General Aviation Modifications Inc. has completed its own version of a 10-day simulation of a slow leak of its G100UL unleaded fuel and no paint damage resulted. In the video results below, GAMI founder and chief of engineering George Braly says the fuel was allowed to drip and evaporate on a side panel from a Bonanza with 20-year-old paint. The paint was stained by the dye in the fuel but GAMI was able to clean that up with normal shop techniques.
I had a slow persistent drip of 100LL onto a landing gear door that created a big blue stain that I have yet been able to remove. Also, I see fuel stains under the majority of wings I peek under at airports. Is GAMI fuel worse or are we just now noticing how fuel can stain paint?
This is ongoing seepage which evaporates before hitting the ground, as opposed to an ongoing drip. The evaporated seepage can leave behind hydrocarbons in higher concentrations than you’d find with a steady drip.
I love the age of TikTok and Youtube. It wouldn’t occur to GAMI to maybe talk to the A&P, maybe fly out to see his results, or have his evidence shipped to GAMI to inspect. Instead, we need a public video with a half-assed experiment in “reply”.
Imagine if, after an airline crash, the government just published a YouTube video (with unknown methods or evidence) blaming it on the airline, and the airline published their own video blaming it on the government. Lots of drama, but no science, no progress. Just people talking past each other.
Maybe the freshly whipped-up batch of G100UL in GAMI’s labs acts differently than the stuff that came on the mystery truck that drove to California and dumped it into the mystery tanks that were then pumped into a mystery aircraft and then drained into a mystery container at an A&P? I don’t know, maybe these mysteries are more important than the video?
Steve Miller’s observations are clearly the direction this discussion should be headed. The GAMI test should have been done with the same fuel that the accuser was using. Although, an environmental chemist, not a material annalist, that would have been my first objective.
If I were GAMI, I would have flown over there the following day, that this report came out, and secured several jugs of the fuel that was being accused of mischief, probably with a chemist and a lawyer in hand to document the sampling.