Seeking good way to fuel a high wing with mogas

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fjmogas
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Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2023 6:55 pm

Seeking good way to fuel a high wing with mogas

Post by fjmogas »

Hello,
Summary:
I want to refuel a high wing mogas taildragger from a 6 gal gas jug sitting on the ground.
I want the filler line to detect full and either shut off the transfer or beep at me. I'll be by the jug on the ground.
I then want to move the filler to the other wing tank and repeat.
I don't want to stand on a ladder leaning far out over the top of the wing as I dent the leading edge and break off Vortex Gen tabs.

I wonder what others do to cope with this situation.
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For a long time I've been fueling a Rotax aircraft with mogas by putting gas jugs on a platform (roll around scaffold)
and running a rattle siphon hose to fill from jug to tank. This works well enough that I don't complain about it..

Now I need to service a high wing taildragger rotax machine from ideally the same jugs (5 gal VP racing gas jugs with the nice large screw top)
and I wonder what others do to refuel such aircraft when they don't have access to a stepladder and a buried commercial avgas tank etc.

My ideal setup would be to have a "farm" of four jugs against the wall, use a transfer pump on a pickup tube gizmo to move from jug to jug,
and have a long enough hose that I can stepladder up to the top of the wing, insert the filler, and go back and run the transfer pump, and knowing
reliably when to stop transfer. Conventional transfer systems would have me leaning over onto the top of the wing on a stepladder and trying to
see how close the level is to the top. This is precarious given the lean required and also requires a more complex transfer pump that can be
dead headed. None of the commercial transfer systems I've seen address the auto shutoff problem except with auto gas station technology which
has me leaning over the wing at an impossible angle.

Modern battery powered lawnmower fillers exist that have a level sensor that stops transfer when it sees the level near the top. Those that I've
seen are the opposite of heavy duty and have outlet and inlet hose/pipes that are woefully short - they won't work on VP jugs and the output reach
is so short you'd have to support 6 gallons of gas over the top of the wing waiting for the cutoff to trip. Scary.

So my question is, has anyone found a technique that addresses the needs of the high wing tank in wings crowd in a graceful way?

Thanks very much,
f
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JJay
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Re: Seeking good way to fuel a high wing with mogas

Post by JJay »

I have a low wing, so don't face this problem. But for other reasons I've been looking at portable fuel tanks and pumps. It would be a solution to your problem, though an expensive one. Example: https://www.jmesales.com/dot-certified- ... 1210-pump/
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drseti
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Re: Seeking good way to fuel a high wing with mogas

Post by drseti »

JJay wrote: Tue Apr 25, 2023 9:05 am It would be a solution to your problem, though an expensive one.
Not to mention: HEAVY!
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JJay
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Location: Crescent City, FL

Re: Seeking good way to fuel a high wing with mogas

Post by JJay »

drseti wrote: Tue Apr 25, 2023 1:12 pm
JJay wrote: Tue Apr 25, 2023 9:05 am It would be a solution to your problem, though an expensive one.
Not to mention: HEAVY!
Well, I would put it in the back of a pickup truck or on a small utility trailer. It's DOT approved so you can take it back and forth to the fuel supplier.
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Hambone
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Re: Seeking good way to fuel a high wing with mogas

Post by Hambone »

Cheap and cheerful, but this works great for me:

S&L-Winyer Automatic Portable Battery Operated Liquid Fuel Siphon Transfer Pump,transfer Pump up to 2.4 Gallons Per Minute/Inlet Pipe: 16 in Outlet Pipe:35.6 in https://a.co/d/4gMvpy7

I do have to put the container on a small ladder.
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