Yes it is curious that a single A&P is publishing findings. I wonder if they’re repeatable?
Or if they’re even significant. Shade tree mechanics are ill equipped to do this testing. Instead of guessing what the goo is, run FTIR and find out with certainty. You’ll know the source then. The mechanic consistently mispronounces Buna so he’s a rookie for sure. And nitrile is a modern material. Chloroprene was the traditional fuel resistant elastomer. And you may not want to shove fluoropolymer into every application. Some of them will rely on some swell to do their job; the cork gasket is a good example.
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Hmm . . . The four part youtube video series by mluvara is, um, compelling.
Some of them will rely on some swell to do their job; the cork gasket is a good example.
This has always been my understanding as well–the cork is SUPPOSED to swell as it absorbs liquid. In fact, some cork gaskets come with a warning to expect leaks until the cork absorbs enough liquid to swell and make a seal.
But where is his data from planes not using the fuel? What percentage “have problems”? As a former owner of a legacy aircraft, and knowing many owners, there are a lot of engine issues popping up, regardless of fuel.
Cherry picking data that supports your premise isn’t “evidence” at all.
A&P Luvara is a signature member of a local coalition of pilots in Santa Clara County, CA, who have been fighting the removal of 100LL from their airport. Before any of his alleged “findings” occurred, he signed court documents in a separate legal action, stating that 100LL could not be replaced by G100UL.
His findings lack true scientific process and we should be asking ourselves why he is the only person rteporting problems.
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The mechanic making the videos seems pretty knowledgable to me and the evidence/concerns he presents is compelling. I’m anxious to move to a no-lead option but will not use G100UL until evidence exists that these issues are not related to the fuel. Hate to say it but the rest of the country will benefit if CA is forced (as usual) to be the guinea pigs. But I would refuse to be one.
He isn’t - aircraft owners are reporting their issues to him because he shows interest in investigating them.
I’m anxious to move to a no-lead option but will not use G100UL until evidence exists that the reported issues (in the videos and elsewhere) are not related to the fuel. I hate to say it but the rest of the country will benefit if CA is forced (as usual) to be the guinea pigs. But I would refuse to be one.
Truth be told, I was mostly on board with G100UL once it was approved for every spark ignition engine. However, I was a little skeptical to put it in my plane when I heard about the use of aromatics in the fuel, as those have been a large issue in all types of engines, vehicles, and industries over the past decades. I guess that skepticism was right.
Most of the GA fleet isn’t maintained perfectly, that’s a fact of life. This fuel seems to make known issues worse and looks to cause issues itself. Just about every airplane will probably leak fuel sometime in its life and shouldn’t need a new paint job because of fuel every few months (weeks? days?). Paint seems to be the least of our worries though after seeing all this real world experience. This is the real world testing people wanted to see and it’s not looking good. It’s a shame but I believe it would be very foolish and dangerous for the industry to move forward with this fuel.
This smells like money to me - the loss of it by all those ganging together to stall until they can make money at it. How much investment is shared between all these companies? Hard to believe there is none. And then there is the back scratching exchange.
All those FBOs made an agreement - stick to it. Then those of us out here - can wait for the results! 
GAMI has gone through the process and earned the STC, so they should be able to keep it. The manufacturers have individually issued guidance not to use the fuel due to field service difficulties. The real problem is that the issues experieneced by users in the field, under field conditions, are not at all surprising given the physical composition of these unleaded fuels. We discovered similar issues with all the fuels we tested under PAFI when contracted by the FAA to conduct the research. There were various degrees of materials incompatability with everything we tested AND there were also interactions between the new fuels and existing materials in situ that had been emersed in 100LL for 30+ years. The reality is that these are NOT drop in fuels and shouldn’t be forced into the market by the courts as a drop in replacement. It’s embarassing for the industry, but as long as this has been going on, it’s still too soon for that.
Both Piper and Cirrus prohibit the use of G100UL in their aircraft.
Ironic how Mr. Luvara is asking for transparency and for GAMI to respond to his many questions, but he will not open comments for his videos. I’m sure there would be more than a few questions and comments for Mr. Luvara if he would be open to them. As it is, he seems pretty comfortable pontificating from his hangar.
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I’m mainly concerned about issues that popped up after using the fuel. Sure, there could be some coincidences - but fuel selector valves sticking, tanks suddenly leaking and paint degredation from spillage - certainly seems suspicious. I’ll let those pilots who are downplaying his findings put it in their planes for 6-12 months before I’ll touch it (and I’m all for getting the lead deposits out of my engine)!
Are you a pilot?! You want the FAA to force all piston planes to summarily move to a new fuel that could damage their planes or worse - kill them? If you are a pilot I’ll let you use any of the proposed lead-free fuels for 6-12 months and then - if you or your plane is undamaged - I’ll be happy to use it because I do not like the lead deposits in my engine.
We have spent 50 years screwing around and doing not much but kick the can down the road. Lead WILL go away. We NEED to fix this before it gets fixed for us in a way we won’t like.
Also note that 100LL is a very poor “drop in” replacement for 80 octane, many of us had endless issues with lead fouling of plugs and sticking valves. It would totally fail the level of scrutiny the new fuels are getting.
Once Again - 94 octane avgas is the fix for about 75-80% of our airplanes with no formula issues, it is literally 100LL without the lead.
I agree, 94UL should be offered alongside 100LL for those that need it.
I’ve known Mike personally for more than 30 years. He’s hardly a “shade tree mechanic”. He is an engineer and took to this study after a mutual friend showed him the staining and peeling paint from putting G100 in his aircraft.
Have you watched the videos? They are absolutely compelling. He shows his A/B comparisons with G100 and 100LL.
If you don’t believe the videos, get some G100 and duplicate what’s he’s done. If your findings are different, publish your own video rebutting his observations. All you need is a cell phone, avgas and a YouTube account.
Fly safe.
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Unfortunately, it seems as if you’ve missed the entire point. Your tenure with Mike is irrelevant as are his videos. Anybody can produce quite compelling video and be absolutely wrong for all the right reasons. Cell phones make terrible lab instruments. You need more; a lot more. You need a properly equipped lab, a sufficient budget and people who know what they’re doing. You need to use ASTM methods, you have to have access to the rubber compounds/paints in use and you need time to complete a planned study. This is not something that can or should be sorted out on YouTube or TikTok. I don’t know Mike, never met him, know nothing about him. If he’s a trained scientist, he should know better than to attempt to sort this issue out with lasagna pans and a set of calipers. Material science doesn’t work that way. Particularly with rubber. Regardless of his intentions, he has done the public no service. I’d have a lot more respect for his activities if social media was not involved. At its core, what you ask is to accept that Mike has, all by himself, discovered an undesirable interaction that completely escaped all the previous testing at FAA and AOPA . That by itself invites incredulity given how long this fuel has been under test. Skepticism is at the heart of good science. You don’t start with the conclusion. You end with it. This needs proper investigation to sort out whether any of these accusations has any validity at all. That won’t happen on YouTube.
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You seem very confident that his analysis was poorly done - would you be willing to fly with G100UL for 6 months or so in your plane and let us know how it works out? Despite my desire to get the lead deposits out of my engine, I won’t use G100UL even if it was available until there is more real world evidence that it is safe to use. I’m not alone.
Not allowing comments on youtube videos is a very smart thing to do. You should open your own channel (on any topic you desire) and we’ll compare notes on how long it takes you to rip your hair out.
Alternatively, open a aviation news site. Or a Fecalbook page or any of the other “go viral quick” pages. There are a lot of honks. I don’t even want to know what kind of emails this guy gets.
I am 50 years old and only remember a short period of childhood when lead in aviation fuel was not a topic.
I mean, humans shoot stuff into space, perform robotic surgeries, attack and bomb enemies to shreds from hundreds of miles away, but we cannot, for the life of Christ, have a fuel in our airplanes that is lead free.
“Sumtin Wong!”
I agree with you completely that scientific method needs skepticism. Super lab with a legion of white coated scientists sporting clip boards with access to HPLC and mass spec instrumentation would be great.
I would ask, where are the results from GAMI’s testing and research like that.
Since Mike first took this on due to results from the greatest lab of all (real world results), perhaps we can call his efforts a “first order analysis “. To me, at a minimum it then begs the question “what testing was done with G100 BEFORE announcing that is a fleet wide solution”.
My personal take away from these is Mike is making observations and asking “what’s going on here?”…
I also know the owner of the 421 in question. I’ve seen it in the maintenance hangar for pretty much every annual it’s had since its purchase. I saw it at the last annual inspection. In all these years, none of the brown staining or other such issues had been present before he put the G100 in the plane.
As with anything, when something changes on a system, the first question we ask is, “what changed”?
Best regards,
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I have certain parts that need to swell to operate properly too… don’t hold it against me alrighty?
It really can’t be that hard to hire an independent lab to do a test and prove the matter. Get an old cirrus, put G100UL in it and fly it for 30 days. Before/after photos breakdown. Rinse repeat at 60 days. if at 180 days there are no issues, repeat again at 360 days and if no issues, then mark that plane model good to go. I’d recommend starting with the G2 and working your way up based on #'s sold.
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Hard? Not really. Expensive, yes.
First item of interest would be a list of ingredients in the G100.
Then look at all the things that those ingredients do to the various materials that are in the fuel system of a typical GA aircraft.
Lots more experiments after that but those are all the things that should have already been done PRIOR to rolling out a big batch of G100 to experiment on the fleet…
Fly safe.
My local airport in southern CA wants nothing to do with 100UL due to the infrastructure, i.e. storage and handling facilities that will be required, in addition to the standard 100LL. I don’t blame them. Any effect of lead on the environment due to GA is like the size of one pin head in a pin factory. Most of the politicians pushing it have no technical expertise on the topic whatsoever.