Alioth's Journal: If you think your fuel is expensive...

Filled the car up with petrol (gasoline) yesterday. Price here is now £1.11/litre (actually 110.9p - why do they do that 0.9p thing still?)

At the current exchange rate, this is $(111 * 3.8) * 2 per US gallon, or US $8.43 per US gallon, for the same octane as that's usually on the middle pump at a US gas station (that's the lowest available octane here, 95 RON. US octane rating is an average of RON + somethingelse, with the consequence that 91 octane in the US is about the same as 95 RON).

If you want to see eye watering prices, premium was 118p/litre as of yesterday IIRC (actually, again 117.9). Just under $9 per US gallon.

I won't be entirely surprised if normal petrol hits 120p/litre here by the end of the summer (and the premium stuff closer to 130p/litre).

I also hope the weather gets either warm or dry real soon now, I've been off the bike too long. With current fuel prices, riding into work instead of driving makes a saving of about £4.50 per day just in fuel (about US$9 per day).

In other news, I've got much better with my Honey Bee CP2 radio controlled helicopter, although I had a pretty bad crash the other day that bent the main axis (the driveshaft from the big drive gear at the bottom to the rotor head). I got a bit too confident, flew very fast across the room and didn't quite bring it to a complete stop, and the main rotor just hit the wall. I didn't crash right then - tagging the rotor just caused an upset, but I didn't recover in time, stuffed the tail rotor into something else (causing it to disengage from its drive gear) and then ended up spinning down to a crash where the heli ended up hitting the ground upside down. I'm not sure whether the upside down landing bent the main axis, or whether pranging the main rotor into a wall bent it. I think that crash also finished off the tail rotor motors (they aren't entirely dead, they are just very weak making it hard to control the tail). I straightened out the main axis enough to fly again another day, but the subsequent problem with the tail rotor has the heli grounded for now (and of course, just at that moment the windy weather goes away so I'm missing some perfect outdoor flying weather, well, in between intense rain showers at least!)

I also have a problem with the main rotor speed 'surging' (actually, unpredictable collective pitch changes) ever since I changed out the feathering shaft. I think this is just a worn pitch linkage which probably got some extra slop in it from the crash that created the need to replace the feathering shaft.

So replacements are on their way.

well

[stoolpigeon]

The weak dollar means everything over here starts looking cheap to all of you over there. I imagine that's why I see so many of your countrymen here visiting so often. Of course it sucks for us if we want to go visit you, as everything is crazy expensive for us.

People have been griping a lot about fuel costs here lately and personally I don't see it. Gas is still cheaper than milk. Very inexpensive compared to the average Starbucks beverage. And if anyone is even remotely serious about reducing

So?

[ptomblin]

So what's avgas cost there these days? It's nudging over $6/gal here, or $9/gal at places they sneer at you for having a piston engine, like Teterboro.

Re:

[TinaMarie]

Speaking of AvGas, how's the Auster?

Re:

[Alioth]

One step forward, two steps back.

Found the engine frame (the steel tube thing that attaches the engine to the firewall) was cracked. Sent off for repair. Now the local mechanic refuses to install it because it doesn't have a ream of paperwork associated with it, even though the plane is being moved to an LAA permit to fly (similar to Experimental - Amateur Built, as in it allows much more lattitude on what you can do with the aircraft - and it doesn't need the paperwork). We don't want to do it ourselves be

Re:

[TinaMarie]

I'm so sorry. If it's any consolation, I'm flying this weekend, then I'm grounded for heaven-only-knows how long - the FAA is Not Amused by the wrist surgery, and my medical was deferred to OKC.

Re:

[Alioth]

You're kidding!! That sucks.

The FAA didn't even care about my wrist surgery, and mine required nerve reconstruction (I'm sure I've showed you my scars). The AME examined it, decided it was OK, and I heard nothing more since. Perhaps it's because it the surgery had been many years previously and the hand/wrist had obviously been functioning fine for 10 years when I had my first medical.

Re:

[Alioth]

It was about 130p/litre last time I looked, which is a while ago. We use mogas most of the time (our engine is the same O-320 as used on the 160hp/side Geronimo Apache and can use mogas).

Diesel

[BWJones]

I was in Scotland last week and saw the same thing, though not quite that expensive and diesel for the Audi I rented was more reasonable than I expected. I do have to say though that given that the UK exports oil, the prices are higher than they should be.

Re:

[Alioth]

Diesels are very good, I think.

My own car's an Audi, although not a diesel.

The modern VW and Audi TDi engines do very well, clean burning, quiet, and go a long way on not much fuel.
Peugeot make very good diesels, too. My Dad's last diesel (a Peugeot 405 turbodiesel) did something upwards of 300,000 miles before the head gasket finally went.

That's cheap

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Fuel at that cost is a very inexpensive thing. For less than 10 bucks you can buy a quantity of chemical energy that is equivalent to 500 hours of a man's labor. Plus, when you burn it the pollutants create an environmental cost that is spread over the entire planet. AND, to top it off, protection of the supply routes for the fuel aren't even paid for by the supplies. Instead, that's been farmed out to taxpayers of various countries.

If gasoline cost what it was really worth, it'd be north of $20 a gallon. $

Re:

[ak3ldama]

If gasoline cost what it was really worth, it'd be north of $20 a gallon. $10 a gallon gasoline is cheap cheap cheap.

That is not entirely true. The US consumes too much fuel. We produce currently about a third of what we use. If we could lower our useage, we could be self sufficient. This may not be true elsewhere, but from the seat I sit in it is a little frustrating. Our fuel costs could be even cheaper - since how can these dolts say that the fuel is theirs to sell to us? This is our country damn it, not just of the ultra rich.

I agree with the other stuff you say. ;-) I guess my basic question is why can't natio