I have Aerorefuellers and credit cards. They suffice.

Pipercameron, yes it can be done, provvided your terminal manufacturer has access to the proprietary communication protocols the bowsers use. That's another legal agreement required.

We designed the petrol pump and bowser control and displays to use an encrypted proprietary protocol circa 1985. Gilbarco did the same.

That was about two imperatives;

(1) For us(EMAIL LTD) it was about requiring one of our control terminals to be sold with every installation. We needed to protect that market from PC based POS (point of sale) solutions that were emerging so we made sure that no one could control a bowser except us.

(2) For our customers - the oil companies, it was to stop anyone from stealing real time fuel sales data from bowsers because that was highly valuable data.

The dream of the oil companies back then was to get a real time map of fuel prices and sales from all outlets across a city. If you have that data, you can respond in minutes when someone starts discounting, etc.

I still see old Email Ltd consoles at servos occasionally. Plenty of people tried to break that protocol. The whole field is now called "Forecourt control" - google it if you want to see the complexity.

True that, Sunfish.. Must have been an interesting and exciting time! :)

That dream came to pass a couple of decades back now (originally developed by a couple of blokes from BP Whinstanes terminal if I remember right). Ain't the internet a wonderful thing.

Nothing like that exists on the aviation fuel front here.. yet (although it does in the USA) so there's no telling how much you'll get charged at the bowser when you land somewhere a bit out of the way. Just make absolutely sure you have plenty of $$$ on that credit card before you depart!!


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f7d1375231.jpg
(No, this wasn't mine, but OUCH!)

The first time I used the bowser at YWTO I noticed that the LCD screen was almost impossible to read in direct sunlight. So much so that, when it came to entering the pre-authorised amount, I entered a number with two more 0s than I intended because I wasn’t seeing any change on the screen when I pushed the keypad numbers.

The amount that popped up on my phone as having been authorised against my card was ‘surprising’ to say the least. Fortunately the credit limit on the card covered 100x the amount I intended to enter…

​​​​​​​Probably due to the 7000 page application form and the FBI credit check.

20 pages does seem a bit excessive.. but you just never know who might want to buy AVGAS these days.:}

If I want to buy a product I’ll do it the way that’s easiest for me. I’m not going to fill out a 1 page form, much less a 20 page form, in order to exchange my money for fuel. It's the year 2023 FFS.

PiperC,
OzRunways can show avgas prices if you tap the appropriate icon.

LB: [QUOTE]​​​​​​ If I want to buy a product I’ll do it the way that’s easiest for me. I’m not going to fill out a 1 page form, much less a 20 page form, in order to exchange my money for fuel. It's the year 2023 FFS.[/QUOTE]
‘
Yes LB, but how does BP get its fuel back out of your aircrafts tanks if it is discovered that you don’t have the money to pay for it?

‘’That is what faces BP. It’s one thing to lose 100l. to a drive off. It’s another to lose what? say 600l to a fly away. The problem is one of managing the risk of giving you access to a very great amount of fuel in a totally unsupervised location compared to a petrol station. Thayer deal with the increased risk by looking more closely at their credit customers.

You appear not to be paying attention, Sunfish. What don’t you get about the credit card pre-authorisation process?

About 50 steps behind. Risk free CC STP payments are literally a few lines of code provided for free to any developer at any level.
Anyone heard of stripe?
seems like the entire creation of the internet and bypassed some people.
the ior / FuelCheck system is pretty slick. That app front end would cost nothing to develop.
the hardware at the bowser is straight forward too just capex.
What you guys are talking about is black and white TV in the age of Netflix.

Hey Sunny,
In the aircraft I regularly roam around with - PA32 Saratoga - worst case is I'll take about 340L, so if a pre-approval of , say, $1000 is made no possible problem.

Its all doable, although not as simple as it sounds and its not the same as POS Solutions.

A bowser is the equivalent of an unattended vending machine. The designers programmers and vendors have to assume that the unit and the system its attached to will be subject to very sophisticated attacks by very capable crooks. They will attack both hardware and software in multiple locations.

There are two parts to the work (1) The hardware and application layer - Yes, already solved and available. (2) The legal side of who wears what risk - and who pays - that's where BP will be concerned.

So why is BP 'concerned' but the other companies are seemingly 'unconcerned?' It's pretty easy to avoid BP now, stop other places if you have to, so **** BP.

Dunno Tossbag but the reason will be some weird (to us) commercial/legal/technical BP company policy. As others have pointed out already, the technology to do it has been around for a long time.

It's a commercial/financial one. There are plenty of Air BP installations around that take credit card - YMMB is just one example.

OK here is another for you fuel nuts.

What is the current price of AvGas?

What was it in say 1977? 46 years ago! Did you have 80/87 then or was it all 100/130?

Now oit is just 100LL.

R

Heard a rumor AIR BP Moorabbin is closing its doors shortly,
can anyone confirm this??

Just been reading the problem with getting fuel at Ceduna without a BP carnet. Since then there has been a credit card bowser put in at Wudinna (YWUD) which is not far from Ceduna. Also at Kadina (YKDI) . Flying across the Nullabore should not pose a problem now if you don't want to pay a callout fee. Another thing you can do if you fly regularly is ask your nearest BP refueller if you can open an account with him and get a BP carnet through him. He gets the sales on his account then bills you. Good for him and you. Works for me.

Have you used the bowser at YWUD? It might have changed since I was last there, but on that occasion the process required:

- calling a mobile number that turned out to be the number of someone at YPPF
- sending that person a photo of my credit card
- that person giving me the code of a fob containing a card which authorised the bowser
- refuelling and - if I call correctly but by this stage I was 'over it' - then sending that person a photo of the readout of fuel taken/fuel cost on the bowser.

Had I known that was going to be the process, I wouldn't have bothered.