"Any fuel Sir?"
 

Though primarily fixed wing I am required to fly on rotary from time to time. On Friday during a long low level sortie we called into a regional airfield for fuel and an obligitory coffee. The airfield in question is about to close up shop for good within a few weeks so all the facilities other than fuel and crash rescue are gone.
Right so, out the gate to the petrol station for coffee it is .
Filled my cup at the machine and presented it at the till. "Any fuel Sir?" says the guy behind the counter. His eyes lit up as I smiled and nodded towards the Heli behind the chain link fence and said "Yeh, 1500 Litres"

Despite growing increasingly fed up with my job after 20+ years it's times like this that make me smile .

BW

I love it! :ok:

Only coffee....?

I thought a Magnum was compulsary these days! ;)

A helicopter pilot fetching his own coffee?
Don't you have servants for that sort of thing?

:ok::D

Perhaps Bubblewindow was dispatched to get the brews, although the pilot would have to be very trusting.

I once was tasked into a small airfield not far from Trenton in Canada in a C130J - the airfield was just big enough for us although most of the concrete wasn't strong enough to hold the weight. We parked up outside the Flying Club to load our pax & refuel. The club was running a special offer - something like 'a free steak with every 100 litres of fuel'. We took on about 8000kg of fuel - the man looked a little distraught, didn't have the couple of cows to give us.

Dropping in to Paynes Find (Western Australia) in a 172 one day for fuel I tramped over to the adjacent road house for a coffee (no airfield facilities whatsoever - the fuel is in a drum trucked in from the roadhouse).

There was another guy sitting there having coffee with a backpack.

"Any chance of a lift to Perth mate?" he says

"Sorry, just going to Northam" says I.

"That'll do for me" he says.

To say his eyes opened wide when I offered the RHS for the trip was an understatement. He's probably still dining out on the story.

siseman

"the fuel is in a drum trucked in from the roadhouse"

With the hand pump that takes ages to fill up a tank of anything ?

Reminds me of the old Neil Williams story. Flying back from somewhere east of the iron curtain at all of his fuel stops the bowser was a horse and cart with 45 gallon drums on the back. All of the "bowser drivers" produced a fuel sample before filling him up. On his first refuelling stop in West Germany he was met by an ultra modern state of the art fuel bowser and was filled up. About 10 minutes after getting airborne he suffered a partial engine failure due to... water in the fuel.

Got it in one!

Brindisi 1994. Light aircraft ferry so only about 70 gals needed.
Fuel place took only cash or Eurocheques. Had to take a taxi downtown to get the cash on my credit card. Banks were useless, but eventually managed to get cash by pretending to buy about 80 pizzas at a very helpful pizzeria.
As I paid, another pilot came in looking to pay for the fuel in his 727 and waving an Amex card about......

I died laughing. I wonder how many pizzas that was?

Not a driver, they chauffeur me!! We all walked for coffee anyhow, everyone's equal on our crew (just put that in there for CRM purposes ;) )

It was a crap drizzly rainy day, very humid in the cab , they would have melted all over the console :O

There was another guy sitting there having coffee with a backpack.

Was his name Billy No-Mates?:)

Jack

UJ. Now you're doing my trick (but funnier). "Mildly eccentric".

UJ. Now you're doing my trick (but funnier). "Mildly eccentric".

Why thank you, kind Sir.:ok: I try, in fact my current NOK has been heard to say that I'm very trying!

Jack

In my many years as an SH Crewman I have made tea and coffee for literally hundreds of Pilots. All have received the same, faultless, standard of service. However, those who cast me in the role of servant and treated me as such always had a little more care and attention lavished on their beverage; you could say that 'a little bit of me’ went in there.:E

Happy days.:)

A tiny bit from what I heard! :ok:

CG

Heard or tasted CG? You always were a quantity type rather than quality;)

Who makes your tea in the staff room?:suspect:

Never go in the staffroom, Sinjun, full of oiky teacher types!

Hope all's well

CG

Tip Top mate. See you in November?