No, the question is WHERE the source is. That includes battery recycle centers, soil, paint, where immigrants came from, water pipes, etc.
As the man in the press conference announcing UL94 at Reid Hillview Airport, let me clarify a couple points from the article and comments…
- The county hasn’t actually banned 100LL yet, and 2 of 4 FBO’s selling it. More than 100 aircraft have their Swift UL94 STC’s and 2 FBO’s are pumping UL94 into most of the training planes active at the airport.
- The $250K Lead Study commissioned by the county was a series of correlations of assumptions without link to causation, but was well orchestrated with overtones of Flint Michigan to create a “crisis” publicity campaign by a county supervisor who has fought for 25 years to close the airport and redevelop the property. As noted below, facts don’t matter in politics, perceptions do.
- As a convert to UL94, I am delighted to be done with fouled plugs and potential sticky valve stems, as UL94 burns cleaner, extends oil change intervals (per Lycoming) and reduces maintenance. And yeah, it is a little more expensive coming to Calif by truck, but will hopefully get cheaper as more west coast airports offer UL94 and transportation costs decline.
- That said, UL94 from Swift is a “Bridge product” until Unleaded 100 Octane is approved as a universal drop-in replacement for 100LL. Whether that comes from GAMI, Swift or someone else is unclear today, but pressure on EPA and FAA to approve somebody’s formula and eliminate lead in Avgas is building rapidly. MOGAS may be fine for some, but here it is unusable due to ethanol mandates, and quality, storage periods and other issues render it problematic for many aircraft and airports.
- While the county hasn’t banned 100LL, none of the FBO’s have leases extending beyond this December, so the county could require sale of unleaded fuel as a condition of extending the leases until the scheduled airport closure in 2031, or sooner if the FAA fails to push back on the county’s request to close ahead of the expiration of AIP Grant Obligations.
Thanx, Mike - I stand corrected.
Helps to support my point, really, that the lead substitutes are working fine.
Thank you for the update—very informative.
I would take issue with “ MOGAS may be fine for some, but here it is unusable due to ethanol mandates, and quality, storage periods and other issues render it problematic for many aircraft and airports.”
At my FBO, we have dispensed over 420,000 gallons of aviation Mogadishu in the past 16 years—without an issue. We buy it straight from a local refiner (which also produces 100LL). Each batch come with a “birth certificate” listing actual octane, Reid vapor pressure, chemical composition, and a statement that there is NO ALCOHOL in the fuel. The fuel is transported in trucks dedicated to the fuel—no mixed fuel. It is dispensed from an underground tank system with floating suction—just like 100 octane. These measures insure quality product is assured—as well as our own protection.
We have never had an auto gas fuel maintenance issue—nor has a local pipeline patrol company employing 14 Cessna aircraft. Our aircraft go well beyond TBO—and the pipeline aircraft go even further—(4000 to 5000 hours are not unheard of). We sell the fuel at $3.55 a gallon—46 cents more than the local gas station for the special care and production—and we make the same margin as selling 100 LL—we don’t care which product we sell.
The only “problem” is the odor of Mogas—the refinery is mandated to add the distinctive smell—it SHOULD be simple enough to pass a State law repealing the requirement.
THIS NEED NOT BE AN ISSUE! Put mogas into Reid—Hillview—taking away the anti-airport group argument. Let the 30 percent of piston airplanes that CAN NOT burn it use the leaded 100 octane—and you have taken away the environmental argument entirely.
I’ll start off by saying I do support a transition away from 100LL for GA, as long as it doesn’t accelerate the death of GA. I really wish people would stop moving in near airports and complaining about them, and I highly doubt there is any causational link between any measurable increase in lead exposure for those living near such a small airport. The closest houses are some 400’ from the taxiway feeding 31L, and the school is some 1,500’ from the same feature of 13R. The odds that there is any significant exposure to lead from the exhaust of even the largest aircraft operating from that airport at any residential or school locations around the airport are low in my opinion. Fluid mixing being what it is, I’d say it is unlikely you’d be able to detect the exhaust from a small plane sitting idle on a taxiway let alone taking off or landing even under ideal conditions, and it’s unlikely any aircraft will ever be stopped in that closest possible spot for any more than a minute. Engine exhaust is inherently well diluted in piston aircraft because of relatively low volume and prop blast, and even if you’re in the back yard of the house 400’ from the taxiway, the dilution further occurring to the exhaust stream as the wind blows it toward you is going to be quite drastic. I would need to see a study that involves sensors placed at the closest or most probably exposed houses over a long period of time to believe there is any significant lead exposure to those living around this airport, or most GA airports. This is not an oval track with stands surrounding, creating a stagnant zone in which dozens of cars running at full power are belching leaded exhaust, that creates a measurably high concentration of lead. This is at most one aircraft per minute taxiing by or taking off, in open air, with prop blast and turbulent ground level winds providing forced dilution.
Thankyou for presenting facts.
In contrast eco-pushers are emotionalists, which is why they turn violent when not getting their way.
Education is a problem, collectivist teacher unions push their ideology, boards cannot stop bullying because collectivism does not teach respect for individuals.
Near me a student was murdered by a known vicious bully who police and school authorities had not curbed. School principle was starting to play the transfer scam of dumping the problem into another school. Apparent motive was jealousy - the perp somehow thought the victim was trying to ‘steal’ her boyfriend.
Many sick people around, in court in BC now is an evil person who killed a child as retribution for something said by the mother to him in a booze-peddling place.
Which is why modern kids are so much smarter than we all were? Wait, no, the SAT scores show the reverse don’t they?
Maybe my disagreement is simply a manifestation of my behavioral problems?
Sorry, Brian, but all I see is a lot of correlation which may or may not have been connected even if much of the correlation itself wasn’t created purposely. It’s a shame we are at this point, but the hatred of petroleum combined with the increasing dishonesty of the academy makes it more likely than not those studies are pure fiction.
Santa Clara County’s participation in this is just part of their nakedly obvious land grab, trying to close Reid Hillview. 100LL could be banned tomorrow and they’d come up with some other bogus reason.
Two comments:
Glad we didn’t have to fight WWII on unleaded fuel.
An oil company engineer at an SAE conference I once attended said that he could provide any octane wanted, leaded or unleaded, but how much we willing to pay?
YGTBSM! That’s the biggest bunch of bull I’ve ever heard. Do you write that stuff for the propaganda news networks?
The article says, “…children living near the airport had slightly elevated lead levels in their blood, although the levels were within the variables for kids in the rest of the state.” In other words, the kids living near the airport were no different from kids elsewhere.