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100UL (merged thread)

MichaLSA wrote:

Yes, it does poison you if there is too much.

This is incorrect. Any amount of lead is bad for you, and this is something that was discovered ages ago. You get lead into your system, and it will never disappear. It will stay there and damage you for the rest of your life. The same goes for several other heavy metals.

MichaLSA wrote:

How many pilots suffer from Lead poisoning?

It’s not the pilots that suffer. It’s the kids living by the airport breathing the toxic air (first and foremost).

As Paul B said. AVGAS 100LL is a small, lucrative and shielded business. No one will enter into that business due to the led, and the existing producers will not stop producing because it is not illegal, and it is lucrative and shielded (no competition, lots of profit). Only a ban on leaded fuel will stop the use, like a ban stopped the use of lead in car fuel and paint and other stuff.

MichaLSA wrote:

on continental Europe they replaced Lead with Benzene (saying is due to translation error) which is a nasty Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon PAH. Lead poisons you and you suffer from direct reaction (1:1 feedback) and PAH does not poison you directly, but alters your physiology in a subtle and not well understood way (risk of not well understood long term effects). As said before, I prefer the direct way, because it is manageable by everybody on their own. Trading direct threads for hidden risks is a bad thing to do as part of the evolution.

This is interesting, because from what I got from Paul’s video (I think, may have to watch it again) is that this is exactly what these GAMI people are doing with their unleaded 100 octane fuel. Replacing lead for PAH. In the US they used MTBE as an octane booster for some time when lead was banned, the same in Norway. MTBE got banned to to environmental issues, the biodegradability is as good as zero, making drinking water smell and taste bad (among other stuff). If this is the case, then this GAMI fuel is certainly dead in the water.

The solution is ethanol. It has always been ethanol, and will always be ethanol. This water soluble ghost is just that, a ghost. How often do we hear about Rotax engiens stopping in mid air due to water contamination? I haven’t heard about a single incident.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

avgas availability is becoming more and more scarce. Particularly in certain countries

Is that actually true? Which airports have lost 100LL? According to Warter, the european 100LL market is worth of the order of 200-300M a year.

The way I see it, much of Europe, especially the south, has always struggled to organise anything concerning “customer service”, let alone organise 100LL This has not changed in my 22 years of flying.

I haven’t heard about a single incident.

One wouldn’t anyway. This was prob99 not due to water in fuel (even though the £500 fuel analysis I had done reported plenty of water in the fuel) but how many people would publish that? Everybody wants to sell their plane one day and doesn’t want the buyer to discover the writeup – before the sale or after the sale.

I am amazed nobody knows what GAMI have used in the G100UL to get the octane back up. They can’t keep it secret for all these years, surely?

Is the increase in avgas prices due to Covid 19 likely to descend following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

IMHO, only after the Russians are kicked out of [most of] Ukraine. The global uncertainty will remain for a long time, otherwise.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Recently, a lot of airports in Norway stopped having Avgas. A couple of places in Denmark also. Sweden too, where some places now only have Hjelmco 91/96UL, although that is not a very recent development.

A few years ago, several airports in the Baltics lost Avgas. Poland has also become difficult, but not due to sheer availability, but due to adminstrative stuff.

But in the grand scheme of things (Central Europe) not so much has changed, except that some big airline airports no longer bother with it. Greece has always had more or less 6-10 airports with Avgas in the last 10 years.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 16 Aug 18:04
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

That’s what I thought. 100LL availability would also correlate with how many people are flying IFR / long range touring aircraft. In the countries where this is a significant activity, I would not expect 100LL to disappear; there is a lot of money in it. The airfield makes about 0.30 €/£ per litre – easy money.

Indeed; e.g. Le Bourget lost 100LL but at €700 nobody was going there anyway.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

It’s not the pilots that suffer. It’s the kids living by the airport breathing the toxic air (first and foremost)

At my US airport of about 600 mostly 100LL powered aircraft and 600 operations per day, instrumentation was installed to check that over a long period. They found little to nothing, and the instrumentation was eventually removed.

Obviously government is prone to political morass and ineffective circling in even the most urgent of times, but I think the reason the 100LL issue has gone so far in that direction is that it really doesn’t matter much, and most playing politics know it.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 16 Aug 18:25

I am grateful I have few 100LL automates with Total cards & BP cards, at least that would take a lot of time to disassemble

Last Edited by Ibra at 16 Aug 18:15
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

They found little to nothing, and the instrumentation was eventually removed.

I am not surprised.

A huge % of the population in both the 1st World and the undeveloped bits of the earth lives in extremely polluted areas. Why? In the 1st World, mainly because housing is a lot cheaper there. Elsewhere, because they want to be close to where there is economic activity.

These people are breathing vast amounts of pollutants; not just lead in the old days. There is a lot of suffering due to this.

Lead levels next to some GA airport will be miniscule. Especially as most are windy as hell

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Off the bat, a few big European airports in Europe that lost their Avgas 100LL in recent years:

Amsterdam
Milan Linate
Rome Ciampino
Bergamo
Cologne-Bonn
Hahn
Podgorica
Riga

Faro, Lisboa, Porto and Mallorca lost it many years ago.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Silvaire wrote:

They found little to nothing, and the instrumentation was eventually removed.

Or, the project collecting data had finished, and the instrumentation was removed? Any links, references to the results?

boscomantico wrote:

Recently, a lot of airports in Norway stopped having Avgas

Don’t know about recently. This has happened gradually over the last 30 years at least. It corresponds well to a sort of transfer to helicopters as the main commercial GA activity, all turbine powered, as well as TP planes to a minor degree, where the previous “norm” was piston twins. When I started flying in 1992, there were AVGAS at all Avinor airports, at least all the ones I flew to, but very few other places.

It was quite nice back then. A call to the tower, and within a few minutes a truck with fuel was there filling up the tank. Then a visit to the “C” office to get the latest info and weather Today, only the largest Avinor airports have AVGAS (officially), but several private/small airports have started having it. On a private initiative several clubs have started with AVGAS on Avinor airports also. None of this is in the AIP however, and you may have to call up front to get it (after you have figured out who to call to). Within a 100 NM radius from ENVA at least 7 airports have AVGAS, or 100LL to be precise (not including the Swedish airports), but looking in the AIP you will only find one (ENVA). Those Diamond aircraft isn’t exactly helping the 100LL situation either

At some point in time, perhaps in very near future, Avinor will say that they will get out of all servicing of 100LL (or any avgas) altogether. It’s only a nuisance to them, no upside whatsoever. Then private initiative will step up, since 100LL (in bulk/barrels) is readily available and no airport can truly do without it. Then I’m afraid everything will be as obscure as the non-Avinor airports are today. Or perhaps not, who knows. The boating people have managed to organize themselves having fuel all over the place, readily available without obscuring the situation. Too many nut heads in private GA I guess ?

Last Edited by LeSving at 16 Aug 20:04
The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

LeSving wrote:

Any links, references to the results?

Yes, its EPA public data and out there. Apparently at my exceptionally busy base (they only tested the busiest piston GA airports in the US and thereby the world), with “field monitors sited at locations representative of the highest expected air lead concentration”, the following conclusion was reached.

“Concentrations at the airport monitor measured a maximum three-month average of 0.07 μg/m3, which is below the national standard”

(National standard means a standard for any air, anywhere in the US)

And then after they didn’t find what they wanted to find in those chosen locations they apparently moved in to the runup areas of the same airports and concluded:

“Preliminary results from this additional short-term sampling effort show levels decreasing by one to two orders of magnitude from the take-off area to the edge of the airport property”

That’s a revelation

Last Edited by Silvaire at 16 Aug 20:36
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