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azflyboy posted:Compared to diesel, Jet-A has more sulphur, is less viscous, and doesn't have additives and lubricants. Many airports used jet for diesel ground equipment for ages until the IRS started getting nosy around 2005. The typical issue with running jet where diesel is spec'd is the injector pumps eating themselves slowly over time. There are specific additives to mix in with the jet to take care of the lubricity issues but typically it ended up with folks going cheap and simply adding a quart of ATF to 400usg of jet. Basically same results. Around the same time biodiesel blends started becoming commonplace and were quickly mandated by state/local green initiatives. It's not unusual for the IRS to show up at my terminal a time or two a year to take samples from storage to make sure there's no fuckery about.
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Mar 14, 2021 23:45
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What is the IRS upset about in that case? I thought the (legal) problem with using non-automotive fuel in your vehicles was that it skips out on the road taxes, but if it's for a tug that won't leave the airport and which could never be issued a license plate anyway, who cares?
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Mar 14, 2021 23:57
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Sagebrush posted:What is the IRS upset about in that case? I thought the (legal) problem with using non-automotive fuel in your vehicles was that it skips out on the road taxes, but if it's for a tug that won't leave the airport and which could never be issued a license plate anyway, who cares? have you met the IRS?
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Mar 14, 2021 23:59
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a patagonian cavy posted:have you met the IRS? Yes, in fact they’ve been surprisingly reasonable. The point still remains - is JetA cheaper than road diesel? So a type of fraud could be running Jet A and putting the cost of road diesel on the books? edit: I mean clearly JetA is twice as expensive if it’s going in a plane, I’m assuming whoever is running the GSE aren’t paying the “real” cost hence the question hobbesmaster fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 00:14
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Sagebrush posted:What is the IRS upset about in that case? I thought the (legal) problem with using non-automotive fuel in your vehicles was that it skips out on the road taxes, but if it's for a tug that won't leave the airport and which could never be issued a license plate anyway, who cares? It started out with investigations of the fringe cases where waste jet was being used on licensed vehicles (i.e mtx has a diesel F250 running on waste jet and it went out on parts runs) in violation. This turned into bigger investigations into what happened to the off spec jet that was being hauled off airport. Lots of shady poo poo was happening on that side of things back then.
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Mar 15, 2021 00:21
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hobbesmaster posted:Yes, in fact they’ve been surprisingly reasonable. Significantly lower tax rate. TAX CHANGES FOR 2020. Fuel Type Tax Rate Gasoline $0.279 per gallon Diesel $0.313 per gallon Aviation Gasoline $0.010 per gallon LPG $0.279 per gallon Source: https://www.tasgroupllc.com/tax-changes-for-2020/
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Mar 15, 2021 00:22
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Also why the diesel for farm equipment is dyed, so they can tell real fast if you're cheating on the taxes by putting it in anything else.
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Mar 15, 2021 00:27
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Kesper North posted:Significantly lower tax rate. Right but for example the cheapest JetA near me right now is like $4 according to airnav and diesel is $3 It seems like diesel would be cheaper even after paying the taxes.
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Mar 15, 2021 00:29
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hobbesmaster posted:Right but for example the cheapest JetA near me right now is like $4 according to airnav and diesel is $3 They're not paying $4 for jet a, they're selling waste jet a out the back door for $2 and nobody's paying tax on it
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Mar 15, 2021 00:31
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Boys who love boys
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Kesper North posted:Significantly lower tax rate. "Aviation Gasoline" or Avgas or 100LL (100 octane low-lead) isn't the same as diesel or jet fuel. However it is taxed less than road diesel in most jurisdictions. Sweden, for example, doesn't tax jet fuel at all but has heavy taxes on road diesel.
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Mar 15, 2021 00:32
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hobbesmaster posted:Right but for example the cheapest JetA near me right now is like $4 according to airnav and diesel is $3 That’s the price they charge YOU for it, not what it costs them to use it themselves
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Mar 15, 2021 00:33
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luminalflux posted:"Aviation Gasoline" or Avgas or 100LL (100 octane low-lead) isn't the same as diesel or jet fuel. However it is taxed less than road diesel in most jurisdictions. Sweden, for example, doesn't tax jet fuel at all but has heavy taxes on road diesel. I am not a moron. However, the table did not give a separate rate for jet fuel in the first place, so I mistakenly believed that the IRS classified them the same. So I did more research (while you were painting me as an ignoramus). This time I found a much better source, the NBAA's Federal Excise Taxes guide: quote:The FET on fuel rate is different for aviation gasoline (avgas) and jet fuel. For 2020, the FET rate on avgas is 19.4 cents per gallon, and the FET rate on jet fuel is 21.9 cents per gal-lon, when used in non-commercial operations. The FET rate on avgas or jet fuel used in commercial operations is 4.4 cents per gallon. Jet fuel delivered to an airport by truck will be taxed at 24.4 cents per gallon as diesel fuel. https://nbaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/fet-guide-2020.pdf This document goes on to explain that commercial operators can apply for a tax credit to get the 4.4 cent/gal rate if they refueled from trucks. Note the vastly higher tax rate for noncommercial operations. Also note the fact that both jet and general aviation fuel for oil, gas and mineral exploration, and related expenses, are untaxed. Who owns this loving country again Note, btw, that I was correct in my original post: For commercial operations, both jet and non-jet fuels are taxed at the same rate by the IRS for commercial purposes, so listing them separately would be redundant. If you want to complain about misapplied terminology, kindly reach out to the good folks at Tax Advisory Services Group who made the table I pasted here. Kesper North fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 00:52
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welp that explains why the nearby airport has a tank farm that is just off property with a pipeline to get the fuel into the airport haha, its just to make taxes more convenient
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Mar 15, 2021 01:06
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Making sure that excise tax never gets raised significantly is part of why airlines never seem to turn a visible profit that anyone can find, in case that isn't obvious.
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Mar 15, 2021 01:10
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Kesper North posted:I am not a moron. I never implied you were anything of the sort, chill out dude. `Nemesis posted:welp that explains why the nearby airport has a tank farm that is just off property with a pipeline to get the fuel into the airport haha, its just to make taxes more convenient For the longest time, Stockholm-Arlanda didn't have a pipeline from the oil harbor in Stockholm city. Instead they had to get all the fuel for the airport through downtown Stockholm on tanker trucks to the airport, 70km north of it, right by my university to the tune of like 1 tanker truck a minute. These days they it's by train and pipeline thankfully
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Mar 15, 2021 02:03
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HookedOnChthonics posted:I love that footage because it shows off just how buck-wild the fuel leakage was—look at that sheen on the ground, seeping out of the hangar, right around all the open flame—to borrow another forum's idiom, imagine the smell The SR 71 is still the most batshit plane that ever got to production and I'm still sad they don't fly anymore even though I know why they don't. Same with the xb-70. Things like that should be flown just for the sake of being absurdly awesome. Or more specifically: I should be allowed to fly one just for the hell of it. 
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Mar 15, 2021 02:24
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hobbesmaster posted:Right but for example the cheapest JetA near me right now is like $4 according to airnav and diesel is $3 Retail Jet-A and 100LL is frequently nearly double what large consumers are paying. When you buy it in multiples of ten thousand pounds at a time, you get a hefty discount on the unit price.
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Mar 15, 2021 02:26
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Carth Dookie posted:The SR 71 is still the most batshit plane that ever got to production and I'm still sad they don't fly anymore even though I know why they don't. I wouldn't want to fly the SR-71. It sounds too stressful.
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Mar 15, 2021 02:31
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MrYenko posted:Retail Jet-A and 100LL is frequently nearly double what large consumers are paying. When you buy it in multiples of ten thousand pounds at a time, you get a hefty discount on the unit price. I must have assumed it would be like retail gas where the margins on fuel are about zero so could stand in for bulk when I should’ve figured an FBO would be exactly the opposite of a Kwik trip
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Mar 15, 2021 02:38
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Cojawfee posted:I wouldn't want to fly the SR-71. It sounds too stressful. Reminds me of a dream I had one time of getting sent TDY to the international space station. A lot of people talk about "dreaming to be an astronaut", but when you find yourself strapped into a rocket with no idea how to use a spacesuit, operate any of the systems, or any of the procedures you realize it's actually a nightmare.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:05
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Cojawfee posted:I wouldn't want to fly the SR-71. It sounds too stressful. Look that SR71 that rapidly disassembled itself at 2500mph only killed the guy in the back. Considering the technology available at the time and physics involved, the safety record wasn't too bad
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Mar 15, 2021 03:06
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^^^^ if nothing else it's probably the most exhaustively maintained aircraft in military history; over a dozen maintenance engineers per aircraft with each responsible for everything between two given frames A fun game with photos from aboard the ISS or various spacecraft is to try and find ones without at least one documentation binder visible somewhere in frame; it's surprisingly difficult 
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Mar 15, 2021 03:12
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MrYenko posted:Retail Jet-A and 100LL is frequently nearly double what large consumers are paying. When you buy it in multiples of ten thousand pounds at a time, you get a hefty discount on the unit price. Does Delta still own a refinery?
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Mar 15, 2021 03:14
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MrYenko posted:Retail Jet-A and 100LL is frequently nearly double what large consumers are paying. When you buy it in multiples of ten thousand pounds at a time, you get a hefty discount on the unit price. At one point, Southwest was an oil hedge fund that happened to run an airline.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:15
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Zero One posted:Does Delta still own a refinery? I don’t know, actually. Good question. luminalflux posted:At one point, Southwest was an oil hedge fund that happened to run an airline. And they were smug as gently caress about it.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:21
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Zero One posted:Does Delta still own a refinery? Yes https://www.monroe-energy.com/who-we-are/why-monroe-energy/
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Mar 15, 2021 03:23
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Zero One posted:Does Delta still own a refinery? They do, and last I'd heard about it (some time last year), Delta was trying to sell it off, since it turns out that refineries are kind of expensive to maintain, especially when oil gets cheap enough that the initial logic for owning the refinery no longer applied.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:37
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Carth Dookie posted:Look that SR71 that rapidly disassembled itself at 2500mph only killed the guy in the back. Considering the technology available at the time and physics involved, the safety record wasn't too bad I'm not really worried about how safe the plane is, I'm mostly worried about how it was so complicated to fly that the back seat handled the radios instead of the pilot.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:37
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Cojawfee posted:I'm not really worried about how safe the plane is, I'm mostly worried about how it was so complicated to fly that the back seat handled the radios instead of the pilot. You can actually read all the procedures! https://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/2/
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Mar 15, 2021 03:43
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Cojawfee posted:I'm not really worried about how safe the plane is, I'm mostly worried about how it was so complicated to fly that the back seat handled the radios instead of the pilot. It wasn't exactly complicated, it was mostly a case of things happening so fast at Mach 3 (especially if something went wrong) that having one person dedicated to flying/monitoring the airplane itself, and another person in charge of running things lkke the sensors and navigation was the logical way to do things to give the best odds of completing a mission successfully. If the SR-71 was being built today, you could probably make it a single seat aircraft, but much like the F-4, A-6, F-14, etc... the technology at the time meant two people were needed to keep the workload reasonable. Having a second person also helps if something does decide to go wrong, since you can have the pilot dealing with trying to fly the airplane, while the other person reads checklists and/or tries to troubleshoot the problem. Even in the highly automated airplanes that airlines fly today, it's common for the pilot monitoring/not flying to be in charge of making radio calls most of the time, while the pilot flying concentrates on making sure the airplane is doing what it's supposed to.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:55
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Cojawfee posted:I'm not really worried about how safe the plane is, I'm mostly worried about how it was so complicated to fly that the back seat handled the radios instead of the pilot. Not saying the SR-71 isn’t complex to operate, but having the Pilot Not Flying or whatever operate the radios is totally normal on most aircraft. Hell, aircraft used to have a crew member that did nothing but operate the radios.
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Mar 15, 2021 03:56
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MrYenko posted:Not saying the SR-71 isn’t complex to operate, but having the Pilot Not Flying or whatever operate the radios is totally normal on most aircraft. Hell, aircraft used to have a crew member that did nothing but operate the radios. And a separate guy for navigation too
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Mar 15, 2021 04:03
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Not the record holder for number of crew, but probably the record holder for ratio of crew to passengers was the Lancastrian, a postwar airliner conversion of the Lancaster. Namely, 5 crew (4 flight and 1 cabin) to 9 passengers.
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Mar 15, 2021 04:15
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vessbot posted:Not the record holder for number of crew, but probably the record holder for ratio of crew to passengers was the Lancastrian, a postwar airliner conversion of the Lancaster. Namely, 5 crew (4 flight and 1 cabin) to 9 passengers. Surely the record holder must have been the Qantas Catalinas that could only hold 3 passengers which the Lancastrians replaced. Or do wartime configurations of the Lancastrian and Catalina not count.
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Mar 15, 2021 04:22
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vessbot posted:Not the record holder for number of crew, but probably the record holder for ratio of crew to passengers was the Lancastrian, a postwar airliner conversion of the Lancaster. Namely, 5 crew (4 flight and 1 cabin) to 9 passengers. Huh, I would have guessed the Foxmoth, at 1 crew for 3 passengers. 
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Mar 15, 2021 04:22
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Don't forget about liaison aircraft like the Stinson Sentinel, which have a 1:1 ratio of crew and passengers. (I assume we're not counting the zillions of two-seat GA planes, but only aircraft operated by governments or airlines). It wasn't built primarily as a transport, but apparently the De Havilland Mosquito could carry a single passenger in a pod in the bomb bay, giving it a 2:1 crew:passenger ratio. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 04:23
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Sagebrush posted:Don't forget about liaison aircraft like the Stinson Sentinel, which have a 1:1 ratio of crew and passengers. (I assume we're not counting the zillions of two-seat GA planes, but only aircraft operated by governments or airlines). That might beat the Qantas catalinas but 4 or 5 crew (can’t find confirmation) for 3 passengers probably wins for commercial service.
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Mar 15, 2021 04:34
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I'd imagine the baseline for high crew: passenger ratio planes starts at 1:1 considering most fighters have a 2 seat variant that they often use to convey members of the press &c.
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Mar 15, 2021 05:20
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MrYenko posted:Not saying the SR-71 isn’t complex to operate, but having the Pilot Not Flying or whatever operate the radios is totally normal on most aircraft. Hell, aircraft used to have a crew member that did nothing but operate the radios. Some still do. Edit: They're old planes
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Mar 15, 2021 05:28
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vessbot posted:Not the record holder for number of crew, but probably the record holder for ratio of crew to passengers was the Lancastrian, a postwar airliner conversion of the Lancaster. Namely, 5 crew (4 flight and 1 cabin) to 9 passengers. Lmao, the side-seating cabin configuration is trippy AF  https://travelupdate.com/sideways-seating-avro-lancastrian/
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Mar 15, 2021 05:45
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