Battery-Operated Pump for Fuel

[bluemax]

Here is a battery operated fuel pump that I bought the other day. There are many versions on the market. This one uses to D cell batteries. It takes about his much time to empty a gas can as it does if you were pouring it out manually through a spout. I have also used the polyethylene hose with the jiggly marble thing in the end, but that can sometimes be awkward to stop the flow immediately. The battery operated pump has an on off toggle switch.


Sierra Tools Battery-Operated Liquid Transfer Pump, Model# JB5684 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000HEBR3I/re ... pAbTA7HEH6

[Tralika]

Mark,
The hose looks pretty short. Do you have to set the gas can on the top of the wing when transferring fuel?. Also, have you determined how much fuel you can transfer with the two D batteries? I've been looking for some method of fueling the plane that does not involve standing on a ladder holding a five gallon fuel can. I don't want to rest the gas an on the wing.

[gkremers]

John,
These are not cheap (Fast Flow) but work very well. I also didn't like setting the can on the wing and when the plane is on floats this makes it supper easy. I just bought a longer hose and the pump easily pumps up 7-8 feet when it on floats.

Gary

Dual_10.5_gallon_system-154x190.jpg (5.59 KiB) Viewed 1878 times

[gkremers]

Super easy .....I must be hungry

[alan]

I don't have a picture or a link, but you can go to Tractor Supply and buy a 12v fuel transfer pump for about $250 that will pump about 10gpm. I use the 25amp charge port I installed on the side of my Highlander for power. I set this up right after I built my airplane 11 years ago and it is the perfect solution for me. Also, I found a place nearby that sells used 33gal plastic drums. I bought 2. The only hitch to this is getting the full drum from your truck to the hangar floor. I solved that with a home made harness and a chainfall.

[R Rinker]

Every pilot (that doesn't buy all of his fuel at an FBO pump), has a never ending interest in building a better mousetrap for fueling up. I used to have a Cessna that had a baggage compartment 18 gal tank. It had a filler neck coming out the side of the plane about waist high & was a joy to fill without ladders etc. All of my fueling was out somewhere without electricity available. Now that so many engines have to have a fuel pump to supply the engine regardless, there's no advantage to having wing tanks other than the fact that there's a lot of empty space in the wings. The Cessna baggage tank had an auto type fuel pump that pumped the 18 gallons into the wing tank so it could be gravity fed to the fuel system.

These are just some random thoughts here & not pushing any particular agenda. For a lot of rec type pilots that often only put a few cans of fuel in for an hour or so of local flying, I wonder about a system that had a 20/25 gallon tank down low somewhere with a filler neck like that and would also have the ability to pump into the wing tank. Normal operations would not require more fuel than that, meaning normal operations would not have all tanks full. But on an occasional long cross country you would have the option to fill everything for extended range, with proper planning for weight & balance, runway length etc. My 182 holds 105 U.S. gallons, but I never used all of that unless I really needed to, and planned accordingly. Fuel management & planning is an area that no one truly understands until they have years of experience in real world operations. It's impossible to understand the importance & reality of fuel constraints until you've 'been there done that'....no matter how hard you try to reason it all out. And that is in regard to how it relates to all areas of operations, not just long, remote flights.

[alan]

Back when I only had the 9gal wing tanks I did something similar to my Highlander. Summit Racing sold me a real nice 10gal auxiliary tank that I mounted behind the seats. I documented the install here somewhere. I used it the same way Mr Rinker does. When I installed the 13gal wing tanks I found I never used it again and it was just in the way. It sits on a shelf now but could be reinstalled in a couple hours if I needed to go on a really long solo trip. Stress solo.

Alan

[alan]

Okay, here are a couple pics.