extender to sump the wings first, then remove it before returning fuel to the tanks (i.e. if you don't have a fuel discard storage) to eliminate the risk of it falling into the tank; then sump the one under the engine.
IMHO, the distributor/ferry pilot should have briefed you on this, including the need to double bag or otherwise seal a Jet-A infused sump tester.
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ingramleedy
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Re: Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by ingramleedy »

Thanks for the details. Here's my shopping list if this can help anyone else ---

Mygoflight Air-Tight Fuel Tester Container
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CLBNM81?ps ... ct_details (this seems to fit the Diamond tester with the extruder inside. I then put this into a ziplock gallon bag and roll it up.

Permatex 25050 Fast Orange Hand Cleaner Wipe (I'm trying these for hand wipes)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L3QS01Q?ps ... ct_details


New Pig Premium Absorbent Mat Pads | 20 Oil Absorbent Pads | The Original Pig Mat | 15" x 20" Oil Pads (I thought I'd try to cleanup pads)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MYNBR9N?ps ... ct_details

Gloves - GLOVEWORKS HD Orange Nitrile Disposable Gloves, 8 Mil, Latex and Powder Free, Industrial, Food Safe, Raised Diamond Texture (lots of gloves to choose from -- these looked nicer)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MGSGRIS?re ... th=1&psc=1

I thought about getting disposable booties -- that might be next, but didn't want to be that guy. (yet)
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=booties+for+ ... -doa-p_3_7
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haykinson
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Re: Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by haykinson »

What do folks use for fuel discard storage? I would love to return clean fuel back into the tank, but the fuel testers aren't like a GATS jar and don't have a filter. I got a standalone filter off of AircraftSpruce but it's a bit small and one day I'll drop it into the tank, or get my hands dirty with jet fuel while pouring. But storing fuel near my tie down sounds kind of sketchy too.
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Boatguy
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Re: Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by Boatguy »

I use the factory fuel sampling tool which is only a few ounces. In 3 1/2 years and 575 service hours, I've never seen anything in it. I dump the sample back into the left tank.

One possible reason is that I'm in a hangar 98% of the nights so the plane doesn't sit out in the rain. Unless the water is in the Jet-A truck and survives the truck filter, it's not likely to get into my tanks.

The other factor is that the fuel in an Austro engine gets filtered numerous time in the course of a flight. 90% of the fuel that is pumped from the tank to the engine, through two different filters, is returned to the tank (per the Austro ops manual, there is 4.5 l/min of "excess" fuel returned to the tank).

Consider a simple case of a 1hr flight. Cruising at 85% I'll burn 7.5gph. But the engine will pump and filter 78gal. The left tank holds 19.5gal. Most of the left tank will have passed through two filters 3-4 times before it reaches an injector.

I usually take off with full tanks (39gal) and my average cross country trip is 3hrs of flight time so I only burn about 22gal, meaning a little more than half of my next full tank is actually "new" fuel, the remainder has probably made a couple of laps through the filters.

That's not to say that contamination from the truck couldn't be in the 10% of the fuel that actually gets to the injector, but it's significantly less likely than in an avgas engine that sends 100% of the fuel pumped to the injectors (or carb).
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dant
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Re: Jet-A on your hands and carpet

Post by dant »

Most of the left tank will have passed through two filters 3-4 times before it reaches an injector.
I'm not familiar with the NG but that sort of sounds like 3-4 things that could get clogged and cause a fuel starvation event.

Last night I definitely didn't watch the accident report where proficient pilots had a fatal crash due to a clogged fuel filter as a result of improper maintenance.
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