This is another example of wanting 100% regardless of the logic. The lead put out by GA planes is miniscule and if an honest study was done the harm it causes is non existant. But we live in a world where people want absolutes anymore and are often worked into hysterics to get it. There is a woman who lives near GAI and she is in constant hysterics writing the county council about the lead fuel. Never mind the airport has been there for 60+ years and that she moved under the flight path.
I should have been more clear. I meant a true drop-in replacement that doesn’t require an STC, like G100UL will.
If I understand correctly, the EPA wanted to make an engagement finding on 100LL when auto gas went unleaded, but there was an exception made that it would pose a safety issue because no suitable alternative was available. It’s no coincidence that they’re now making the engagement finding with a true replacement for 100LL now (or rather, soon to be) available.
It doesn’t actually matter how much or little of an actual health impact 100LL poses. What does matter is that lead is well known to be toxic to humans, and that there are enough people who live near an airport who are using the leaded fuel as a reason to shut down the airport that they knew was there. The approval of an unleaded fuel removes one more “tool” the anti-GA people have to use against us.
I just did a search of the National Library of Medicine using the search term, “lead toxicity.” The search revealed 48,751 articles published since the year 1899 (yes, 123 years ago). As others have noted above, lead is among (if not the) most well studied toxin in all of history.
The idea that the small amount of tetraethyl lead in aviation fuel can’t harm anybody is an exercise in false reductionism. Lead isn’t the only neurotoxin floating around in our modern world. The effect of each added bit of neurotoxin is, at least, additive to the effect of all the other neurotoxins out there (if not, as occurs with other toxicants, multiplicative with their effects). Our scientific knowledge of the adverse effect of lead now shows, pretty clearly, that any measurable amount of lead in the blood of children is harmful to their nervous systems.
It isn’t like we didn’t saw this coming. Physicians and industrial toxicologists opposed the addition of TEL to motor fuel in the 1920s because, even then, it was clear that an epidemic of lead toxicity would result (they were right). It was removed from other motor fuels some 50 or so years ago.
And, for what it’s worth, I am a pilot with 1400 hours, I currently own and fly an airplane I built, I own four motorcycles and an antique car (not including my daily driver). I am not opposed to motorsports, obviously.
Also, I would suggest that as an environmental epidemiologist and occupational medicine physician for 30 years, I do have a formal eduction on the topic and I believe I am smart enough to understand the science and to have an informed opinion about it.
So, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But, denigrating those who think removing lead from avgas isn’t the worst thing in the world as politically motivated, uneducated, unintelligent, and jealous, just isn’t helpful.
In my Northern California area, near Sacramento, auto gas is $5.50 a gallon and 100LL is $6.44.
Not much of a difference here.
Isn’t it time for the FAA to q
I don’t think anyone is denying that lead shouldn’t be sprinkled on toast with breakfast. However, the reasonable part comes with the risk versus reward equation. GA is the “largest source of lead emissions” because it is the only one left. And, as has been pointed out repeatedly in the 100UL debate, that market is tiny. So, logically, the “largest remaining source of lead emissions” is also probably the smallest statistically-significant source there ever was. So, it is entirely reasonable to question whether the risk associated with those emissions is really so great as to warrant yet another nail in what is increasingly looking like the regulatory coffin of general aviation. Or, is this another case of special-interest-manufactured paranoia driving unwarranted concern in the public? (I hereby refer you to the cases of numerous sweeteners and food additives that are banned in the US but not elsewhere and vice versa as examples.)
Point being, I (and many others I’m sure) are all for unleaded fuel. But, if the risk is as low as I suspect it actually is, I’d rather we get the right solution, not the chosen-by-committee, engineered-by-elected-lawyers, right-now solution.
Isn’t it time for the FAA to allow pilots to choose their fuel? Seriously, what pilot is going to put fuel into their EXPENSIVE AND BELOVED aircraft to damage it? Do they really think pilots are so stupid that they WANT to fall out of the sky?
Most people follow mfr. recommendations for what fuel to put in their car. The NTSB doesn’t get involved in that. Enough time has been wasted on this nothing burger. If a particular engine needs hoses changed to properly use a particular fuel, that should be easy to do. STC’s are another form of tax. We don’t need more taxes.
On another note, as many above have already observed, the EPA has NOT proven leaded fuel is an environmental danger. They “allow” certain ppm limits of lead and far more dangerous chemicals in water supplies, foods, cosmetics, etc. Where is the proof of extensive lead contamination?
The same argument can be made for all the brew ha ha about global warming er climate change. So far, all the nonsense about more and more intense hurricanes and similar weather is just that according to all the records. The avoided and unmentioned benefits of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide include increased vegetation, forest, and crop growth and production. Yes there is a drought in the west, not the first or the longest according to the data, and not the last, but resulting fires are not the result climate change, but of decades of the same ignorant special interest groups that have dictated forest management policies that stopped logging, locked up forests, etc. Removing lead from aviation fuel is probably going to be good for engines but will have no effect on the environment or the populous.
Im not sure which is more deliterious to a society, a lack of context or plain old fashioned autocracy.
I was first in line 40 years ago with my O-320 to not run lead nor 100 octane.
I was tacitly forced to run leaded gas and high octane and endure the associated service costs.
Once again I’ll be forced to use the wrong octane and pay more.
Thank you sir may I have another.
Regardless of the EPA findings, lead needs to be phased out. There is ONE manufacture of tetraethyl lead… If that one supplier shutdowns/experiences issues, then the entire GA fleet and industry is in immediate danger. Might as well be sure we have a large quantity if replacement fuel, when we have the opportunity.
Cheaper 100LL than WA state at present.
As a physician I have little concern that the lead in our Avgas poses a measurable public health threat but I’d be open to evidence to the contrary. Much of the anti-100LL/anti-GA/anti-small airport sentiment is financially and politically motivated.
With the current political climate I doubt that evidence will be forthcoming. Science is not followed.
With that said I know my airplane would be better without lead, however my wallet will likely be further violated.
One MAJOR benefit for GA specifically, and the country in general is to STOP the mandate to contaminate our fuel with alcohol, and starting right away we could encourage the distribution of Mogas on airports.
It would not solve the lead (presumed) problem but would mitigate it, and our motors and wallets would be better off.
William, as a physician, are you trained in environmental risk assessment or even in the assessment of public health threats? If you want to see the EPA’s reasoning and their “evidence to the contrary,” it is all available in their report at:
Or just click on the link in the article to the same pdf.
Wrong again! We don’t have decades of knowledge.
Since even the Romans knew lead water pipes were bad for their health, we actually have MILLENIA of knowledge! (they often made them out of lead anyway cuz they were cheaper, showing again that nothing changes)
Amen.
I’m not arguing that lead is not bad for health, only that the lead our airplanes emit is clinically insignificant.
Close tie between the EPA and Dept of Ed as to which is the most useless. If I could be King for a day I’d abolish both and stop all tax with holding making folks mail the gov a check to pay taxes each month. Just as the issue was making progress here comes the fools in DC to erase any gain and make matters much worse.