Mooney_Driver wrote:
chflyer wrote:
Birrfeld shows Jet A1, 100LL, S98.Yea, I had hoped they have UL91 but they don’t. If so, that would have been really neat.
So Triengen and Sitterdorf only for UL91, I recall Bressaucourt also had a pump.
Will go through it eventually and see.
LSGY has UL91, Jet-A, and 100LL
Someone should really make a map of Europe with all airfields and what fuels are available where. It ‘d be very helpful I think.
they’re not going to coerce the entire GA fleet in California into buying their STC
I don’t get this STC purchase BS. Surely the way is to license it to the big fuel mfgs. The STC income will be peanuts, and anyway totally unenforceable since there is no verifiable link between who bought the STC and who is buying the fuel!!! The only reason STCs are in theory enforceable (in terms of the holder permission having to be purchased, or obtained) is because the STC is filed with a 337 to the FAA, and is vulnerable to a physical inspection of the aircraft. The FAA is supposed to be checking STC holder permissions but evidently do not.
Someone should really make a map of Europe with all airfields and what fuels are available where. It ‘d be very helpful I think.
Sure but like all such projects the database will never get compiled and then updated. It’s like airports costs, etc. Best you will get is something like the EuroGA airport database.
I don’t get this STC purchase BS. Surely the way is to license it to the big fuel mfgs. The STC income will be peanuts, and anyway totally unenforceable
Yes, agreed. The chance of FAA acting as a police force to enforce non-safety related payment to a commercial company is zero in this instance. It is conceivable that the fuel distributor could be coerced into requiring its fuel truck drivers to ask to see the STC permission sheet before pumping your gas, but self serve fuel is already the predominant setup. For that, I think a requirement to punch in your STC number at the self-serve pump would be an admistrative nightmare – otherwise you could type in any number just as you can type in any N-number now to certify that your 100LL purchase is going into a plane.
I imagine they’re trying to get both a payment per gallon forever and one time STC payment from each plane to fund up front costs. The STC just comes across as selfish or small minded nonsense. If the business is big enough to justify startup production and distribution costs, somebody other than the end user will be willing to fund them.
Silvaire wrote:
payment per gallon forever
That’s the desire and wish of the inventor. In reality patents don’t live that long 
They say that on a 260hp IO-520, using 100UL instead of 100LL will save between a half and one gallon per hour. They also say that oil change intervals will double.
boscomantico wrote:
They say that on a 260hp IO-520, using 100UL instead of 100LL will save between a half and one gallon per hour. They also say that oil change intervals will double.
Perfectly credible.
Why didn’t they do altitude testing with the Baron? To my understanding it’s not very high-grade information gained how 100UL performs in 4000 feet. Because you can use any 91-fuel or fuel from a gas station in that altitude, no matter the engine. You should see the same values more or less. It gets interesting when reaching FL100 and higher when CHTs have to be kept low and when such interesting stuff like detonation could potentially come to happen.
Thing is that we need a fuel that works in the same environmental condition as does 100LL, that is high altitude, low cooling efficiency, low outside pressure.
Interesting follow-up article here on the situation in California, and on G100UL availability. I don’t think the author is very well informed in either article (or he has an agenda) but the article includes this comment which I am cutting and pasting below because it discusses specifics and has the ring of truth to me. ‘CEH’ is the activist group that has been trying to effectively outlaw 100LL for many years, via a civil lawsuit against distributors.
G100UL is not commercially available by the definition in the consent decree and won’t be for a long time. The decree language is:
“each Settling Defendant shall purchase for resale, distribute, and sell in California Avgas with the lowest concentration of lead approved for aviation use that is commercially available to that Settling Defendant on a consistent and sustained basis at prices and on terms, in quantities and at times sufficient to meet demands of the customers of that Settling Defendant in California (“Commercially Available”)”
Notice the use of the words price, terms, consistently available, and that it has to “meet the demands of the customers”. GAMI making a few thousand gallons of G100UL doesn’t even begin to reach those definitions. Consistently available means it takes TIME to establish commercial availability. It doesn’t even have its FIRST retail pump ANYWHERE.
The CEH lawyer letter is meaningless. It has no weight of authority, only the courts can decide if the terms are met. The CEH lawyers will get more billable hours from this stunt, and CEH will get more publicity, but it doesn’t actually change anything legally
UdoR wrote:
Why didn’t they do altitude testing with the Baron? To my understanding it’s not very high-grade information gained how 100UL performs in 4000 feet.
What AOPA is doing is not testing, it’s a publicity stunt. The GAMI guys tested thoroughly – if you go to their website they describe all the tests they did, plus there are hours of videos of George Braly talking about the thorough testing. I spoke to them a few times at Oshkosh and I think I have watched and read everything they have published, and it looks like they did it right.
From what I understand, the formulation is not complex, so should be able to be produced in large quantities very quickly. There must be something strange going on somewhere, since this is simply not happening. Perhaps it’s just the inertia of the current supply chain that get us 100LL.
From what I understand, the formulation is not complex, so should be able to be produced in large quantities very quickly. There must be something strange going on somewhere, since this is simply not happening
PROB99, as discussed here many times, GAMI are asking for excessive patent royalties.
Their STC requirement for the pilot filling up is a completely crazy idea, and if somebody is crazy in one way they are usually crazy in others too.
I am not a chemist but it would not surprise me if their formula is very close to something from around 1935. The basic ideas on petrol composition have been known for 100 years. Nearly all patents are invalid due to prior art but are “effective” for commercial purposes (like attracting vulture capital) nevertheless, failing only if somebody digs a bit deeper, or has money to throw at it.
