Pilots Who Use Auto Gas Could Pay More in Hawthorne : Self-Service May Not Be a Bargain at Airport

Motorists can save money pumping their own gas, but pilots who bring their own fuel to Hawthorne Municipal Airport might pay more under a city proposal.

In recent years, the Federal Aviation Administration has allowed a number of small planes to use unleaded regular automobile fuel, which is cheaper than aviation fuel. But fuel suppliers at many airports, including Hawthorne, do not provide automobile fuel and pilots who want to use the cheaper gas have to bring it.

Amount Protested

City Manager Kenneth R. Jue is proposing that pilots who choose to do that increase their liability insurance from $400,000 to $5 million, which pilots say is exorbitant.

“I can fly my plane and crash into the Hawthorne Plaza mall and kill hundreds of people, and for that, all that the city requires of me is a $400,000 liability insurance policy,” said Mitchell West, a pilot and the leading advocate of self-fueling at the Hawthorne airport. “Yet, to transfer fuel from an approved container, in an isolated and approved location, the city wants $5 million. Can that possibly subject the city to more than 11 times the liability of my possibly crashing into the mall?”

Jue said the airport’s gasoline station operator, Security Aviation Co., is required to provide $5 million in liability insurance. Jue said he is simply being consistent in asking for similar coverage from pilots who want to pump their own gas. More than 300 pilots use the airport.

“I can’t see how we can relax our standards,” Jue said.

West said it would be too expensive for most pilots to obtain a $5-million policy.

Charles W. Hubbard, executive vice president of AVEMCO Insurance in Maryland, one of the major insurance carriers for private airplanes, said the cost of a $5-million liability policy varies, depending on the aircraft, its use and a pilot’s experience. Hubbard said that a pilot with 500 hours of experience flying a single-engine, four-seat Cessna 172 for pleasure would pay $2,209 a year for liability coverage. A $400,000 policy would cost $280.

The pilots and city administration are also at odds over two other city requirements for self-fueling: a $200 administration and inspection fee and a fixed monthly fee.

Inspection Fee Needed

Jue says the administration and inspection fee is needed to process paper work and inspect the pilot’s pumping equipment. The equipment typically consists of a 20-gallon tank fixed to a truck, with a pump that includes an automatic shut-off.

West argues that anything more than $75 is an “unfair burden.”

Jue says a fixed monthly “fuel flowage” fee of $15 a month per pilot is needed to make up for the revenue the city expects to lose if Security Aviation’s gasoline sales decline. Security pays the city 13 cents a gallon in fees, amounting to about $36,000 last year.

West said the pilots are willing to match the 13 cents a gallon fee, but they want to pay for only what they actually pump. He said pilots should be allowed to account for the fuel they use on an honor system, but the city has balked at such a proposal.

“The city says that can’t possibly work because people are generally dishonest,” West said.

Jue would not confirm making such a statement, but acknowledged that under an honor system the city is afraid it would”collect hardly any money.”

City Council Action

Jue’s proposal goes to the City Council Monday for approval. West said that if a compromise can’t be reached with the city, he may complain to the FAA.

“A pilot has a right to service his own airplane in a manner that is approved by the FAA without being impeded by any local authority,” he said. “It has been painful working for a year and a half with various levels of the city administration to develop a safe policy that would allow the city to comply with the FAA mandate to allow the use of automobile fuel and yet impose controls so that people are pumping gas safely on the field.

“But the city is so jumpy about liability issues that it seems you can’t have an intelligent conversation.”

West said that with the cost of operating an aircraft increasing, being able to use 87-octane automobile fuel rather than 100-octane aviation fuel could cut annual fuel costs in half. The 100-octane aviation fuel at Hawthorne Airport costs $1.72 a gallon. Unleaded regular automobile fuel sells for as little as 85 cents.

The use of automobile fuel in aircraft began in 1976 when a group of pilots in the Midwest built a replica of Charles A. Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. Like 1920s aircraft, it used automobile fuel.

The pilots, in association with the Experimental Aircraft Assn., a Wisconsin-based pilots’ group, received FAA permission to conduct an experiment using automobile fuel in current general-aviation aircraft.

In 1982, after 500 hours of flight testing, the FAA gave its approval for the use of automobile fuel in more than 300 different makes and models of aircraft that had been required to use aviation fuel.

Despite the FAA approval, aircraft and engine manufacturers as well as oil companies do not recommend using automobile fuel in airplanes. For that reason, fuel suppliers at airports, such as Security Aviation, often do not sell automobile fuel because they have to obtain additional liability insurance.

But pilot and engineer Dick Roemer of Appleton, Wis., who was involved in the experiment, insists that automobile fuel is safe and causes less wear on some engines.

More than 26,000 airplanes nationwide, or 20% of those that qualify under the FAA ruling, are using automobile fuel, Roemer said in a telephone interview. Since 1982, pilots using automobile fuel have saved more than $39 million in gas and maintenance than if they had used aviation fuel, he said.

The issue of self-fueling has not yet reached Torrance Municipal Airport, according to City Manager LeRoy Jackson, but Santa Monica has approved regulations that require all pilots to carry $1 million in liability insurance, according to Santa Monica Municipal Airport Director Hank Dittmar.

He said pilots wishing to pump their own fuel were simply asked to have their policies rewritten to include coverage for self-fueling.

Dittmar said the fuel suppliers at his airport are also required to carry only $1 million in liability insurance.

The self-fueling regulations, approved by the Santa Monica Airport Commission last month and effective Aug. 1, also call for pilots to pay the unspecified cost of the pumping equipment inspection, and to pay a fuel flowage fee of either $50 a year or 3 cents a gallon. The per-gallon fee would be collected on an honor system.

However, Dittmar said he expects fewer than 10 of the 600 pilots who use his airport to opt for self-fueling.

“I don’t think most pilots want to be troubled with pumping their own fuel or want to deal with such a highly flammable substance,” Dittmar said.