“Unleaded 100 has been in use in Scandanavia for years; engines and people are doing fine.”
I believe Europe uses a different method of calculating octane level; 100 octane there is closer to 96 octane here, as I recall.
I’m not sure if Scandinavia uses the same european method or not, but even if it really is 100 US octane, there are other factors that are involved with aviation fuel. Just a couple I recall is the longer required stable shelf life and the variation in vapor pressure due to altitude and temperature extremes that auto fuel doesn’t have to be concerned with.
Yes, GA is always vulnerable to the “rich guys toys” argument, but fighting to keep leaded fuel is foolish.
It is one issue that is easy to message to the average non aviation person; “GA is poisoning children ! “ and can be leveraged in multiple ways that will disadvantage GA.
We have to get in front of this issue by proactively moving to unleaded fuels.
For those reading this far, a couple notes from the ground on the famous RHV Lead Study:
Econ Professor Zahran never measured anything… He simply took state blood test data and did a series of correlations of his assumptions around activity, sources and surroundings
His study used the upwind corner of airport property as the “center” of presumed lead dispersal because it was closer to more homes, rather than the downwind corner near Run-up area, which is surrounded by commercial and industrial sites.
He assumed lead plumbing in the old school buildings adjacent to the airport was not a factor at all, and also assumed lead paint in the older homes around the airport was a non-factor (as he was told to do…) even though the county collected $100+ Million from paint manufacturers in litigation for lead contamination from paint in those very homes.
And finally, he ignored higher blood levels in several other zip codes not near the airport, including downtown San Francisco where clearly older homes with lead paint and lead solder in plumbing are the cause of the elevated blood levels…
And yet it’s likely that many, many low-compression airplanes could run on 93 octane E10 without modification. In fact, it’s done every day. I’ve seen people put pump gas in their Cessnas.
I will postulate that me consuming 10,000 milligrams of lead chunks and powder would have less effect than a like amount of tetraethyl lead.
I’ve been a circuit builder for more than half a century, and I don’t use lead-free solder. I’m also a reloader, and used to shoot many thousands of rounds per year. I had one lead test done, it was within range. Haven’t had one since, no need.
As others have pointed out, there is a correlation between lead and crime. Correlation != causation, of course.
But tetraethyl lead is nasty stuff; it should simply go away.
And educating conservatives in red states is any less challenging? I’m sure they’re concerned about lead pollution too even if us pilots see it as less of a danger than the media makes it out to be.
Soooooooooo many people here simply have NOT A CLUE about this topic. It’s NOT THE LEAD that is the issue with taking lead out of avgas. The key problem is to look outside your own back yards, or Scandinavia, or Canada, or the mid-west or, or in Narnia or whatever, and for just one minute look at this issue as the GLOBAL ISSUE for God’s sake - which is exactly what it damn well is!
There are many engines in working (i.e. commercial operation) aircraft, that are unlike your low HP experimental aircraft or your ‘weekend worrier’ little single engine toys etc that in their operational environments which are all very different to you meandering around your moderate weather holiday homes etc, that simply cannot operate safely and reliably long term on this ‘greenie’ unleaded avgas. The CURRENT alternatives to leaded avgas which are chock full of high levels of aromatic hydrocarbons that are necessary to achieve the required octane ratings for some higher HP engines are a problem… a big problem!
We can’t have multiple different avgas types (formulations) at every airport in the world, and again… STOP thinking about your local huge GA fields in suburban USA and start thinking about Africa, remote areas of Asia, outback Australia, and dozens of other places where there is a huge amount of vital commercial operation in very harsh climates where the wrong fuel compositions cause SIGNIFICANT ENGINE DAMAGE. This is already happening as fuel companies bow to pressure and keep reducing lead levels in 100LL and increase the aromatic hydrocarbon levels to maintain the fuel to the octane requirements of ASTM D910. Why the engine damage you ask? Well go get yourself a degree in material science and combustion engineering and you just might begin to understand. Have a look at the combustion temperature issues with these high percent aromatic hydrocarbon (lead free) fuels and consider how they affect engines OTHER THAN YOUR OWN under-stressed toys. Geez, talk about couch ‘experts about everything’ (the typical private pilot) not having the slightest clue about the bigger picture!!!
No, if you cave, they just come after you harder. What needs to be done is to fight for good terms. Take EVERYTHING the FAA and other government institutions have done that hurt GA and ram it down their throats while blaming THEM for the lead in our fuel.
Job one is getting the FAA almost completely out of the certification business for GA. The issue isn’t the fuel, it’s the engines. We need new engines. It’s tort. We need new planes to not carry 100k each in embedded insurance overhead. It’s deleting every useful airport and thus destroying economy of scale.
We know living next to a freeway is terrible for kids, but we still have freeways.
You’d think with all their money AOPA would be heard from except for advertisements directed at pilots. Nope. They refuse to risk burning bridges by shaming the FAA.
We need more numbers, not more division. It will be too late for you to see the foolishness of your scheme when the high performance planes are gone and the next shoe drops. I was in Europe at what was probably the low point of their piston GA hell, it was not pretty. Not at all.