Any DA-42 misfuelings?

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gwroclaw
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Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by gwroclaw »

This is a -just out of curiosity - sort of question. I've owned my Piper Malibu for over 14 years but have experienced being mis-fueled twice in the last 5 years. I usually try to be there when the fuel truck pulls up to the airplane but that doesn't always happen. But over the last 14 years the PA46 fleet has gone from being all avgas powered to nearly half being turbine powered as almost 600 Meridian have been delivered and nearly 300 Malibus and Mirages having been converted to Jetprops. I just think the average line person in some cases just assumes a PA46 must be turbine and fuels it incorrectly despite the obvious lack of the huge turbine exhaust stacks.

Has anyone experienced a mis-fueling of their diesel powered DA42? It certainly doesn't have the huge turbine exhaust stacks and being a small twin the average line person may assume it is avgas powered.
I bet a diesel engine would be destroyed very quickly with a significant amount of avgas mixed with the Jet-A. I know all airplanes have stickers at their fillers indicating the correct fuel type but many FBOs have the line person throw a rubber mat around the filler which covers the stickers before even noticing them.
In the mean time I've resorted to putting the fuel tape over the fillers if I cannot be there when being fueled.

BTW, A Pratt & Whitney PT6 will run very nicely on avgas but is limited to 75 hours of avgas operation before it must be inspected.
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Gnomad
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by Gnomad »

I don't unlock my tanks until I see the Jet-A truck pull up. Ever. :)
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carym
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by carym »

Gnomad wrote:I don't unlock my tanks until I see the Jet-A truck pull up. Ever. :)
The same for me. I almost got in a "fight" once at an FBO a 3 years ago when returning from Houston to Indy. I stopped for fuel and food in Arkansas. I told the line guys I wanted to fill with JetA. As the JetA truck started rolling to my plane, the FBO manager came running out and told the line guys to stop and get the 100LL truck. I told him that the plane uses JetA and not 100LL as it is a diesel, but he insisted that no piston plane gets JetA, only 100LL and would not let the plane be re-fueled. It took a call to the FBO owner to get permission to refuel with JetA. I don't want to name the airport/FBO as this was 3 years ago and hopefully they've corrected their SOPs.
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by Gasser »

Gees, it's written on the dam sticker. How hard can it be. Some people are just so black and white.
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Rich
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by Rich »

We've had mis-fueling like this (one direction or the other) for a long time. Guy sees some sticker like "Turbo-Centurion" (meaning turbo-charged) and puts Jet fuel in it.

One would think with the slowly increasing number of diesels being put in traditional airframes (Skylanes and Skyhawks, e.g.) there will be more awareness at the FBO's. But there remains the risk of the undertrained or distracted line worker making a mistake.
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by TimS »

In the auto-motive world, the diesel nozzle will not fit in a standard gas tank. I have always thought that was a brilliant and simple way to reduce mistakes. I have always wondered why the FAA/NTSB has never done something similar for aviation.

Tim
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by Rich »

TimS wrote:In the auto-motive world, the diesel nozzle will not fit in a standard gas tank. I have always thought that was a brilliant and simple way to reduce mistakes. I have always wondered why the FAA/NTSB has never done something similar for aviation.

Tim
In the automotive world it won't fit in a gas tank of a vehicle that requires unleaded gasoline. It will fit into the gas tank of older cars and many current motorcycles. These days, since all auto gas is unleaded, we forget how this came to be.

In aviation world, this is a harder nut. You'd have to first retrofit all the FBO nozzles and for it to be effective you'd need to retrofit all the aircraft that one might see as at risk. Hard to know what that population is. In any case, it only solves the problem in one direction. The original poster illustrates a case where it would not help. In any case, it's a rare enough problem I don't see this happening.
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by TimS »

Rich,

I recall the switch to unleaded, but I was learning to drive at the tail end of it.
Most of the hoses and pump handles last only about ten years. How hard from an engineering perspective to make it a fitting that is easy to use and only allows the correct fuel?
Once that is completed, have it apply to new planes...
This problem will be with aviation for the next 50 years, why not solve it for future aircraft?

Tim
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jeffappleton
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

Post by jeffappleton »

I have had two mis-fueling incidents in my DA-42~

The first time was in Nassau, Bahamas.....typical vacation arrival; kids were anxious to get to Atlantis, it was hot, customs etc. I signed in and indicated that I would top off when I returned. We I came back 2 days later and asked that they send the jet truck over to the plane they responded that "they were one step ahead of me and that I was good to go", she passed me the bill and the first thing I noticed was avgas pricing....a quick check and we were soon draining all 50 gallons from the mains into buckets, pails and jugs of all sizes and shapes. No big deal, just an hour wasted and some stinky hands.

My second incident was similar but taught me an important lesson that has changed the way I would deal with any "fueled while I was not present" scenario (see photo). I was traveling from Tampa,FL to Austin, TX and had originally planned to do it all in one leg but decided an hour or so in that I would make a fuel and food stop half way due to solid IMC along the route and a TAF that was not that great for arrival. When I pulled onto the ramp at this brand new amazing facility (KHSA), I was greeted by a friendly professional. The ramp was full of big iron and the line guy specifically asked before I gave him my fuel order if this one was gas or diesel; this led to a conversation about the engines etc. I had been lulled into false sense of security and against my own practice, I left the plane to be fueled.....the problem is that the senior guy called the junior guy on the radio and said "go fuel the Twinstar on the ramp", yes there are large placards JET-A ONLY, but we have all made obvious mistakes as teenagers. He advised that the restaurant was closed but the crew car was available....off I went. Twenty minutes later, I arrived back and was met at the door by a young man who looked liked he had just seen a ghost, his mouth was dry, he was shaking and he was practically hyperventilating...."I have really, really bad news", I was waiting for I hit your plane with the fuel truck but was relieved to hear "I accidentally put 6 gallons of 100LL in your plane before I saw the sign". At that point, again no big deal....except the fact that the kid did the right thing and owned up to it.....we drained the 25 gallons from the one tank, gave it a flush with some fresh fuel and the problem was solved. The interesting thing was the way that the fuel came out.....because it was a better facility than the first time I had this problem, they arrived with 5 white, 5 gallon buckets; we pulled the drains and started to empty the fuel......3 perfectly clear buckets, then 1 that was slightly discolored and then one that was totally blue bucket. As the picture shows there was absolutely no blending of the fuels in the wing, it was as if they had come from a different place. Prior to this incident, I ALWAYS sump all 6 points and thought that I would quickly recognize a mis-fueling, similar to the way you can see a drop or two of water...clearly this is not the case and this could have been an accident not incident if the line guy didn't fess up. The separation of fuels is something that most people don't know and it likely gives us a false sense of security. Many will say that "I always stay to fuel", but most have broken that rule at least once....I've seen way too many Twinstars being fueled all around the country with no pilot present to know that I'm not the only one that has made this mistake.

*Got an error that the file was too large when I tried to insert photo*
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Re: Any DA-42 misfuelings?

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