EAGLE Explains PAFI Process

News Discussion
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The Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions group has issued its second in a series of three information bulletins, this one explaining the Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative (PAFI) and the role it plays in the FAA's potential issuance of a "fleet authorization" for a fuel being developed by Lyondell/Basell. If the fuel passes the battery of compatibility and performance tests conducted at FAA labs the agency will issue a list of compatible aircraft and engines and what, if any, modifications are required for its use.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/eagle-explains-pafi-process
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What are the tests?

How do they related to present ASTM standard?

How do they relate to what FAA and GAMI agreed on for STC?

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Hasn’t PAFI been laid off yet?
:-o)

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Does anyone reading this garbage feel any better now, more confident the current and past process for that matter will achieve a drop in fuel to replace 100 UL? Or, does this article spread more doubt about anything resembling what we were originally told? There will be a drop in replacement.

If the article does anything, they are telling us there will not be a drop in, get ready to modify your engine, engines and live with less faltering performance. Great… I welcome mass layoffs.

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This is yet another epic failure of the FAA. As noted, “GAMI’s G100UL already has STCs approved for all certified airplanes and all certified aircraft engines”–in other words, the FAA has already approved it. Now the competitors insist that it be ASTM. approved–WHAT DOES THAT DO TO HELP, WHEN THERE IS ALREADY AN APPROVAL?

I feel sorry for GAMI–they succeeded where government failed, and now government wants to change the rules. And the FAA wonders why it is held in such low esteem.

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Isn’t the real practical difference using ASTM standards being that it would cover experimental aircraft, which are not covered with GAMI, and several hundred thousand aircraft owners would not have to pay $300+ per aircraft for an STC? Real question.

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There has never been a drop in replacement for 100 octane avgas. 100LL was a compromise that allowed the end of 80 which only had a lead spec due to washout in the same transfer equipment that was used for 100/130 and 100LL.
Engine manufacturers started making engines that could run on largely unleaded 80 to use 100LL, and 80 engines can use 100LL or 100/130 for that matter if they were willing to drop to 25 hour oil change intervals and 100-200 spark plug replacement intervals.

I have a 230hp 80 octane engine that ran just fine on 80 and will run on 100LL if I drop the bottom plugs every 50 hours and blast the lead out. Doesn’t matter how aggressively I lean it. When I switched to unleaded 87 mogas, the lead problems went away and I have run 1000 past TBO on two engine runs. Before it became harder to find, I bought mogas on the road whenever possible. Now, I tanker fuel on most trips so what 100LL I do put in the airplane at worst is diluted and occasional. Bring back as much mogas as there was in the 1990s and I’d never put a drop of 100LL in the airplane.

So, no I do not feel any better about the EAGLE/PAFI/GAMI/XOM/COP/EPA/FAA or any other group and gasoline. Too many with vested, self-serving interests involved. If George said, no STC necessary and was willing to live off his patent royalties and after another decade of experience with it, I might consider GAMI’s process, but not until then.

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As I said before, it we went to 2 pumps again and one of them was 94 octane avgas, which is 100LL without the lead, that would solve the majority of the issue right there. There is also a large market for this fuel anywhere there are boars, ethanol gas causes endless issues in the marine environment.

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94 octane fuel, mogas or unleaded 100LL base, it does not matter.
Ethanol has NO business in any internal combustion engine fuel period. ETOH is an after refinery blend and is not present in automotive fuels unless mandated by certain states for on road use.

Currently, there are only six states that DO have a mandatory ethanol law like this: Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington state.

In Minnesota ethanol is exempt from the gas used in aircraft, watercraft, motorsport racing, collector vehicles and off-road use, motorcycles, 2 cycle, and small engines, and snowmobiles. It requires 91 octane fuel or above.

Missouri follows Minnesota, but exempts gas sold at airports and marinas.

Florida is even better, in that it does not require any octane restriction on nonblended gas.

Oregon originally mandated blending for everything and changed its mind in 2008, to follow pretty much Minnesota, but then OR didn’t let you pump your own gas until recently.

That leaves just Washington and Hawaii. Washington exempts airport gas, and I don’t know about HI.

Michigan makes it harder to find, but it’s there and the gas stations before Granholm, the ex-governor and ex-Sec Energy mandated removal of pump labeling as to fuel composition to hide the Ethanol.

So, the only problem we have is how to get it to the airport. Until we solve this problem, I transport it in a DOT approved permanently installed tank in a truck with a pump, and have pumped over 10000 gallons into my airplane over the years after the local field discontinued Mogas. About 2/3 of the GA fleet can and does use mogas.

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Would George get ‘patent royalties’ in your approach?

Why do you have an aversion to paying George Braley for his work?

(Recall Braley went the STC route because of FAA pushing him to use the STC method in the past.
Recall that GAMI has identified gaps and unnecessary aspects of the ASTM standard, as has Swift Fuels.)

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I’m surprised that gasoline without ethanol is as rare as you claim.

BC facilitates ethanol free motor gasoline by only requiring an average, so at least two sellers leave it out f their highest octane gasoline. I’ve lost touch with the WA market, a friend was finding it in some locations in his region.
(Owners of classic high performance automobile engines avoid ethanol.)

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I did not claim it is rare. It isn’t and shouldn’t be rare. I have had no trouble in 4 states I have lived obtaining mogas, and until about 2008 at transient airports along routes I need to refuel.

I only point out that there are very few states that mandate ethanol in fuel and in those that do, there are significant exceptions which directly apply to aviation in all but one or two. In my experience there are substantially fewer airports that now offer unleaded fuel and it must be tanked in to the airport either in jugs or transfer tanks.

As for George Braley, he should get paid for his work. Royalties will pay him for his work in a manner that will not stifle competition and create a commodity monopoly as his current model does. Fuel is a commodity and should be treated as such.

He can decide on his business model, and clearly he has. But his business model is not in the best interest of aviation or the country. If his STC covered any brand of fuel there would be no issue. It does not. It covers GAMI fuel as a sole source supplier, and worse, if others adopt this model as Swift apparently is doing, it locks users into either a single source, or alternatively purchasing and installing (even if it is only a logbook entry and a sticker on the filler) a new STC every time an airport decides to change a fuel supplier, or has a destination tht has a different fuel supplier.

If the controversy were not about unleaded 100 octane fuel, and Beech said, you can only run Avfuel distributed gasoline in our airplane/powerplants as part of its TC what would that do for AvFuel? How about Mobil? Craig Sincock would be ecstatic as soon his sales folks would be traveling to every airport in the land saying, if you want to fuel Beechcraft you gotta sell AvFuel. And it’ll work in all the other GA pistons and turbines too. Titan and Phillips on the other hand would not be pleased.

Autogas STC, both EAA and Petersen, apply to any and all ETOH-free gasolines, no matter who manufactures them. If it meets the engine octane requirement, and contains no alcohol, it’s useable.

Locking an aircraft owner into a single brand and supplier of fuel does two things: First it creates a fuel monopoly. By requiring an STC to use a commodity it will restrict the owners to that fuel and that fuel alone, controlled by a sole source. Or require owners to purchase multiple STCs for every fuel/airframe/engine combination we can think of. We are worried that Innospec Ltd will stop making TEL, and that will be the end of 100LL as a sole source supplier. What if GAMI stops making the only fuel unexpectedly? GAMI would not be the first fuel refiner who went out of business and if it did happen wouldn’t be the last. But we should not put any fuel manufacturer in a position to easily monopolize a market and the equipment its fuel goes in.

As for the present series of ASTM standards, that solution is straightforward. ASTM developed the present standards used and can issue additional standards. Gaps can be closed and unneeded aspects can be removed.

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Good points. The new fuel needs to literally replace the old fuel if we are only going to have one kind. Going from single-source to single-source isn’t a huge step forward and any STC has to be blanket bought once by the FAA for “any piston airplane”, not plane by plane.

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ETOH is an after refinery blend and is not present in automotive fuels unless mandated by certain states for on road use.

May I ask for cites here? It may be only be mandated in six states, but economic incentives have helped push along its near universal adoption.

The U.S. Department of Energy states that over 98% of U.S. gasoline contains ethanol to oxygenate the fuel.

The Renewable Fuels Association shows that auto gas sold in almost every state averages at least 10% alcohol.

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For one, Minnesota: Minn Statutes §239.791 Subd. 10 through Subd. 15. Exemptions for oxygenated fuel. Federal incentives and the ag lobby have pushed it but even Oregon which banned any fuel without alcohol reversed its position in 2007.

Oregon (early 100% E10 mandate) revised its statutes OAR 603-027-0420 (3)(c)(b) Aircraft;

Interestingly, Oregon does mandate the mogas STC or, says, an engine manufacturer’s TC allowing mogas is also acceptable, as well as EAB (d) LSA (e), Vintage (f) are all exempt from its otherwise mandatory E10 rule.

Gasoline is distilled from crude petroleum as a light distillate and is an organic chemical mix. Ethanol is a water (and organic soluble) molecule and is quite hydroscopic. It is made by growing a plant with fermentable sugar (corn, grain, barley, etc), fermented in a container which produces ETOH and CO2. I prefer barley and hops in mine), but for an engine I think corn is preferred. The end product is distilled. Ethanol has what chemists call a a minimum boiling azeotrope which is about 96% ETOH and 4% H2O. You might want to check those numbers since I haven’t thought about those since high school and that was a very long time ago. If you’re looking for lab purity, it is further distilled off of benzine or dehydrated chemically, I don’t know those procedures. Gasoline on the other hand is distilled off of crude petroleum as a light distillate taken off the top of a multiported distillation column, heavier fuels like kerosene and diesel below it as intermediate distillates and then oils, and finally waxes and gunk at the bottom. The gasoline is then blended with AKI agents and detergents and stuff at the refinery and transported to the local jobber where it is blended with the Ethanol to make the E10 to E85 depending on the local environment where it will be sold at the pumps. Gasoline coming off the refinery output contains no ETOH, It is added at some point downstream before it gets to the retail pumps.

The BS ChemE’s in the crowd have a much better understanding of the actual processes than I do as I’m a theoretical guy, not an engineer, so perhaps one of them can put their dime in on how it actually works in real life.

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Sorry, I should have stressed that it was your assertion that alcohol was not being used “unless mandated by certain states” that I was taking issue to. Regardless of when it is being added, it is most certainly flooding the market.

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That was not my assertion. The fact is the states especially the ag states give incentives for blending and there are federal mandates mandates which have shifted the economics considerably for political purposes.

E10 and to a lesser extent higher blends have flooded the market for street gas. Even so, even in Iowa, I am able to buy mogas at airports I routinely stop for fuel. As for the studies you cite, an average of >10% means that E10+E15+E85 gallons >> E0 gallons but there must be some gas being sold with under 10% if more than 10% is the average of all fuel sold. So that 2% the EPA referred to is most likely E0.

Economics, however are different than a perception that mogas must contain alcohol to be sold.

I fly about 300 hours a year and burned 11.5-12g/h (9.8-10.5 after electronic ignition). 10,000 gallons in 15 years. That’s 35 kg of lead not burned.

There are a lot more cars burning a lot more gas than there are airplanes, the economics of being able to use a variant of mogas in aircraft are staggering. Most can without significant modifications and can do it today while we wait for EAGLE or PAFI or whatever its next incarnation is named.

Whatever the reality is on lead fuel atmospheric toxicities, there is certainty that if every airplane that can safely burn mogas was using it, the lead alarmists would have much less to worry about.

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I have been on the ASTM DO2, aviation fuels, committee. I also was part of the original PAFI program and saw the scope and the results of all the first lot of fuels. The mandate was for a drop in fuel for 100LL, that did not happen. Almost all failed critical tests that were needed as a drop in replacement. The fact is as Art has pointed out, most of you do not need 100LL at all. The ones that do need it however represent the top 15% of the fleet that have high power and will require special fuel or changes to the engine design to work. There is no problem with that in my view, someone with a 300+ HP engine most likely can afford 10 or 15 dollars a gallon, unlike the rest of us. UL94 works fine, just get rid of the lead and that is what you have.

I do however know of many issue with auto fuel. It does not work at altitude and the sad fact is the interference with technology allowing ethanol is a real problem. Winter fuels sold manly in the USA and Canada have very high reid vapor pressure, RVP, that leads to vapor lock especially in hot climates. There are many areas that governments have given exemptions to in summer months to allow sale of winter fuels even when it is damaging to engines. They are not at all concerned with aviation, in their logic all engines today have computer controlled systems (knock sensors and timing retard) to handle that problem. Sad that nobody has pointed that out to date.

Cheers

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