It is not that easy. It is said that 80% of the fleet can use UL91, but 75% of the fuel used it 100LL.
The thing is that planes using 100LL are using more fuel. The corporate twin flys more than the Rotax powered microlight.
Most heavy consumers (Cirrus, turbo engines…) use 100LL with no option for any other fuel than 100UL.
The other thing is splitting the market. Our market is too small to survive a split.
If you divide a market prices go up for both products. That is normal logic.
You say price it important, so a split will be expensive for all.
Disagree. At every airfield I have been involved in the biggest users of avgas have been the flying schools. And they will use what ever is the cheapest.
Those are arbitrary numbers with no meaning here. Those numbers comes from the US, and what they say is that 70% of registered American GA aircraft can run on mogas with available STCs. But, the remaining 30% that cannot run on mogas consume 70% of the fuel. Now, mogas does not equal Avgas UL91. In fact, avgas UL91 confirms to Avgas 91/98 defined in ASTM D910 in everything except dye. So the number of American GA aircraft that can run on Avgas UL91 is much higher. According to AOPA Avgas 91/98 can be used in 30% of the aircrafts in the US that today has to use 100LL. So, the number of aircrafts that can use UL91 in the US is around 80%. This also means that the remaining 20% that cannot use UL91, cannot possibly consume more than 50% of the total fuel, my guess it is MUCH lower.
The numbers found by EASA is that 85% of GA using piston engines can use UL91. In addition comes all the utralights with Rotax engines and similar not found in quantities in the US, every single one of those can use UL91. All in all a number way beyond 90% can use UL91 on their aircraft. Most Cirruses can in fact use UL91, because most of them are not turbo powered. Most Cirruses are not heavy consumers either, they are lucky to get 50 hours per year on average. The heavy consumers are the school fleets with 1000 hours per year per aircraft. The rest of the heavy consumers in GA are turbine powered, they use Jet-A1, helicopters and business jets and some turboprops.
That is the situation. In fact the main reason for not switching to UL91 is to be “nice” to some hangar queen turbo Cirruses and some old twins from the 60s and 70s that should be switched to turbine powered aircrafts years ago. It’s time to wake up.
When we put fuel in the aircraft, we think of one thing: Get the cheapest fuel available suitable for the engine/aircraft. Now, if for some insane reason 100LL is cheaper than UL91, we will fill 100LL.
What drives the prices up is lack of competition. This is true for everything, also for avgas. Avgas has traditionally been distributed the same way as mogas. Mogas is shipped in bulk to large depots strategically placed around Europe, and distributed “locally” from these depots, mixed and blended as needed just before delivery. This makes sense for mogas because ready to use mogas has a short shelf life, weeks rather than months. For avgas this distribution makes no sense because avgas comes in finished quality directly from the refinery and it has a shelf life of at least 24 months. Direct shipment to the airfields will always be cheaper with avgas than any other method. Making and shipping different avgas qualities will therefore not add any cost because the total amount of shipment will be the same. The only added cost is an extra pump at the airfield, a small one time investment. Sweden has been having both 100LL and 91/96UL on lots of airfields for decades, with no measurable added cost compared with other places. What has been measured is less maintenance cost and less problems associated with lead, ethanol, aromats and vapor lock. Letting more participants deliver fuel is the only way of keeping costs down.
Personally I don’t really care about the particular fuel, but I am all for using common sense. Common sense say that UL91 is the cheapest and cleanest avgas that we will ever see. It consist mostly of alkylate, and has octane rating beyond that of 98 mogas, the highest available for cars. There are no additives there other than antioxidants to make it preserve well. Surely recourses are better used to renew the 60-70 year old engine technology used in aviation, than to “invent” a fuel to continue running on 60-70 year old technology. The only thing needed to do with this ancient engine technology is to put on electronic ignition and possibly electronic fuel injection, stuff that has been used in cars for 40-50 years already. This stuff already exist for aircrafts as well, Rotax and ULPower engines comes with such equipment bolted on by default. Surely Lycoming and Continental engineers can come up with similar stuff if they put a tiny amount of brains into it? (my guess is this is where the real problem lies, but that’s another story). Afterall, it less than 10% of flying aircrafts in Europe that need such a fix, and the “fuel problem” will be solved for ever.
Geez. Quite a bit of nonsense there.
Cirrus SR aircraft can not fly on UL91. Their engines are only certified for minimum 100 octane grade Avgas, even the non-turbos. Will a Continental IO-360 or IO-550 fall apart if being (cautiously) flown on UL91? Well, probably not, but that’s not the point.
Also, the average usage of Cirrus aircraft is much higher than 50 hours a year. I remember a number of well over 150 hours (COPA has the exact numbers if you are interested). That’s because their owners tend to still be excited with their aircraft (as opposed to, say, owners of 1969 C210s or 1981 Piper Turbo Arrows).
What’s your mission here?
This also means that the remaining 20% that cannot use UL91, cannot possibly consume more than 50% of the total fuel, my guess it is MUCH lower.
20% of aircraft will be using far more than 50% of the total fuel. Most GA aircraft fly little and some fly a lot.
The numbers found by EASA is that 85% of GA using piston engines can use UL91.
They probably did another one of their “studies”, done by somebody on €100k who has heard of “Cessna” and did a bit of googling. I have a collection of EASA reports like that, which I can’t post because it isn’t clear they were actually ever on their website. The 85% figure could be true only if they count every lawn mower with shoulder straps, of which there is about a million in Europe 
some hangar queen turbo Cirruses and some old twins from the 60s and 70s that should be switched to turbine powered aircrafts years ago. It’s time to wake up.
I am sorry to say this but such a comment is totally out of touch with reality. Most SR22s are anything but hangar queens, but your comment about turbines reveals that considerable further study is needed in your department on aircraft engines generally and GA propulsion options specifically. Do you know how much a turbine engine costs to maintain and the state of the art SFC?
Finally, despite all that has been said on this topic all over the internet, the fact is that TOTAL’s attempt to split the market has failed totally (hoho) in Europe’s 2nd biggest market – the UK. Even their giving away of free bowsers has not improved their market share over the 5% (approx) mark and that figure comes (openly written) from the manager of one of UK’s busiest GA airports which sells 100LL and 91UL side by side. That tiny market share was achieved at one place where they gave away a free bowser so without that the market share would be closer to zero.
Sure if 91UL was say 10% or more cheaper, people would use it, but it clearly isn’t. And if you push an airport into deciding to stock one fuel they will go for 100LL every time (except in very unusual locations).
I took this pic at AERO 2014 yesterday:
That Polish company estimates the European 100LL market to be worth €200-300M/year. The stuff about oil companies wanting to drop100LL is nonsense. They make loads of money out of it, but they have a bad monopoly position.
Warter have their own refinery and if/when a 100UL fuel appears (and that is the only “final solution”) they can make it. They know the GA scene well, are a keen supporter of 100LL so if anybody wants any, you know who to contact
I also think that a company which, for its own expediency and bottom line, effectively tells a significant part of our community to take a hike, does not deserve our support.
Well, I’m sorry. I thought this was an *Euro*GA forum not some *UK*GA forum for fuel conspiracy theorists. Splitting the market, please…
Obviously the problem in the UK is exactly that, a problem in the UK. As I said, in Sweden 100LL and 91/96 UL has been sold together for 3 decades now with no talk about “splitting the market”. Those who need 100LL fill up with 100LL, those who don’t need 100LL fill up with UL96, how difficult can it be? It’s funny how avgas cost considerably more in the UK than in Norway, and with UL91 coming this summer it will be even cheaper with a “split market”. It also cost more than in Sweden haven’t it been for their medieval taxation of avgas.
My interest in UL91 comes from the fact that I’m purchasing a new engine from the US and I found out a few days ago that UL91 is starting to be sold by Statoil, the major fuel supplier here, in cooperation with Warter. For a few days I was a bit nervous that 100LL would disappear altogether having read some scary stuff in the local GA magazine, and have not given any thought about the engine being specced for UL91. Having investigated a bit about all this, it is clear that 100LL is not likely to disappear very soon and the new engine will run just fine on UL91. So no problems whatever direction it takes. Statoil makes and sell Jet-A1, but has been using Shell as the supplier of Avgas. Only a couple of months ago the cooperation with Shell ended, and the cooperation with Warter started. UL91 may pop up everywhere here in a short time.
A funny thing at my local airport. Both Shell and Statoil sold Avgas (100LL) from the same pump. The exact same fuel. You paid with a Statoil card or a Shell card. Statoil was always 1-2 NOK cheaper (about 0.15 – 0.25 euro)
I do however believe that UL91 is going to be the mainstream fuel for reasons I have already stated. All the engine manufacturers I have been in contact with say the best fuel is UL91. But it doesn’t really matter, because Warter can make any fuel you want, even in small quantities. They can also distribute efficiently and have cost effective solutions for small scale distribution, or so they say. That still remains to be seen.
20% of aircraft will be using far more than 50% of the total fuel. Most GA aircraft fly little and some fly a lot.
That is not the point, and it is also wrong. According to statistics the 20% cannot possibly use more than 50% of the total fuel, but they could use less.
but your comment about turbines reveals that considerable further study is needed in your department on aircraft engines generally and GA propulsion options specifically. Do you know how much a turbine engine costs to maintain and the state of the art SFC?
SFC means nothing. What matters is HP and hours flown per year. More hours and more HP and you are in turbine land before you know it. Which leads to my original point. If those old twins from the 60s and 70s really did fly more than 1-200 hours per year, they would be replaced by single engine turboprops years ago. So, they are nothing to bother with, it is not them who are using all this 100LL.
So, who are these 20% using “much more than” 50% of the total fuel? In the US with a pilot population per capita more than 10 times as large as here, and where IFR and high altitude flying over mountains and over large distances is common, then it is not very far fetched to assume that there are lots of high powered and turbo powered aircraft around needing 100LL and flying tons of hours. Not to mention Alaska and Canada. But here in Europe?
I am afraid that Jet fuel is the future whether it is powering turbines or diesel engines.
Random ULXX fuels are going to remain niche unless they get acceptance from the flying school fleets.
LeSving: I don’t know what your agenda is, but there is clearly one.
Wind the clock back 20 years. In US, the biggest aviation and GA market, AVGAS 80/87 died. The red fuel, died, because the infrastructure became too expensive and not many airfields were prepared to keep double pumps. The low compression engines can use 100LL, but they weren’t designed for that amount of TEL in 100LL
Do you really think, Europe is big enough as an AvGas market?
In Germany most microlight pilots bring their fuel from the petrol station again. Some airports switched their MoGas for UL91 and sales plumeted.
Considering fuel sales is a big income for an airfield, it makes a big financial impact.
I actually bought my last 80/87 in about 2003, old stock or something. It was good fuel for most of the GA fleet, better for my planes than 100LL since it was close to unleaded, but as stated the American AVGAS market was too small to justify two fuels when one would suffice.
