Flying Magazine has a very interesting article about a possible ban on 100LL following a survey of lead content in air around general aviation airports in the US. A ban on leaded fuels could be introduced in the US as early as in 2019.
New fuels are in the work that contain as little as 50% gasoline. The rest is chemicals. Flight testing of two fuels is about to start.
If this happens in the US, the rest of the world could soon follow. If it turns out the fuels don’t mix…
Why don’t they start using 91/96UL? It’s a proven unleaded aviation fuel.
It’s of course no panacea as not all aircraft engines can use it, but almost all non-turbocharged Lycomings can. And of course all older engines originally certified for AVGAS 80/87.
Airborne_Again wrote:
It’s of course no panacea as not all aircraft engines can use it, but almost all non-turbocharged Lycomings can.
The largest consumers can’t use it. So the effect would be quite small, and the already fairly small AVGAS market would be fragmented even more. Many airports are reluctant to carry 2 fuels, now asking them to carry 3 doesn’t sound like a good plan.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Why don’t they start using 91/96UL? It’s a proven unleaded aviation fuel.
Good question .
This will drive forward the “100UL” scene, which is currently not going anywhere because
I think, clearly, “100UL” (and replacing 100LL with it) is a lot closer to a solution than diesels, which have an awfully long way to go especially in the USA. Just the retrofit costs kill them almost completely, in the retrofit market.
The technical challenges of making 100UL are well sorted now, I am sure. It is getting it organised, etc.
91/96UL is not a solution; as Tom says, the biggest users can’t use it.
From that article:
“The FAA in September 2014 selected four candidate fuels for testing, one each from Shell and Total, and two from Swift Fuels.”
I wonder what happened to George Braly and his 100UL?
tomjnx wrote:
The largest consumers can’t use it.
They could if Conti approved it Like Lyco did …
Lyco did not approve any turbo engines….. my IO540-C4 was the last one they did.
Peter wrote:
The technical challenges of making 100UL are well sorted now, I am sure. It is getting it organised, etc.
I fear that this will have a significant impact on the price.
Further, with less than 50% petroleum content, the price of a barrel crude oil will have less effect on the the price at the pump.
Michael wrote:
They could if Conti approved it Like Lyco did …
Lyco didn’t and won’t do the higher compression ones either, like the 200hp IO360, which isn’t such a rare engine.
Michael wrote:
Further, with less than 50% petroleum content, the price of a barrel crude oil will have less effect on the the price at the pump.
Crude oil prices already seem to have surprisingly little effect on the pump price…
Not around here. The AvGas price @ Total follows the crude price, albeit with about a 2 – 3 month lag.
