Gas Cards

[Flying Pig]

Has there ever been any talk of providing CAP aircraft with an issued gas card vs. members paying and waiting to be reimbursed for Missions?  Or, like the Sq. Credit card, issuing an aircraft gas card to the Sq. Commander of the units who maintain CAP aircraft?

[Flying Pig]

No Robert, they havnt, but thats a DARN good idea!!!

[Nolan Teel]

All the A/C in TXWG have Gas cards on them...

[Flying Pig]

So in TX, when you guys do a mission does the member use the aircraft gas card then?  In CAWG we use our own money/credit cards and get reimbursed later. Why dont we do that in CA?

[jimmydeanno]

We have fuel cards for the aircraft here.  Before that, IIRC, we had an arrangement with the FBOs the planes were stationed at to bill the wing for the fuel expenses.

I can't think of any of our members waiting for reimbursement for fuel on aircraft.  Now, each unit with a van has a fleet gas card.  The only trick there is having to find a Shell...

[Flying Pig]

OK...So CAWG, why arent we doing this?

[RiverAux]

My wing also has gas cards.  Frankly, I can't believe that this is not mandated by national as it would seem to allow for better tracking of what is going on than waiting for 108s to be submitted from the field.  Much easier on members too. 

It seems to be a wing by wing decision though.

[arajca]

Colorado has state issued cards for vans (and I believe aircraft, but I'm not sure). AWESOME PROGRAM! You can fill up at any gas station that takes credit cards. Units still reimburse for fuel, but they reimburse the wing for unit usage instead of the member. beginning of the month, the unit submits a check request payable to wing for the amount on the reciepts attached to the form.

[scooter]

CO uses Multi Serve Cards for aircraft. Not all FBO's will take them since they require a signature. Self serve is the biggest problem for us. In that case, Pilot uses personal card and files for reimbursement. Works well 90% of the time.

[dhon27]

NJ Wing also has fuel cards for both aircraft and vans. 

[bosshawk]

Rob: CAWG started negotiating for gas cards for each aircraft during the reign of Jesse Muniz as CC.  When he got fired, the Wing made a couple of half-hearted attempts at getting cards.  When it got complicated, the effort seemed to go away: never to be pursued again.  The only times that Wing credit cards get used for fuel is on CD missions and not on all of those.

There are no real, valid reasons why we don't have cards: just lack of effort on the part of the Wing mafia.

[a2capt]

CAWG actually got gas cards for the aircraft ... about that time, too.

Perhaps singly pushed through by someone. But... how many places can you get BP in CA?

Bingo. They didn't get issued.

The most common, period, is Chevron and then AVFuel.

[bosshawk]

a2: I seem to recall that you are correct, but not all of the aircraft got them: I know the ones that I fly didn't.  Don;t know about your part of the woods, but BP is quite common up this way.  In fact, they are pushing Chevron out of the area.  At any rate, they don't exist now and there are no signs that anyone in Wing is interested in seeking new ones.

[SarDragon]

CAWG actually got gas cards for the aircraft ... about that time, too.

Perhaps singly pushed through by someone. But... how many places can you get BP in CA?

Bingo. They didn't get issued.

The most common, period, is Chevron and then AVFuel.

Seventy-eight, including SDM, SAN, MYF, SEE, and RNM.

Entire list available here.

[argentip]

MIWG also has credit cards issued to all a/c and vehicles.  They are BP Fleet Cards but can be used at any company's pump.  The Wing just gets money back if they are used at a BP, I guess, though, so they encourage that.

These cards require each potential user to get a PIN number to use the card and enter that at the pump (if available).  The cards can only be used on reimbursable missions, with the receipt and associated form (108 or 173-3) forwarded to Wing for payment on the card.

[a2capt]

Seventy-eight, including SDM, SAN, MYF, SEE, and RNM.

Entire list available here.

corrected, sort of. ;-) I should have noted, at the time this all went down. BP has since moved in and is a lot more visible. They've taken over a lot of Chevron bannered operations.

Of course, the same truck delivers all the fuel to KCRQ's different brands... ;-)

The BP card at any pump is probably something new, too- or perhaps on the type of account. Because at one time, when BP came to KCRQ we did look into it for getting cards for each aircraft (in the operation I was working with at the time) - and they were good at BP labeled operations only according to the terms on the application.

Because in further recollection I do remember thinking .. "wow, they could actually use those gas cards now, there's BP available in quite a few places" (but if it's not available at the aircrafts base, it's pointless) - though they did indicate during the transitional wing CC period that the cards were "sent back" because they were not usable.

[FW]

NHQ has provided MultiService Cards for the GA8s' however, they are only used for AFA missions.  Wings that can afford to pay aircraft fuel costs "upfront" have issued cards to aircraft.  Now that mission training funds have been drasticly cut, I think it may be possible for significant changes to the practice.

[DG]

NHQ has provided MultiService Cards for the GA8s' however, they are only used for AFA missions. 

Colonel,

Is it permitted to use the GA-8 multiservice card on AFA missions?

Or is it limited to National missions assigned by the NOC?

[Eclipse]

My wing has them, too.  No biggie, been doing it for years.

[FW]

NHQ has provided MultiService Cards for the GA8s' however, they are only used for AFA missions. 

Colonel,

Is it permitted to use the GA-8 multiservice card on AFA missions?

Or is it limited to National missions assigned by the NOC?

Yes, thank you for being more specific....

[Airrace]

Great idea, I wish they did this in California!

[isuhawkeye]

Just a note.  Some wings have had problems with pilots and drivers failing to submit paperwork for reimbursement when they have a wing fuel card.  This leaves the wing holding the bag for the bill.

[DG]

Just a note.  Some wings have had problems with pilots and drivers failing to submit paperwork for reimbursement when they have a wing fuel card.  This leaves the wing holding the bag for the bill.

Problem solved by having the Aircraft Manager verify all reimbursement.

And today it is on WMIRS.

[a2capt]

Also, very simple. That can only happen once, per pilot.

No paperwork filed in the relatively short, but very reasonable time period?

Automatic grounded. It's not as if they don't know who flew the aircraft. .. I hope. ;-)

[wingnut55]

During the Fossett Mission several pilots had over $4,000 in fuel charges. Most of us who had bills of over $500.00  did not see reimbursement for many months. I remember it was as bad, taking 6 months for reimbursement in CAWG.  Now it is down to 2 to 3 months.

Free Loan to CAWG at the members expense considering if you have a 15% credit card, some of mine now went to 24%.

Why is it we have a member retention problem in California?? Less than 2oo CAP pilots for over 20 million people?

No one really cares, it is a top down organization. NHQ they don't care as long as we pay our dues, and don't push the airplane into a hanger door using cadets

My dad  is rolling in the grave in his CAP Uniform. Most of the guys in CAP in the 50s and 60s & 70s were WWII veterans, they would have had a mutiny over the new CAP.

[bosshawk]

Wingnut: count the active pilots on the monthly FRO list: it is more in the range of 100 pilots and not all of those fly missions.  Out of the supposed "leadership positions" in the upper level of the Wing, none are Mission Pilots and only one is a TMP.

When I joined CAWG in 1993, we had somewhere in the range of 300 Mission Pilots.

Doesn't have a thing to do with Wing gas cards, but it is a fact that has some bearing on Operations.

[wingnut55]

I agree, it reflects on the direction of operations. We had guys who handed out coffee at the last State Emergency Services Shake Out Drill and it was whooped up to a laughable charade that CAP is heavily Involved with State Emergency Operations.

In the 50s,60s,&70s CAP flew everything from Radiological monitoring to fire watch. We are lucky to get a Photo recon mission and that has been a joke, we can't get a standardization state wide for Photography, videography, etc. But with no pilots in leadership?? who will push our number one Mission: EMERGENCY SERVICES.

I would say that CAWG is dying, withering on the vine, but it is really rotting away, dry rot from the inside out. Touch the paint and your finger goes through the canvas like an old L3.

I was sad to see Boss Hawk go, and CD missions frozen, what is left. I see it as the USAFs way to demonstrate our usefulness in the 21st century. I am afraid the CAP only needs 10 Aircraft in California. 5 up north,  3 in LA and 2 in San Diego.

[FW]

With the $5 million cut in our O&M budget this year, it was NHQ which decided to cut the mission expenses; not the AF.  Expect more cuts next year and the year after.  I think the number of pilots in a wing will not matter as there will be no training funds to go around keeping them current.  IMHO, we will soon be back to the days of member owned aircraft and personal expense. 

"Gas Cards? We don't need no stinkin Gas Cards!" 

[NCRblues]

It's not just CAWG dying; MoWG is just a shell basically. The vast majority of our cadets and seniors have no ES quals at all, even General ES. Unfortunately cap (at least around me) has turned into a home school social club, there are 3 squadrons within a 30 min drive of me that contain almost all home schooled cadets and their parents as the squadron leadership. Nothing against home school but these squadrons are not productive parts of the organization. I believe the lack of a centralized standard practice for gas cards and other items is a growing problem in cap, which needs to be addressed. Mainly can cap adapt and survive?

[Майор Хаткевич]

It's not just CAWG dying; MoWG is just a shell basically. The vast majority of our cadets and seniors have no ES quals at all, even General ES. Unfortunately cap (at least around me) has turned into a home school social club, there are 3 squadrons within a 30 min drive of me that contain almost all home schooled cadets and their parents as the squadron leadership. Nothing against home school but these squadrons are not productive parts of the organization. I believe the lack of a centralized standard practice for gas cards and other items is a growing problem in cap, which needs to be addressed. Mainly can cap adapt and survive?

Those units then have to be called cadet squadrons.

[heliodoc]

These are all relevant posts

CAP can start laying off of the AF ESPECIALLY when they are making decisions on the CSU and start cleaning itself up before it can call on anybody

CAP ought to have gas cards in all or available for all aircraft.   STANDARDIZATION and pilot responsibility using the cards is paramount.  But we all know where that goes.

IF CAP is cutting budget for the sheer pleasure of supporting it ever chase for  "technological advances" such as G1000, ARCHER, radio encryption, all the technology supporting CAP online tests etc etc etc etc etc  then that is tooo!@##$ bad .....what did CAP think all this was free and the donations they hoped for just pouring in???   Remember the infamous Rush Limbaugh or was that Shawn Hannity bakes sales???  TIME FOR CAP to start doing that, huh?

Maybe Avfuel, BP, Chevron will come to CAP's fuel card rescue

What did CAP think??  Every one the technology field and gas card field was just going to donate to CAP just because of our status as a benevolent 501(c) 3 organization??

CAP ought to start looking deep into themselves for gas cards and ought to start REALLY training pilots like a serious Part 61, 141 or other flight school and have regular ESTABLISHED STANDARDIZED proficiency training.

CAP's haphazard and shotgun approach (different in every State) show a definite call for HELP in every regard including gas cards

[a2capt]

Lets just say it appears the whole DO shop structure in this wing is broken. Badly. It's become a clique, the current incarnation started in 2003 and festers from group 7 and no upper level command has had any guts to do anything about it.

The gas card thing is just a little piece of it.

They all are the best recruiting the cadet/AE programs ever had. Makes you wonder why a lot of charters get changed to become those cadet units.

ES and CPPT, and todays' school loads pretty much prohibit cadets from participating like the days of the past anyway. Since according to CAP, school is first. Rightfully so. With the current way things are going, resource officers who never reply to people, make reporting your availability status so much of a hoops and volley type game, if the email is not formatted exactly right they will trash it, etc. Remote launches, virtual bases, and the "no one is as good as I" attitude .. SAREXs that become secret squirrel missions.

Basically, in some wings, ES is as a mess as the whole NEC and uniforms thing.

..and when something "real" comes along like the Fossett mission, they suddenly need all these assets they've shunned off, or burned out of the program because the clique gang can't do it all themselves.

[Eclipse]

During the Fossett Mission several pilots had over $4,000 in fuel charges. Most of us who had bills of over $500.00  did not see reimbursement for many months. I remember it was as bad, taking 6 months for reimbursement in CAWG.  Now it is down to 2 to 3 months.

Why would you front your own money for aviation fuel, especially on a high-visibility mission like Fossett?

Beyond the in and outbound sorties, there should have been MA-blue-backed accounts setup with the FBO's for fuel.

[a2capt]

There's no [darn] way in hell I would ever front that kind of money for ANY mission and if I were brainwashed into it, I'd still have issues with such a high profile mission as such.

Especially one like this one, those involved could have paid for ALL our efforts with one phone call and it would have been like buying a soda a 7-11 for us, funding wise.  The Air Force, the government, the tax payers, wouldn't be out a dime.

But thats not the way CAP works, everyone is supposed to be equal. But.. when is the last time we searched 30 days and timed out oil changes, and ran into 100 hour inspections, using nearly every available aircraft in the wing, and paid for gobs of lodging room nights ..

... for ONE missing aircraft with ONE person on it?  ;-)

Nope, the person of search had nothing to do with that... 

[Captain Morgan]

KY Wing has Multi Service cards in all their aircraft and it is policy for it to be used whenever possible.  If a member is flying a self funded flight, they include a check with their paperwork to reimburse the Wing.  They only time a member would have to pay for fuel and wait for reimbursement is if they had to fuel at a facility that did not take the Multi Service card.

[BlueLakes1]

INWG uses AVCARD instead of Multiservice, but same deal. All mission flying and anything approved by wing HQ goes on the AVCARD, and no one is ever expected to pay out of pocket for anything but personal B/C mission symbol flying.

We are in the process of rolling out fleet cards for our vans as well.

[PHall]

Maybe CAP could do like we do at AT&T with gas cards.
Each vehicle and aircraft would have an assigned gas card.
Each authorized driver/pilot would have a personal PIN number assigned to them.
As part of the procedure to use the card you have to enter your PIN number.
Provides an audit trail for who used/refueled the vehicle/aircraft and you don't have to use "your" money to get fuel.
It works for us (120,000 employees in 33 states), shouldn't be that hard for CAP to implement.

[Capt Rivera]

Maybe CAP could do like we do at AT&T with gas cards.
Each vehicle and aircraft would have an assigned gas card.
Each authorized driver/pilot would have a personal PIN number assigned to them.
As part of the procedure to use the card you have to enter your PIN number.
Provides an audit trail for who used/refueled the vehicle/aircraft and you don't have to use "your" money to get fuel.
It works for us (120,000 employees in 33 states), shouldn't be that hard for CAP to implement.

Who are the cards with / program name? Just looking for initial direction to explore possibilities.

[PHall]

Maybe CAP could do like we do at AT&T with gas cards.
Each vehicle and aircraft would have an assigned gas card.
Each authorized driver/pilot would have a personal PIN number assigned to them.
As part of the procedure to use the card you have to enter your PIN number.
Provides an audit trail for who used/refueled the vehicle/aircraft and you don't have to use "your" money to get fuel.
It works for us (120,000 employees in 33 states), shouldn't be that hard for CAP to implement.

Who are the cards with / program name? Just looking for initial direction to explore possibilities.

The cards are from Western Express. Never heard of them until the boys from Texas (SBC) took us over.

[WT]

We use Multiserve.  Usable just about everywhere.  Card per aircraft, bill broken down by card used.  Pilots do no pay for fuel.  We use the credit cards for all aviation fuel, members billed by wing for C flying (which includes a rate for fuel).

[SJFedor]

We use Multiserve.  Usable just about everywhere.  Card per aircraft, bill broken down by card used.  Pilots do no pay for fuel.  We use the credit cards for all aviation fuel, members billed by wing for C flying (which includes a rate for fuel).

What is PAWG's current rates anyway? I remember back WIWAC it was a very nice deal

[DG]

What is PAWG's current rates anyway? I remember back WIWAC it was a very nice deal

C-172 -    $ 63.00
C-182 -    $ 92.00
C-182RG  $107.00
U-206      $116.00
MT-7-235 $ 80.00
GA-8       $100.00

[SJFedor]

What is PAWG's current rates anyway? I remember back WIWAC it was a very nice deal

C-172 -    $ 63.00
C-182 -    $ 92.00
C-182RG  $107.00
U-206      $116.00
MT-7-235 $ 80.00
GA-8       $100.00

Ughhh. I'm gonna move back to PAWG for a few months. DG, care to help me finish my Comm??

[Eclipse]

What is PAWG's current rates anyway? I remember back WIWAC it was a very nice deal

C-172 -    $ 63.00
C-182 -    $ 92.00
C-182RG  $107.00
U-206      $116.00
MT-7-235 $ 80.00
GA-8       $100.00

Is that wet or dry?

[SJFedor]

What is PAWG's current rates anyway? I remember back WIWAC it was a very nice deal

C-172 -    $ 63.00
C-182 -    $ 92.00
C-182RG  $107.00
U-206      $116.00
MT-7-235 $ 80.00
GA-8       $100.00

Is that wet or dry?

Wet.

[Eclipse]

How does the wing absorb variances in fuel costs?

[DG]

And if you pay ahead $250, you get 10% discount.

That makes it about:

C-172 -    $ 57.00
C-182 -    $ 83.00
C-182RG  $ 96.00
U-206      $104.00
MT-7-235 $ 72.00
GA-8       $ 90.00

Actual fuel charges are monitored closely by the wing finance officer for aircraft, and adjusted whenever they get out of line with current rates.

With your ability Steven, we could knock out your commercial in 2 weeks.  Friel did it.  And it was great fun, in the T-34.

[genejackson]

Virginia Wing has credit cards in all aircraft.   We have Shell, Chevron, Exxon, Phillips 66, MultiService and AVFuel.   I've never ever flown somewhere that I didn't have a working card.   If we use the card, we generate a VAWG Form 11 which has blocks for who/when/why/mission number/sortie number and staple the credit card receipt to it and send to Wing HQ.   Works perfectly and nobody ever is waiting to be reimbursed for fuel expenses in a plane.

[CFI_Ed]

OK Wing uses AvCard.  And every month I or someone on Ops staff goes through the entire statement verifying receipts/mission number/tail number and that a receipt was uploaded to WMIRS.

[Nick]

Virginia Wing has credit cards in all aircraft.   We have Shell, Chevron, Exxon, Phillips 66, MultiService and AVFuel.   

Heh. Pick a card. Any card.