Do Californians know that most of the country is laughing at them? And the labeling on some packages claiming some minute content will cause cancer, but only if used in California? We sure see a lot of California plates here in the Carolinas. Of course, the simple fuel solution for 70% of the legacy piston fleet and nearly all new piston planes with powerplants from Rotax, ULPower, Verner, Jabiru, Rotec, etc. is to use Mogas - without ethanol. But wait, California has managed to screw that up, too. Look at the map of ethanol-free sellers of mogas, pure-gas.org. California is an ethanol-free desert. You people out there deserve the government you have supported for decades, now your chickens are coming home to roost.
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For the younger folks here is some information about lead in gas. There are two grams of lead per gallon of avgas. TWO GRAMS! That is the equivalent of a half teaspoon of sugar. In the olden days all gasoline had lead. Millions of cars drove around burning leaded fuel, not even low lead. You were lucky to get seven miles to the gallon. That was a lot of leaded fuel being burned. The people at risk for lead poisoning were the gas station attendants, (in those days someone pumped your fuel for you). The attendant pumped gas all day constantly. There is no comparison to the usage of low lead in airplanes. Banning low leaded fuel for airplanes running ancient designed engines is ridiculous. Feel good legislation with a very negative impact on the aviation community.
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In Florida most marinas and gas stations offer āRec Fuelā which is 90 octane non-ethanol gas. Price is less than 100LL at the airport.
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The present producers of leaded avgas donāt want to give up a very profitable product.
Just like the cigarette manufacturers trying to hang on.
Behind the scenes, avgas producers fighting reality.
Lots of people who truly donāt understand commenting!
Lead is bad for engines; never mind that it is bad for people.
There is a perfectly acceptable unleaded fuel available right now.
Time to get on with it; no reason for further delay; GAMI available; now!
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Totally agree! As much as I love California, but despise Newsome - this is the only way to get rid of 100LL. Cleaner engines, less oil changes, cleaner spark plugsā¦letās get moving on this! Start the weening process off 100LL.Nothing but arguing.
Remember when you were a teenager who absolutely refused to heed the alarm clock? The avgas-burning aviation community has been rolling over in bed for decades, hoping that if it ignored the alarm, we could sleep a little longer. Now, California has turned on the lights, opened the shades, and ripped the sheets off of our desperate attempts to delay the inevitable. Someone has to be the responsible adult that keeps us from missing the bus, and the worse consequences that would follow.
And you know that if Mom has to call Dad to rip you bodily out of bed, the result will be much worse.
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The State of California is known to cause cancer. Thatās all you need to know about whatās happening here.
You all realize of course that this will be a very short intermediate step. CA has also banned the sale of unleaded fuel vehicles starting in 2035, mandating electric-only. How much longer do you think you can hold them off from mandating electric aircraft engines, at least for GA?
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ā And letās not get into hating on California. Seriously. Weāre as successful a place as exists on the planet and the vast majority of the world wants to be hereā
This may be the funniest thing Iāve read in quite a while! With a population loss of 2%, and multi-billion corporations moving out of California daily (ever heard of Chevron). The only thing California leads the nation in is virtue signaling. As evidence by using the same language as the EPA finding.
I want unleaded fuel as much, if not more than anyone here. But just like our national transition from fossil fuels, it should be done in a market based phased approach, not government mandates. EV car sales are cratering, Ford Motor just loss $5B on EVs, and is slowing production.
The solution has been found, if youāre willing to accept it, and yes, probably at a higher price. So exactly how much is the California virtue signaling worth? $8/gallon, 9?, 10?. California please go first and show us how much more virtuous you really are.
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I think the elephant in the room here is the single comercial producer of TEL in the world, Innospec. 100LL until 2030 assumes that Innospec will continue to produce it.
Perhaps itās time we stop flying dinosaurs >> https://rapidskyhelicopters.com/we-are-overdue-for-modern-engines/
Hopefully this pushes the FAA to get something done. I own a STC from GAMI and look forward to using their G100UL. Quit complaining about California making things TRULY better for everyone. I remember the awful smog in Los Angeles years ago and getting rid of lead in auto fuel worked very well. I admit that our leaded fuel is almost no problem. Lots of you people need to wake up and realize that the public in general is against continued use of leaded fuel. SO, it doesnāt matter what you think. I say G100UL is perfectly safe so letās go get it done, NOW !!
Way to push your own company.
We are not discussing engines but rather fuels.
I have to disagree with the ascertain that lead in fuel was/ is related to LA smog. It is not. The brown LA smog was caused by NOx emissions. Also, the hidden LA smog problem was ozone. Both were fixed with legislation on big producers and the adoption of catalytic converters. Yes unleaded fuel was needed for cats to work, but the lead did not cause the pollution.
Funny thing, the LA power plants were built on the coast to reduce LA ozone. Turns out the math was wrong and those power plants actually made the ozone slightly worst. Bad math not discovered until 1986 UCLA chemistry research paper.
Sorry people feel they should keep from living their flying dreams because of all this noise. It took a long time for the govt to get this way, and it will take a while longer to get it back to being reasonable. I hate to see people give up and loose their dream for a transitory situation. We all need to fight and push for the govt we want. Lets debate and make good decisions and get all the stupid people out of the govt.
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Not a bad solution but many CA airports do not allow owners to bring their own fuel tanks/trucks onto airport propertyāliability reasons, supposedly. The truth is probably that FBOs and fuel vendors donāt want to allow anything on field that would cut into their sales.
100LL is on its way out; no matter what its real hazard to the public (minuscule), thereās no doubt that use of leaded fuel is terrible optics for GA. That ship has sailed, and logic simply does not apply. GAMIās G100UL is already approved by STC for all reciprocating engines and the roadblocks put up by entrenched interests at FAA and in the avgas industry need to get out of the bloody way.
Iāve reached the age, temperament, financial stability and skill that I could acquire a very nice airplane. Maybe even a twin.
But itās clear the government has the ālong knivesā out for activities that consume carbon based fuels, so Iām saying āno wayā to that ācraft. In this political environment, it just aināt happening. If the leftists win this election cycle, G/A - in the US - will be completely dead in 3 - 5 years.
Letās hope Iām wrong ā but Iām betting Iām right.
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Seems to me everybody has a position on 100LL and itās replacement. Setting a date 6 yrs in the future to BAN 100LL in CA is about as crazy as banning cows to stop passing gas. To much methane being released, so, what ban cows, or provide a different feed that wonāt make them fart - and give um 6 years to make that happen? Then what? Bans cows?
Actually, I have lived in California for all of my 63 years. Contrary to your statements, California is becoming more unsuccessful every year as businesses leave due to high taxes, but then I guess your definition of success may be different than mine. The state is also turning into a crap hole, both figuratively and literally. Newsom is ruining this state. Like most legislators, he has no formal education himself in any of the technical issues he sticks his fingers in. He and his friends also have no idea of the unintended consequences of a lot of their decisions, nor do they care. If this goes through, and Iām sure it will, airports will close, airplanes will be grounded either by necessity or owners simply giving up the fight of battling bureaucracy, and the freedom to travel by oneās own means will increasingly become a concept of the past. For the pilots who own airplanes outside of California, they will not want to fly here, nor will they be able to in many cases. If you agree with this proposal, then you are someone who wants all of the negative consequences to happen as well. I was hoping to pass my airplane down to my grandsons, but that may not happen with the legislation that people we stupidly elect put in place. When are you running for office? You have the perfect attitude for it.
And how many times has California passed legislation to ban the internal combustion engine?
I can see that the haters will emerge regardless of pleas to the contrary. I stand by all of my words and request that the personal attacks cease. I live in California, learned to fly in California, have lived and worked all over the world, know exactly how it stands economically, with quality of life, etc., and legally. The idea that California is virtue signalling or that this is somehow trivial is ā¦ weird.
As a biologist, I am on firm footing that lead has only harmful effects upon all forms of life, including humans. There is no safe level for lead any more than there was for DDT. Time to move on and bring out the adult solutions to save your privileges in flying these older machines around.
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