Talk about a deal that’s too good to miss. For the month of October, Redbird Skyport in San Marcos, Texas, will be selling avgas for the bargain price of $1 per gallon. There are no strings attached as long as you fly in and fill up at the FBO, which currently charges around $6 a gallon for 100LL.
Skyport, which is the FBO/flight school arm of Redbird Flight Simulations, is launching the experiment to gauge just how much the cost of fuel is hindering GA flight activity. If Skyport sees a tenfold increase in fuel sales during the month of October, that’s a pretty clear indication that fuel price is playing a big role. If sales are up only marginally, then maybe the price of avgas isn’t the barrier. The next obvious question will be, then what is?
“When the month is up, we expect to have fresh insight into how fuel price really factors into the many forces affecting how often GA pilots fly,” said Redbird spokesman Jeff Van West.
A number of companies and organizations, including Garmin, Aspen Avionics, King Schools, ForeFlight, Bendix/King, AOPA, GAMA, Jeppesen, Avemco, Piper Aircraft, Sennheiser, Hartzell, Bad Elf, Flying Magazine and Brown Leasing, along with the City of San Marcos, have all teamed to underwrite the experiment.
The month of October was chosen because of the generally good weather in Texas that time of year and to coincide with AOPA’s Aviation Summit scheduled for October 10-12 in Fort Worth and the Migration Flight Training Conference at Redbird Skyport October 28-30.
Redbird will ask pilots to participate in a survey when they fill up. Data from the questionnaires will be published after the experiment is complete. Besides taking the brief survey, you must also arrive by airplane to fill your tanks, not by car or on foot carrying gas cans.
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