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100UL (merged thread)

General aviation leaders, petroleum industry stakeholders, and the U.S. government announced an ambitious commitment on February 23 to transition to lead-free aviation fuels for all piston-engine aircraft by the end of 2030.

Yes sure they can “have a plan” but it is based on 100UL being in production everywhere, which may happen, or it may not.

A “public plan” is probably desirable to deflect the eco lobby and gain time.

Or is that idea too simplistic?

I think the detail is Gami’s patent licensing objectives.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

General aviation leaders, petroleum industry stakeholders, and the U.S. government announced an ambitious commitment on February 23 to head off the EPA finding that lead pollution from aircraft needs to be eliminated by 2025 transition to lead-free aviation fuels for all piston-engine aircraft by the end of 2030.

Edited for clarity :)

EPA Commits to Regulating Lead in Aviation Gasoline
Most lead air pollution in the country comes from piston-engine aircrafts.

WASHINGTON -

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will take the necessary steps to regulate lead pollution from aircrafts, the largest source of lead emissions in the country. EPA said it will propose an endangerment finding on leaded aviation gasoline by the end of 2022 and finalize the endangerment finding in 2023. The endangerment finding is a necessary first step before EPA, and the Federal Aviation Administration, can regulate lead in aviation gasoline. EPA’s actions stem from a petition that community groups represented by Earthjustice, together with the County of Santa Clara, California and the Town of Middleton, Wisconsin, filed in 2020.

I have felt from the beginning that G100UL was a great solution, that it was a classical David vs Goliath story, and the reason why it is still not widely approved and available is the FAA dragging its feet. But the status of things reported by Paul Bertoreli here is appalling and that is being polite:

https://www.avweb.com/insider/faa-do-your-damn-job/

“To scrub the playhead forward, last summer at Oshkosh, to great fanfare, the STC approving G100UL was announced. It applied to a limited number of engines and GAMI was tasked with additional testing and data work to expand the engine list. This it did. The Wichita Aircraft Certification Office duly sent a letter to FAA HQ reporting that GAMI met all the test requirements—best-run program they had ever seen, or words to that effect—and was entitled to an STC-AML with every single spark ignition engine in the FAA database approved to use G100UL.

Eureka. We’ve reached the sun-dappled highlands of a lead-free future.

But not yet. The document rests on the desk of the executive director of the Aircraft Certification Service otherwise known as AIR-1. It’s awaiting the signature of AIR-1, who is Earl Lawrence. No date certain has been given, but in yet another last-minute delay, the FAA is now subjecting the STC to a Technical Advisory Board, a bureaucratic fence line that sprang out of the 737 MAX fiasco."

Let me repeat it for the people in the back:

“and was entitled to an STC-AML with every single spark ignition engine in the FAA database approved to use G100UL”

Later in the article:

“Last, the STC. Despite this process being fully elucidated in the federal code, the FAA continually resisted and sabotaged efforts to approve a fuel under STC. It got so bad that a previous AIR-1, Dorenda Baker, had to personally intervene twice to quash lower-level malicious actors. Such is the nature of the government beast.

And yet it goes on today, with higher level block and delay for reasons not necessarily visible. But the fact is, GAMI is entitled by law to its STC-AML. It should be issued without further delay and then let the market decide whether the fuel is viable. If others have a competitor—as Swift Fuel says it does—let them pursue a similar path."

EHLE, Netherlands

We can’t have nice things.

EBST, Belgium



From Mr GAMI himself, and he is not talking technical now, he is giving names, it’s impressive how much the FAA bureaucrate can change their “approval template” and “review process”, on the technical side, it seems the dice is casted since 2012…

Not sure why GAMI has not gone after engines & airframes in EASA land as well? or play their cards with few big powerful manufacturers to push this through FAA? I mean the ones who can get signature for single engine jet airframe with parachute the all-in strategy is likely to cost them 5 more years of ink and documentation

Also who is supposed to review 100UL who comes out of PAFI/EAGLE programmes?

Last Edited by Ibra at 08 Apr 18:09
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

This came up in the last IAOPA newsletter:

TEL will require authorization in Europe after November 2023
An important topic at AERO were the developments around leaded Avgas. An update was given on GAMI fuel. But we are not there yet. The fact that the use of Avgas is being phased out may still cause major problems for the producers of traditional engines and aircraft.
TEL stands for Tetraethyl lead, an additive (leaded) to Avgas. TEL has now officially been added to the list of substances requiring an authorization in Europe. See this link if you want to know more about it.
The latest possible date for an application to continue the import into the EU and the provision of pure TEL for blending into Avgas 100LL within the EU is 1st November 2023.
The Sunset Date for TEL import and blending, in case no such authorization will be granted, is 1st May 2025.

I spoke to Warter Fuels at Aero about this. They are not concerned and say that 100LL is their business and they will always be able to import TEL.

This is not surprising since “TEL has now officially been added to the list of substances requiring an authorization in Europe” is a common thing; at work we have to constantly sign certificates that our products do not contain about 200 substances, but most/all of them can be imported for specific reasons.

So while 100LL may come to an end one day, it’s not going to be due to this.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

So while 100LL may come to an end one day, it’s not going to be due to this.

That bang may well come to the US before it does to Europe. And it is totally frustrating to read the FAA’s behaviour on this, but it is nothing but a normal example of certification hurdles which our industry faces.

We do see outpricing by airports and I would say there is also a concious effort to outregulate and hamper new technology and therefore conciously are keeping GA in the 1950ties, creating expensive certification requirements written in pencil and subject to new requirements as the original ones get fulfilled.

And in the end we are going to be told that GA has unfortunately failed to develop in sufficient a way to be sustainable.

No wonder that US GA is running far and fast from the certified world into the experimental world which

And following the 737Max debacle it is only logical that the FAA will become even more reluctant to take responsibility for anything and cover their behinds with missile siloh covers.

Let’s hope EASA may be more progressive here and get the new fuels certified on a rational rather than sum of fear base. And of course, those who can use 100UL should do so even today. We do whenever we can.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

those who can use 100UL should do so even today

I use Total UL91 (91UL?) whenever I can, and it works fine in my 8.5:1 io-360. Most of the aircraft in our flying club also use it.

Is 100UL available anywhere in Europe?

Speaking to the fuel guys at Aero was a little depressing – my main request was “get in touch with GAMI and get us a good UL avgas” – and none had even heard of GAMI.

I think this is a problem that will only be solved by legislation or decree.

BTW, one thing that’s interesting about the GAMI fuel is that each batch will have a unique fingerprint so that if there is a problem, they will be able to identify exactly where that batch came from. Reminded me of this scene from Bladerunner:

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/bladerunner/images/2/28/Snake_scale_serial_number.png/revision/latest?cb=20130927035913

Fly more.
LSGY, Switzerland

For what percentage of flight time does any normally-aspirated engine actually need 100 octane fuel? My guess is only when full throttle at sea level.

How about a £50 knock sensor connected to the ECU or an alert on the panel?

The former 40 year old technology is obviously some way off for certified GA but how difficult would it be to mount a knock sensor to a Lycoming and connect to the electronic ignition controller for EAB aircraft – or just flash a warning on EFIS so the pilot could reduce MAP, retard the ignition or just cut the spark on one set of plugs?

Getting rid of lead in aviation fuel is about so much more than pacifying a few eco-nutters.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

eurogaguest1980 wrote:

Is 100UL available anywhere in Europe?

yea of course UL91. We have it on some airports but not on my homebase (yet). I would exclusively fuel UL91 if I could. No spark plug fouling and much cleaner burn.

Jacko wrote:

For what percentage of flight time does any normally-aspirated engine actually need 100 octane fuel? My guess is only when full throttle at sea level.

I hear it is a question of the compression of the engine. That is why UL91 is ok for most low compression engines such as the O/IO360 but not ok for some of the engines in Cirri and of course Turbo engines. In any case, we need a solution which, like 100LL, fits all. The 100UL fuel of GAMI and some others appear to do that.

Jacko wrote:

Getting rid of lead in aviation fuel is about so much more than pacifying a few eco-nutters.

absolutely. It is just one example how the eco nutters are standing in the way of innovation rather than promoting it, mainly because they fight 100LL not because they want a new fuel but no fuel at all=no GA

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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