FAA Wants All Aircraft Flying On Unleaded Fuel By 2018 366
coondoggie writes "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this week put out a call to fuel producers to offer options that would safely let general aviation aircraft stop using leaded fuel by 2018. The FAA says there are approximately 167,000 aircraft in the United States and a total of 230,000 worldwide that rely on the current 100 octane, low lead fuel for safe operation. It is the only remaining transportation fuel in the United States that contains the addition of tetraethyl lead, a toxic substance, to create the very high octane levels needed for high-performance aircraft engines. Operations with inadequate octane can result in engine failures, the FAA noted."
Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Funny)
Off to the airport.
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Informative)
Mix two different octanes of avgas together and the dyes disappear. It is a feature of avgas to alert pilots in case they mix octanes.
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen the Missouri State Police show up at a livestock auction and check every pickup as they leave. They were writing tickets by the bushel.
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Your lawyer can give you a ride home ... (Score:2)
I would refuse a search and call my lawyer.
And for failing to comply with a "vehicle inspection" they may deny you the privilege of driving on a public road. Keep in mind, you agreed to certain acts of compliance in order to get your driver's license and in order to register your vehicle to drive on a public road. Calling your lawyer seems like an expensive way to get a ride home.
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone else mentioned that avgas is similarly marked and similarly illegal to use on the road, though I know more than one street racer who fills up at the airport. And yes, it matters when you are trying to run turbos at higher compressions.
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It's not necessarily the high octane. If the vehicle wasn't driven much, then normal automotive fuel tends to "go off" and varnish up the carburettor, fuel lines, fuel tank etc. Avgas on the other hand stores a lot better since the usage pattern of many aircraft that run on avgas is to perhaps be flown once or twice a month and maybe not at all during the winter. You can keep avgas for an extended period of time without it "going off". For an old, occasional use vehicle then it may just run a lot better on
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I have been checked 6 times in 12 years on my personal diesel. On my heavy equipment we average 1-2 checks per year per vehicle. This is in Alabama and Georgia.
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Name one person that has EVER had their tank checked, on a consumer vehicle.
My father buys off-road diesel (it's dyed), 1000 gallon at a time, for his farm and runs it in his pickups. Has been doing so for years.
Everyone who has ever been in an accident.
It's not the police that check it, it's the insurance companies. Quite frankly I'd much prefer a fine from police than have to fork out for a completely new car.
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Everyone who has ever been in an accident.
It's not the police that check it, it's the insurance companies. Quite frankly I'd much prefer a fine from police than have to fork out for a completely new car.
Ok, you need to explain that statement, because it makes no logical sense.
Off road diesel must meet the exact same standards as on road, the difference is they add dye and remove the road tax. As such, I can't see any way it would increase or decrease the chances or liability in an accident. I fail to see why the insurance company would care, and if they did care what legal theory they would use to deny the claim.
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I fail to see why the insurance company would care, and if they did care what legal theory they would use to deny the claim.
Simple: you broke the law. Therefore, the insurance company doesn't have to pay out. Most policies say they are null and void if the vehicle is involved in any illegal activity.
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. You clearly have *NO* clue how general aviation works. Anyone can go to the airport with a gas can and use the self serve station. Records are not kept. You do not have to own an aircraft to buy avgas. People at the airport here use it in the lawn mowers, the tugs, golf carts, chainsaws, etc. Hell, I use it in my 2-stroke RC car. I've bought 100LL all over the state on my personal credit card for aircraft I don't own.
Don't present as fact that which you have no clue about.
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Don't present as fact that which you have no clue about.
Welcome to Slashdot. Try the ramen.
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Informative)
It also smells different. I don't know why.
Mercaptans, organic compounds that occur naturally in crude oil. They seriously stink; methyl mercaptan is what your gas company puts in the gas so you'll know when you have a leak, and T-butyl mercaptan is essence of skunk. Get car gas on your hands, wash with soap and water, and you'll still smell the mercaptans.
Mercaptans also congeal with age and gum up fuel systems. Aircraft operators take that a little more personally than car owners do, so avgas has the mercaptans refined out.
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No you really do not. Even 100LL has a lot more lead than you want to put in a car engine.
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It was used extensively as an antiknock agent. It is still the best antiknock agent despite the enormous environmental impact of using it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead [wikipedia.org]
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But these days, the O2 sensor cuts pre-ignition to nothing, even the ugly ancient late '80s and early '90s "computers" (actually just ugly logic boards) for most cars and trucks built after the early 1970s.
In an aircraft, engines and conditions are vastly different. Many are very simple, and will require costly adaptation to use lower octane fuel, and so fuel additives and MOHs will rule the day.
Is it beneficial? Ultimately, yes, IMHO.
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I've believed for years that there's a large disconnect between aviation/avionics and auto technology, in the same way that ham radio people are vastly behind the revolution in wireless communications. Yes, both were pioneers in reliability and safety. But innovation has left them in the dust. Imagine: 300baud modems-- that's what many hams are left with, wirelessly.
In the same way, I like flying an old Cessna 152 or 172. Reliable, somewhat easy to understand, and are predictable (often). If I go to a car r
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
You must be a young bugger.
The main reason for leaded gas in older cars is for the lubrication that it provides. Running unleaded gas in old VW engines would burn the valves in short order. Lead substitutes do work, but it's an added thing to bother with. Sometimes you can get old heads that have been modified to work with unleaded fuel.
Is an older car worth it? Absolutely! Long after your piece of shit new car packs in it's electronics, my old Land Cruiser will still be going strong. If your POS car is in my way, I'll just roll right over it. And just you try to drive your Fucking Tesla through a four foot deep river crossing.
And just stop it with the 'Think of the Children' argument. Fuck the children.
Fucking Pansy!
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But when I put it in my motorcycle, whooopeeee! Goes like a rabbit!
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Informative)
But when I put it in my motorcycle, whooopeeee! Goes like a rabbit!
Not unless you changed the ignition timing, raised the compression, or did anything else that could benefit from higher octane. Otherwise you spent a bunch of money for a gasoline-flavored placebo.
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Sorry, I must disagree.
The bike I ride is water cooled and uses CV carbs. A one-in-four gal mix seemed to increase torque somewhat dramatically. Were the carbs clean? Yes. Valves adjusted? Yes. Compression fine? Yes.
Hilly country rides became immensely pleasurable, although yes, the engine temp increased two notches in ten. Unfortunately, that doesn't translate to degrees on the bike's thermometer. Nonetheless, it was wahhhhhoooo time.
Re:Thanks Slashdot. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, I must disagree.
The bike I ride is water cooled and uses CV carbs. A one-in-four gal mix seemed to increase torque somewhat dramatically. Were the carbs clean? Yes. Valves adjusted? Yes. Compression fine? Yes.
Hilly country rides became immensely pleasurable, although yes, the engine temp increased two notches in ten. Unfortunately, that doesn't translate to degrees on the bike's thermometer. Nonetheless, it was wahhhhhoooo time.
Placebo effect entirely. In fact, the bike actually made LESS power on the 100 octane than it did on the lower octane fuel. In all scenarios, the best power is made on the lowest octane fuel that doesn't result in detonation.
caveat: assuming similar fuel composition. Therefore, if the pump gas in your area has 10% ethanol, the non-ethanol avgas will run slightly better. However, the increase in energy density from the lack of ethanol is offset by the inefficiency of combustion associated with the higher octane burning significantly slower...so we're back to the placebo again.
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We must continue to disagree, although my evidence is admittedly, anecdotal. The experience was fantastic. Throttle twists literally had me doing wheelies with a full load (bags and two passengers on a 500cc bike) and if we were going with less power, then I've found the secret to antigravity! Truly, it went faster and felt as if it had more torque.
Then, after another fill up, it returned to the same somewhat mushy throttle response. I wouldn't cite it if I hadn't gotten another gallon on the way back with
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Not much reason for using it in a car, but good reason for using it in lawnmowers, chainsaws and model airplanes: it leaves less stink on your hands and garage floor.
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Aviation 100LL fuel has from 2 to 4 times the lead content of the old leaded auto fuel formulation, not 20 times.
http://www.avweb.com/news/maint/187232-1.html
In the US, 2012 av gas consumption (all types) was 4.9 million barrels. 100LL is pretty much all you can find at the pumps these days. At an average of 3 ml per gallon, and 55 gallons to the barrel, that is a total of about 800,000 liters TEL burned.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mgaupus1&f=a
1986 auto fuel consumptio
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The problem is that NASCAR technology is 50+ years old. If they would change their ways and move towards a modern engine, it wouldn't be a problem.
Here in Australia, the V8 Supercars (which is becoming more and more like NASCAR with all the rule changes they keep bringing in) are using modern 5.0L N/A V8 engines with EFI and they are doing just fine running E85 Ethanol.
Given NASCAR has hillbilly/farmer/rural/redneck associations/roots and given how big corn ethanol is in the US, using E85 in NASCAR would ac
mostly some small private planes left (Score:5, Informative)
It's piston-engine stuff like Cessnas that make up the remaining leaded avgas users, and even there, only the subset of engines that require the 100-octane avgas. Both newer and some older stuff can use 91-octane stuff that's now unleaded.
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There are however a LOT of older planes around that require leaded - plenty of them dating to when liability lawsuits resulted in halted production sometime in 1986, and plenty more during the boom period of 1997 (when production resumed thanks to Clinton's limited product
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Those aircraft (at least in the US) that remain registered (an FAA requirement to operate these aircraft) have lots of operating data. See the NALL report (AOPA and others). In general a 100LL 4-cylinder piston aircraft is the workhorse of the GA fleet, used by flight schools and flying clubs. A 1969 Cessna 172 is likely to be a primary trainer (the first aircraft you step in) because the depreciated cost of the airframe and simplicity of the engine/avionics means a flight school can operate it at a "rea
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Actually the new unleaded AVgas is supposed to work in all of them.
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Does the new unleaded AVGas lubricate the valve seats like lead does? That was the issue with old cars, putting in new valves and valve seats would solve the problem.
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The goal is a drop in replacement. If not hopefully the new valve seats can be done during a cheaper but still expensive top end overhaul.
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About 1/3 of current GA piston planes can use an unleaded fuel. I would guess that number would increase rapidly if there were a phase-out period where 100LL were taxed to make it significantly more expensive.
Re: mostly some small private planes left (Score:4, Informative)
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Are you saying that 10 million gallons is approximately zero, or do you have issues with any of the numbers I used (And if so, please supply an alternative).
Re: mostly some small private planes left (Score:4)
I saw an estimate that there were 100,000,000 miles done by GA in an average year. at about 10 g/hr and 100 m/hr (yes, round guesses, but there isn't a good source I could find for those), that's about ten million gallons of avgas burned every year.
Are you saying that 10 million gallons is approximately zero, or do you have issues with any of the numbers I used (And if so, please supply an alternative).
You lost me there. What is m/hr? Meters per hour?
Here's what I come up with, very roughly. 100,000,000 miles at 130 mph (miles/h) = 770,000 h; using your 10 gph (gal/h) gives 7,700,000 gallons per year. Close enough to the 10 million gallons you ended up with.
But the U.S. consumed 134 billion gallons of gasoline in 2011 for road use.
So yes; to answer your question, 7.7 million gallons _IS_ approximately zero compared to 134 billion gallons. It represents 0.0057%, or 57 MILLIONTHS, of the total. Another way to look at it is that it represents 3.1 OUNCES of 100LL per year per man, woman, and child in the US. Now, there are 1.2-2 GRAMS of TEL per gallon of TEL, so that's aless than 2 THOUSANDS of an ounce per person.
Sense of proportion matters. Don't go after the completely negligible stuff. The effort is better spent where you get some sinificant degree of return. Worrying about the effects of Avgas is clinical insanity.
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Re: mostly some small private planes left (Score:4, Insightful)
And with about 30 years, you might get the FAA to approve the engine to put into that airplane. We are not talking about your old junk car sitting in the back yard here, you don't get to just put whatever you want into it. Certified aircraft require FAA certified parts, which includes the engine. This has nothing to do with being authentic, it has to do with government regulations and laws.
Re:mostly some small private planes left (Score:5, Informative)
Ethanol is a very bad thing to put in avgas, which is why you won't find it at any airport pump. It has this terrible problem of absorbing moisture from the air while it's sitting in the tank, parked, then releasing it as water when you're at altitude. The water sinks to the bottom of the tank and gets sucked right into the engine.
Re:mostly some small private planes left (Score:4, Informative)
The laws of physics prevent any fuel storage system from being hermetically sealed, sorry. Some are better sealed than others.
If you don't believe me, ask someone that owns a lawnmower, or any other small gasoline engine.
Who's going to pay for it? (Score:4, Insightful)
So in 6 years, the FAA expects 167,000 aircraft owners to swap the engines in their aircraft for an unleaded engine? In 6 years companies are supposed to develop an unleaded engine that will fit in every type of small prop aircraft currently flying? Yeah, not happening.
And as a small single engine plane owner myself, I'll be damned if the government forces me to spend 30K on swapping out a new engine, then more on inspections and re-certification of the aircraft.
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I'll be damned if the government forces me to spend 30K on swapping out a new engine, then more on inspections and re-certification of the aircraft.
I'm not questioning that figure (because I know it's true) but why do airplane engines cost so friggin much?
Re:Who's going to pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll be damned if the government forces me to spend 30K on swapping out a new engine, then more on inspections and re-certification of the aircraft.
I'm not questioning that figure (because I know it's true) but why do airplane engines cost so friggin much?
Compare to the price of mid-air failure.
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Lawyers and small market.
Liability is just through the roof. One problem is that no one wants to speak ill of the dead. You never hear about a bad private pilot crashing because no one wants to heap blame on the dead and their family. The end result is that even if the it is the pilots fault the family will often win the lawsuit.
Second the small number of aircraft built. More Cessna 172 were built than any other light aircraft with over 43,000 made. The problem is that it has been in production since 1955!
Re:Who's going to pay for it? (Score:5, Informative)
They are also much lower volume production than car engines. The designs are different enough that it isn't easy to just substitute automobile engines for aircraft use. Its been tried, and has worked in some cases, but not many.
Basically aircraft engines turn slowly (usually 2700 rpm max) because the propeller tips need to stay subsonic. Gear boxes are very heavy because of the large moment of inertia of the propellers and haven't worked very well in most installations. The low engine speed means that it needs very large displacement (9 liters is not uncommon) to get the required power. Light weight / high airflow give you air cooled, aluminum-finned engines. The aircraft engines are actually very efficient at their normal operating point. Part of this is due to the high compression allowed by high octane fuel.
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... The designs are different enough that it isn't easy to just substitute automobile engines for aircraft use. Its been tried, and has worked in some cases, but not many.
Basically aircraft engines turn slowly (usually 2700 rpm max) because the propeller tips need to stay subsonic. Gear boxes are very heavy because of the large moment of inertia of the propellers and haven't worked very well in most installations. The low engine speed means that it needs very large displacement (9 liters is not uncommon) to get the required power. Light weight / high airflow give you air cooled, aluminum-finned engines. The aircraft engines are actually very efficient at their normal operating point. Part of this is due to the high compression allowed by high octane fuel.
I appreciate your content-rich post -- I got a couple of good solid facts out of it I hadn't known before, and that always pleases me.
Question -- has the idea of swept (as in swept-wing) propellor tips caught on? I understand the airfoil configuration of a straight prop is complex enough, but with modern modelling and manufacturing methods I'd think the costs of those props could come down, potentially allowing higher RPM engines. How's that gone?
Re:Who's going to pay for it? (Score:5, Informative)
There have been some improvements in propellers - Hartzell makes some "scimitar" shaped propellers that are a bit quieter and marginally more efficient. Not a lot to be gained though since standard propellers are pretty high efficiency (maybe 90%?).
What you are suggesting is using smaller diameter propellers that turn faster. There unfortunately you are fighting aerodymaics. Propellers are wings. Wing tips add drag, so you want as few as you can. Thin wings are more efficient than fat wings. This pushes you to a small number of small thin blades - and 2-blade, think props are what you see on small aircraft.
There is a limit though in how much power a 2 blade thin prop can deliver so as engine power goes up, you get more blades (3, 4, sometimes ~7 on prop airliners), and the blades get fatter. This all decreases efficiency, but there seems to be no way around it. So, you could go up in prop RPMs but the loss in efficiency so far hasn't been worth it. With a single engine plane its also difficult because if the prop gets smaller in diamter, it is mostly shadowed by the fuselage of the aircraft. Twin (or more) engine planes can have smaller props out on the wings (and some do), but that is a small part of the general aviation market.
Before someone asks: piston engines are more efficient than turbines, but much worse power to weight. Large aircraft use turbines because the power to weight is so high that they can get to very high altitudes where the air is thin and there is low drag at high speeds. Flying that high really requires a pressurized cabin, so you don't see many turbines on small aircraft.
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Turboprops are certainly more efficient than piston engines, using cheaper fuel, while being far more reliable and also lighter.
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For just one of many reasons, airplanes last a long time. Sell a new airplane today, and you have to include enough money in the purchase price to buy a single-premium insurance policy that will protect you against product liability lawsuits for the 30-50 years it normally will last. And if it crashes, regardless of the cause, that lawsuit will come.
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Call is for new fuels for existing engines (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, its a good thing that the FAA isn't talking about new engines at all, but instead calling on fuel producers to come up with replacement fuels that will work in current engines. Which is stated not only in TFA, which I can understand is a huge bother to read before complaining, but in the first sentence of the summary, as well.
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No, they are not asking for workable new fuels, because there is no substitute for lead for the older engines. This is exactly as the GP suggests, this will put these people either out of business due to excess replacement cost or ground the airplanes that have not be cleared by the FAA for using pump gas.
I also presume that this is part of the intent, no one care if general aviation is put out of business when worshipping at the alter of bogus environmentalism.
Re:Who's going to pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell you what, why don't you route your exhaust through the plane cabin and filter it with your lungs first.
Re:Who's going to pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
As the owner/operator of a complex network of around 100 billion neurons, along with support infrastructure, I'm not entirely sympathetic to your desire to continue emitting lead. Nothing personal.
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You're sure you own all those neurons? Have you read the EULA recently?
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As the owner/operator of a complex network of around 100 billion neurons, along with support infrastructure, I'm not entirely sympathetic to your desire to continue emitting lead. Nothing personal.
You're on /. so it can't be *that* complex :-)
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Oh, it's complex alright, it's just a question of how much of the complexity is unbelievably shoddy legacy code held together with little more than axons and optimism, and how much of that complexity can actually be deployed to some useful end.
Either way, I can hardly afford to have it work yet worse than it works now...
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Honestly there are so few of them that it is not really a danger. Old fishing weights, lead figures, and old TVs are much more dangerous. The EAA was working with the FAA to produce a compatible avgas that is lead free so it is probably going to be a win win. It should even reduce the cost of avgas since leaded avgas can not be put in pipelines and has to be trucked or shipped by barge.
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Actually, the amount of lead expended by hunters during hunting season is arguably a lot more than old fishing weights and lead figures. But no, give us lead-free solder that grows tin whiskers and makes electronics actually wear out over time... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_whiskers [wikipedia.org]
Re:Who's going to pay for it? (Score:4, Interesting)
In any environmental issue like this it makes sense to compare the damage and the cost of mitigating that damage. The total aircraft fleet is very small (1/1000 of the automobile fleet) so the lead emissions are nothing like we used to have from cars. Still I would very much like to get the lead out of aviation gas if there were a way to do it and keep flying. The problem is that the money has to come from somewhere.
We could insist that aircraft only use unleaded. The problem is that the aircraft manufacturers have no interested in improving old planes, but most pilots cannot afford new ones: my '66 beechcraft baron cost about $100K to buy, a new one is about $1.2M. Replacing the engines would be about $90K even if engines certified for unleaded gas were available.
The airlines would love to see GA shut down, it just gets in their way and maybe this is an activity that we can no longer support. Maybe flying is to be left to the big corporations. Many countries have made personal aircraft prohibitively expensive.
On the bright side there are a couple of possible unleaded substitutes being tested. One works for some, but not all planes. Another seems to work in all planes but is a proprietary formulation and that is making the FAA nervous.
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MTBE is an oxygenator added to cause engines to run leaner by government mandate. TEL improves octane rating.
Just because thery're both fuel additives, does not mean that they are not: Two. Completely. Different. Things.
Fuel producers != Aircraft owners (Score:4, Informative)
No, and you can tell this from the first line in TFS: "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this week put out a call to fuel producers to offer options that would safely let general aviation aircraft stop using leaded fuel by 2018."
They want fuel producers to offer options that will meet the need of aircraft that are currently dependent on leaded fuel to operate properly without lead.
I get that its a lot to ask you buy a new engine, or even to RTFA, but could you at least bother to read the first sentence of the summary before exploding with outrage next time?
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No, and you can tell this from the first line in TFS: "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this week put out a call to fuel producers to offer options that would safely let general aviation aircraft stop using leaded fuel by 2018."
They want fuel producers to offer options that will meet the need of aircraft that are currently dependent on leaded fuel to operate properly without lead.
You can get RON-100 fuel for automotive engines that are lead free, why cant the same be done for Avgas?
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Because it's not the octane rating that's the problem.
Airplane engines use it to prevent their valves from dying [wikipedia.org]. Read further down on that link where it talks about NASCAR engines having trouble in early tests. These are engines that get rebuilt between races. If you think just changing the valves will solve the issue then I have some bad news for you. Most of the time it wont. Even if it does fix the issue, you're talking around $10,000 per engine to have a certified mechanic work on it and sign off
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The government isn't asking you to do anything. It's asking the fuel companies to come up with a 100 octane fuel that will run in your older engine that doesn't contain lead.
Now if you want to get indignant about the poor, put upon oil companies, have at it.
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As far as the FAA is concerned, general aviation can just dry up and blow away and save them the headaches.
Example: Rotax 912 (Score:2)
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Yes, these engines are fine on auto fuel, known as MOGAS. The thing we have to be careful about is the ethanol they add to unleaded gas, so we go to a lot of trouble to avoid it.. Alcohol in the fuel can lead to corrosion. And to high food prices, but that's a whole 'nuther story...
Problem is not the technology but antique planes (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with leaded fuels is not really that technology to use unleaded is not available, but that most of the General Aviation Fleet that is flying is older technology. Majority of the GA fleet are from 1970's or 80's when Cessna and Piper dominated the market.
Then came lawsuits (frivolous and otherwise) and most of the manufacturers filed for bankruptcy. The airplanes from the 90s tend to be mostly homebuilt. Post 2000s a lot of the companies came back from bankruptcy and started making airplanes again. The only problem is that a new Piper costs about $200K while a perfectly usable 1970s Piper with overhauled engine and modern avionics is only about $30K. Airplanes last a lot longer than cars if regularly maintained. So most flying crafts tend to be old.
So these older planes which were designed for leaded gas get recertified for low lead gas, but can never use unleaded.
Newer aircrafts tend to do two things,
1) Run on motor gas (mostly involves certifying for unleaded gasoline) . This has the nice side effect that the gas tends to be about 30% cheaper.
2) Run on Diesel/Jet Fuel / Kerosine - In this case it sidesteps the entire lead problem and also avoids using spark plugs (depending on the design). Fuel availability is a lot better, though not always cheaper.
One easy solution is to make unleaded mandatory for any Light Sport aircraft (which tend to be the newer airplanes built) and to increase a fee imposed while overhauling older engines (which get done every 1000 hours).
That said, this move would permanently ground the WW2 display fleet that is currently flyable and a bunch of old Piper Cubs and Ercoupes. But they are all pre-ww2, so not a big loss I guess.
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I expect the authorities would make exceptions for warbirds... I'd hope so, at least.
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When Canada phased out leaded gas some years ago, you could buy an additive for older engines that you just poured in the gas tank. So I imagine that something similar could be done for exempt aircraft. Mixing in a tank first would probably be much cheaper than modifying a carb and much safer.
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Yes sure they can make an exception, but where would you then get the gas from ? You probably have to mix in lead directly in at the carb or something...
Lead additive was available for my 1966 car for quite some time after leaded gas disappeared. Plenty long enough for an engine rebuild -- a normal, wear-and-rear related rebuild -- with new seals, gaskets, etc.
Re:Problem is not the technology but antique plane (Score:4, Funny)
They probably won't.
The FAA has a deep and seething contempt towards former military aircraft in private hands... above and beyond their general malicious contempt of aircraft in general in private hands.
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Airplanes last a lot longer than cars if regularly maintained
That might be true, because so many of them are mostly Aluminum, and Aluminum oxide protects Aluminum in precisely the way that Iron Oxide doesn't protect Iron. But it might not be, because who properly maintains cars? Washing the undercarriage regularly and so on? Pretty close to nobody.
this move would permanently ground the WW2 display fleet that is currently flyable and a bunch of old Piper Cubs and Ercoupes. But they are all pre-ww2, so not a big loss I guess.
Isn't it possible to produce conversion parts?
In other news ... (Score:2)
Yawn. We need less speculation and wishes in slashdot, more hard data. Well, that's my opinion.
There are alternatives to retrofitting (Score:2, Informative)
I used to do analytical work on fuel certification in a refinery, and while I didn't measure the "octane number", I understand what it means.
The number 100 refers to the performance of pure isooctane (2,2,4-trimethylpentane) as a fuel - isooctane is simply a reference for the "100" rating. Fuels are assigned a higher number when they are tested and shown to have a lower tendency to undergo premature ignition in an internal combustion engine (this phenomenon is known as knocking). Such premature ignition occ
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The only reason the heavy metals are used is to reduce the cost of filling one's tank.
From a backwards compatibility viewpoint, what about exhaust valves? From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaded_gasoline#A_valve_wear_preventive [wikipedia.org]
Tetraethyl lead works as a buffer against microwelds forming between the hot exhaust valves and their seats.[3] Once these valves reopen, the microwelds pull apart and leave the valves with a rough surface that would abrade the seats, leading to valve recession. When lead began to be phased out of motor fuel, the automotive industry began specifying hardened valve seats and upgraded exhaust valve materials to prevent valve recession without lead.
Not a big deal for new designs, but with cars anyway it meant it was a bad idea to use unleaded gas in old models that weren't designed for it.
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This is *exactly* why switching away from 100LL is problematic. There are plenty of other ways to increase octane, but not to prevent valve seat wear in these older engines.
Somebody else here mentioned that engines need to be overhauled every 1000 hours. What gets overhauled? Would installing new exhaust valves and seats be out of the question?
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This is *exactly* why switching away from 100LL is problematic. There are plenty of other ways to increase octane, but not to prevent valve seat wear in these older engines.
Somebody else here mentioned that engines need to be overhauled every 1000 hours. What gets overhauled? Would installing new exhaust valves and seats be out of the question?
Most of those "plenty of other ways" involve liquids that have issues with staying liquids at the altitudes an aircraft sees.
oh come on (Score:3)
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Why, do 6-cyl aero engines typically have higher compression?
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Higher output per weight. Aircraft manufacturers and operators, especially for smaller planes, obsess about weight.
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Just another bright idea by our government that will hugely cost and destroy an industry.
General aviation is mostly the 1% ... our illustrious leader couldn't care less about them. Occupy General Aviation now!
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Yet another uninformed individual who has obviously never hung out with pilots. The 1% guys are usually the ones that are using Jet Fuel and therefore not affected by this.
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if you will get rid of the insane alcohol requirements
While I'm no fan of the corn farmer subsidy, the requirement is only for road fuel. The question is why is alcohol free gasoline (that's otherwise mogas) not available at airports. Several posters have complained about that.
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The damage caused by leaded gas (even what little remains via avgas) is probably much, much higher than that caused by electronic solder.
Lets consider the 3 following ways that lead can enter the supply of materials that go into humans.
1. Leaded gas was a big big issue because the lead is now a particulate in the air, it will be breathed in or will settle as dust into either a water supply or onto soil which then gets rained on and drains into a water supply.
2. Lead solder on pipes, while not a particulate