Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
That may be true in some places but is far from a general fact.
Around here they are either a burger/hot dog/coffee shop/mini mart kind of place, or just a couple of stand alone pumps in the parking at the mall. The point was that the retailers do not make any profit on selling fuel for cars, the competition is too hard. It’s all the other stuff they sell that makes the profit. For GA it’s almost opposite, some even sell fuel to finance part of the expenses at an airport. For BP/Shell it seems Avgas is more of a nuisance, which they reluctantly supply if they sell at a price that causes them not to loose money.
Buying fuel directly from Warter (or shell or BP or Hjelmco for that matter) in bulk or barrels is no problem. There is no shortage of fuel. The problem is getting BP/Shell to do the last distribution bit at a reasonable price. In Norway, more and more people are doing this themselves. At many places it is the only way to get fuel at an airport.
AdamFrisch wrote:
Might not be a problem now, but it will be eventually. And with the lifespan of the average spam can being over 40 years old these days, you got to think long term
The ‘average spam can’ doesn’t need 100LL. At least the common ‘spam can’ Lycomings are now all approved to run on 91UL (and a few other related UL avgas types).
The problem is the big turboed engines on the higher end piston singles/twins.
OT but it was nice to fill up Jet A1 at LYBE for 0,42€ per liter.
The US EPA has been another thing which “is about to kill GA” but it has not happened. The FAA has a higher authority and IIRC squashed one EPA attack in the courts recently.
AFAIK Lyco have not certified any turbo engines for 91UL. Have Conti done so?
My IO540-C4 (8.5:1 CR) was one of the last ones certified. They seem to be applying huge margins because one respectable US engine shop which builds a lot of engines for the US Exp market says that up to and including 9.5:1 is fine with 91UL and has no effect on engine life or wear.
I really hope AVGAS goes away. The industry needs that push to fund the R&D required to perfect the diesel engines and fill the gaps that exist today.
I really hope AVGAS goes away. The industry needs that push to fund the R&D required to perfect the diesel engines and fill the gaps that exist today.
The problem with that POV is that there won’t be any GA left to fly the “perfected diesel engines”.
Peter wrote:
The problem with that POV is that there won’t be any GA left to fly the “perfected diesel engines”.
Boating could use some “perfected diesel engines” as well, it seems 
Indeed
And if the Volvo boat engines are as crap as it appears, GA has no chance because it has about 1/100 of the volume, and about 1/100 of the poser value of a “speedboat” 
Many years ago I used to do water-skiing and the engines were 1940s Chevvy V8s, which drank petrol at an incredible rate.
Investment will go into R&D only if there is a market but there will never be a market for diesels if avgas is killed, because the only people who will be able to afford retrofitting will be
So the diesel R&D business is screwed. Every time you go to Aero EDNY you see the same stuff, looking for investors. It’s never going to go anywhere unless something quite new and different and big appears e.g. China creating “OCAS” SFC-17999ft and gets the FAA to write the regs
Some myths need to be dispelled is correct. A friend owned a Service station in my town. The price of his gas was high but he also pumped the most gas in our county. He made a lot of money by doing volume (cant understand it considering how expensive he was compared to the guy down the street) pennies do add up. He told me he was very happy with the income from his fuel sales.
Peter it could also be that some airports who might sell a lot of Jet Fuel have a contract with the supplying company and cant sell another brand. Which brings me to why competition is good. Monopoly Bad.
No matter what, the key is volume, to make it affordable for the Producer, the FBO, and the end purchaser. There is a tipping point at which it becomes so expensive it goes into a death spiral. All of a sudden there is less vol. being bought which causes an increase in prices (they dont want to decrease profit) which causes less to be bought and so on.
achimha wrote:
I really hope AVGAS goes away.
I guess it will happen eventually, but not in a 5-10 year timeframe and it won’t be a transition to the current crop of diesels. I think we have a long way to go with Lycomings and Continentals (more like 20+ years) and it will take a big leap, bypassing existing diesel options, maybe to some kind of hybrid technology or similar that is enough of a “gamer changer” to force the move away from AVGAS.
Currently the benefits of the diesel options are just too marginal to make them attractive.
