[HN Gopher] Unleaded Avgas Approved ___________________________________________________________________ Unleaded Avgas Approved Author : another Score : 122 points Date : 2021-07-28 14:02 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.avweb.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.avweb.com) | h2odragon wrote: | 404'd for me but I found this: | https://www.aviationpros.com/gse/fueling-equipment-accessori... | davidholdeman wrote: | And this: https://www.avweb.com/insider/gami-crosses-the- | finish-line/ | unchocked wrote: | It's been a long time coming - manufacturer's been working on | this for at least about a decade. | | What's important about this fuel is that it should work in _any_ | application that requires leaded gas. The most demanding | applications are a small % of the engines overall, but get the | most hours and burn the most fuel. So we've been waiting for a | drop-in replacement that can supplant leaded gas entirely (market | is too small for multiple aviation gasolines to be effectively | distributed). | | Of course, this is going to continue to take way longer to roll | out than it should, but this first approval is a very big deal. | alistairSH wrote: | Is the link wrong? I'm getting a 404. | verst wrote: | I can't realistically imagine the FBOs (fuel providers) at many | airports providing a type of fuel only approved for C172s with | Lycoming engines. | | I fly out of Boeing Field (KBFI). Often the FBOs have issues with | their fuel trucks or simply don't provide service. You have to | taxi to their ramp. The wait can be significant - and that's with | just one type of 100LL fuel. | | Sometimes it's better to fly over to KPWT (Bremerton National), | an uncontrolled airport, and use their self service Avgas station | with a credit card. | sokoloff wrote: | I think the C172-only limitation is clearly interim. GAMI's | been burning this in testing for a decade or so. Now, put it | into a lot of low-powered trainers. Based on that experience, | expand it to other engines and airframes. | | The end game is an all-models STC; this is an interim step (and | a massive one to get the FAA to go from zero-to-one approved | models). | xyzzy21 wrote: | Except I sure as hell wouldn't put that in any plane that wasn't | specifically designed for unleaded. Talk about setting yourself | up for literal DEATH. | bpodgursky wrote: | Please don't pollute the world with toxic brain-damaging | chemicals out of stubborn inertia. | univacboy wrote: | There are many older airplanes that were designed for much | lower-lead fuel than is available now. 100LL ("Low Lead") still | has several TIMES more lead than the 80 octane that would have | been optimal in the older low-compression engines in use for | many decades. There have been STCs (Supplemental Type | Certificates) to make it legal to run unleaded auto gas in | those engines; the problem with them currently is that they | require gasoline without any ethanol, which is difficult to | find in many places. | ncmncm wrote: | And the ethanol in US gasoline is there entirely to provide a | market for Archer Daniels Midland to dump the alcohol it | makes (under _huge_ govt subsidy) to help absorb the _huge_ | (also very heavily subsidized!) overproduction of corn. | | The addition of sugar to practically all processed food in | the US is another response to that massive overproduction. | Excess sugar is responsible for the ongoing, massive public | health disaster that absolutely dwarfs COVID19. (But we are | OK with it.) | | And, feeding all livestock corn, despite its harm to their | digestion and nutritive value of the result, just because it | is the only way to be competitive. | | Earl Butz, Reagan's Sect. of Ag, has a lot to answer for in | hell. But there is more than enough blame to go around. | | Anyone pushing for universal Medicare but not to eliminate | corn subsidy is (at best) failing to address the root cause | of the problem. | jakedata wrote: | Some years ago I obtained a "barn find" vehicle that still had | some 1970s leaded gasoline in the tank. After much work getting | things ready to run, I decided the best thing to do with the old | gasoline was to install a disposable fuel filter and just run it | through the engine. | | The scent of leaded gas is something entirely different from | modern products. Sweet-smelling and rather pleasant, it triggered | childhood memories I didn't know I had. | | Of course knowing what leaded gasoline smells like could have | contributed to other issues... | gambiting wrote: | I have a fun trivia fact to share actually - here in UK, it's | one of the only remaining places in the world where you can | still legally buy leaded petrol for automotive use. Only a | handful of garages around the country are certified to sell it, | the prices are very high, but it's the ultimate fuel for people | who want to preserve their old vehicles in original factory | state, without modifying anything to run on unleaded fuel. | Alternatively, the sale of leaded additive is still | allowed(which literally just contains TEL - tetraethyl lead - | effectively turning 95 unleaded into the old 4-star leaded). | | This website used to list the garages still selling leaded | petrol, but they have changed the whole site very recently - so | you can only see the list on wayback machine: | | http://web.archive.org/web/20210225112828/https://fbhvc.co.u... | | TEL additive: | | https://www.classic-oils.net/TetraBOOST-E-Guard-15 | adav wrote: | Is there a https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk for numbers of | leaded petrol cars still on the road? | gambiting wrote: | Not sure if that would be useful, as there's no way to | confirm whether a vehicle that was designed for leaded fuel | was converted for unleaded, or if it simply runs on non- | leaded additives. | | Either way, there is this website, which used to really | push for leaded petrol, it disappeared in 2009, but it | almost reads like comedy: | | http://web.archive.org/web/20090101030343/http://www.leaded | p... | | " Don't forget, if your local filling station doesn't sell | leaded petrol, ask them to start!" | | "Bayford is campaigning to have the extra duty on Leaded | Petrol removed. You can help by printing this letter and | sending it to your Member of Parliament" | derriz wrote: | "If you run a classic or high performance car, now is the | time to throw away that can of additive, and fill up with | award winning genuine leaded petrol" | drcongo wrote: | In London last summer I caught a whiff of a smell that I | hadn't smelled in years - 30 seconds later a vintage Jag came | around the corner and I realised it was the exhaust of a car | running leaded petrol. I was struck by the fact that I could | literally smell it coming. | sokoloff wrote: | That may have been from uncatalysed exhaust. My '66 Mustang | also has a very distinctive smell, despite running an | unleaded fuel. | pitaj wrote: | Sweet smell can also be from running ethanol-rich fuels. | xyzzy21 wrote: | All European gasoline used to smell like that not so long ago. | It's one of the major memories of my first trip to European as | a teen. | avian wrote: | "Not so long" must be somewhere in early 90s. Most of Europe | phased out leaded gasoline by 2000. | | From my experience the thing that affects the exhaust smell | more than leaded/unleaded is whether the engine has a | catalytic converter. A car without the converter running on | unleaded will have the same sweet smell the parent is talking | about. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | The gas stations themselves used to have a different smell. | | I remember as a child (in Canada) somehow enjoying the | smell when my parents filled up on gas. Which is kind of | terrifying in retrospect. | tapland wrote: | I faintly remember. I'd probably be interested in having | the weirdest irl meet up over a car found with a spare | jug of leaded gas. Reliving old smells does so much for | creativity | bluGill wrote: | I remember that. I also remember unleaded had the same | smell. Though this was 40 years ago so who knows if my | memory is right. | pomian wrote: | There are a lot of issues with the leaded replacement | gasolines. Lead was at least heavy, and "fell" close to it's | point of use. The BTEX components added to gasoline after | removing the lead, are carcinogenic. They are also volatile. | They go everywhere, and affect everyone. Overall, neither the | biological or human ecology are better off. The politics behind | the leaded gasoline change is fascinating, as most of the other | environmental decisions are, when studied from the point of | view of toxicology and environmental science. | henearkr wrote: | Lead accumulates in the body poisons you for far longer than | the other chemicals you mention. | | Even with relative to the particular effects on health, you | really can't compare lead and those others. Lead was really | the worse. | hammock wrote: | Where can I read more about this? | tapland wrote: | Yes this seems like a very interesting, important and | overlooked issue. | nawgz wrote: | I also think the fellow stating that we are not better | off for having unleaded fuel is overstating the matter. | Lead in fuel was quite strongly correlated with crime | rates, no? | cartoonworld wrote: | Wrt health effects of gasoline, it is bad for you full stop. | | The chemistry should be improved or changed if needed, | however leaded (pb) fuel should never return. We are | definitely better off. | clukic wrote: | Interesting to note that unleaded gas also has lead about 0.05g | per gallon which is a lot when you consider how much gas is | burned in a typical big city everyday. Aviation gas has 2 grams | per gallon, so if you live near an airport you're probably | getting a pretty steady diet of lead. | nate_meurer wrote: | The EPA limits unleaded gasoline to 0.5 g/gal, but that | doesn't mean your gasoline actually contains that much. The | regs are meant to forgive some amount of cross-contamination | from facilities that also handle avgas. I don't have any | information on what values are typically encountered. | | You're right, 0.5 g/gal is a lot of lead. | axiak wrote: | The actual amount of gallons of gas burned in planes using | AVGas is extremely small compared to the gallons of gas | burned by cars or by planes using jet fuel. Unless you were | on the tarmac with prop planes running, I doubt you'd smell | the lead. | lostlogin wrote: | > 2 grams per gallon | | I'm from a fully metric land, is the above a common way to | express a ratio? It certainly stuck out to me but it's a | pretty tidy measure. | jjoonathan wrote: | Hey, it doesn't even have internal unit cancellation or | convention ambiguity like "kilowatt hours per month". We | can do worse! | Robotbeat wrote: | It's crazy to me that we've allowed leaded gasoline in general | aviation for this long. The price of rebuilding all general | aviation engines to take lower octane fuel (or possibly ethanol, | which has very high octane but a few caveats) has got to be FAR | less than the public/mental health burden of allowing leaded | avgas. | underseacables wrote: | Will this work in the old piston aircraft? I'm thinking about | buffalo airways. | iamtheworstdev wrote: | only if the engine doesn't need lead for lubrication of the | valves/anything else | sokoloff wrote: | Lead does not lubricate the valves, though that's a common | misconception. | | https://www.avweb.com/features/pelicans-perch-55lead-in- | the-... (The fine author of this article sadly passed away | earlier today.) | throwawayboise wrote: | There are other additives that can provide that, the question | would be do they have FAA approval. | JamilD wrote: | It's a shame Light Sport Aircraft (LSAs) never really caught on. | Most of them use Rotax engines which take regular unleaded | gasoline. They're much more fuel efficient too! | plantain wrote: | Huh? LSA is doing fine. It does considerably better in | basically every other jurisdiction where the licencing is | typically easier and the payloads higher. | | "Comparing charts I see 506 registrations of LSA-type aircraft | in 2020 and 358 registrations of GA aircraft in 2020," Steve | notes. "Thus, registrations of LSA-type aircraft account for | more than half of the single-engine piston aircraft registered | in 2020, 59% from data analyzed for this report." | | https://generalaviationnews.com/2020/11/02/up-or-down-how-fl... | phkahler wrote: | I think the problem with LSAs was the industry adopted them | too fast. There were so many manufacturers none of them could | the volume needed for lower prices. Even Cessna canceled the | C162. This has been improving over time of course. | JamilD wrote: | I guess it's just based on my observations in the US. I'm a | Sport Pilot; I don't see many others in the Bay Area. | | Often I'm the only one that rents the Skycatcher at KPAO in a | given month, and there's basically only two LSAs that are | accessible to rent nearby (that Skycatcher at KPAO and a | SportStar at KRHV). | nameless912 wrote: | And there's scuttlebutt that the LSA rules might be revised | to be based off a load factor formula rather than a fixed | upper gross weight limit, as well as the creation of PSAs | (larger aircraft certified via ASTM standards rather than FAA | part 31(? I can't remember the CFR part right now), which | would allow for much faster and easier certification of PSAs | (as opposed to standard category aircraft). | | Here's hoping for a full revision to the LSA rules that | allows 152/72/82 and Piper Cherokees into the category; that | would open up Sport pilots to thousands of new aircraft they | were unable to fly for essentially no reason. It's painfully | obvious that the FAA's artificial limitation of 1320 lbs was | completely arbitrary and is overall a detriment to the safety | of pilots operating under the sport rules. Frankly, I | think/hope that recertifying the majority of standard | category aircraft as PSAs will help drive down costs and spur | some new innovation in GA. | cameldrv wrote: | I think that the dream was that you were going to see $50k new | aircraft due to the easier regulation, but it didn't pan out, | and new LSAs are more like $150k. When you can get a used 172 | for the same money and have a far more capable aircraft, that's | the direction most people end up going. | | I could see some resurgence in the market with the large number | of late-70s light aircraft starting to become unmaintainable | though. It's hard to say with the opposing force of the | shrinking pilot population though. | bdash wrote: | Per https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/gami-awarded-long- | awaite..., this new unleaded fuel is currently only approved for | Cessna 172s with Lycoming engines, with expansion to more | aircraft types coming next year. | jcutrell wrote: | Makes sense - the 172 is one of the most common training | planes, getting a TON of low-altitude hours in the pattern. | | Also because of the low altitude flights 172s will probably run | rich. | | Granted, they aren't burning a ton of fuel per hour - around 8g | - but considering the sheer number of 172s out there this will | make a reasonable dent in the total fleet of pistons. | | Though I expect the infra changes to actually support this will | take a very long time to actually put in place, and many people | will opt for 100LL for a long time because it is all that's | available at their local airport or it is cheaper. | | I own a 182 that has the STC for auto-gas, and barely anyone | sells auto-gas on-field. The only other option is to maintain | my own tank, but that can't go on trips with me. | | Still good news in the long run. | jeffbee wrote: | 8 gallons of 100LL contains about 4 grams of lead, enough to | measurably lower the IQ of over 100000 children. | [deleted] | SomeHacker44 wrote: | Would love to see the source and data on that, given that I | use 1000s of gallons of leaded fuel a year. | jeffbee wrote: | "The study found that for each 5-microgram [per | deciliter] increase in blood lead, a person lost about | 1.5 IQ points." | | https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2613157 | [deleted] | unchocked wrote: | You're conflating chronic and acute exposure. Pop | epidemiology 101. | kube-system wrote: | The saving grace is that your exhaust doesn't go directly | into the bloodstreams of children, likely most of the | lead ends up at other places on earth. | wffurr wrote: | >> The EPA's own studies have shown that to prevent a | measurable decrease in IQ for children deemed most | vulnerable, the standard needs to be set much lower, to | 0.02 ug/m3. The EPA identified avgas as one of the most | "significant sources of lead". | | Maybe stop? | sokoloff wrote: | That's the point of the GAMI fuel approval: it provides a | practical path to stop using 100LL. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | You can't just take the mass of the lead and then assume it | all winds up in humans. | | For a given amount of lead output into the atmosphere lead | output over an airport is going to get into people's blood | a lot less efficiently than lead output in an automotive | context. | bpodgursky wrote: | ... so we're just going to slowly build up base-level | contamination in the soil, water, and ecosystem? Let's | not? | throwaway0a5e wrote: | I'm not endorsing lead emissions, just pointing out that | emitting them not into people is a lot better than | emitting them fairly directly into people. | | While obviously it would not be ideal to evenly | distribute lead evenly throughout the surface of the | earth lead is a fairly common element and exists in | ground deposits more or less worldwide without poisoning | people. It's not as common as iron but it was used for | all sorts of thing historically specifically because of | how common (and therefore cheap) it is/was. | henearkr wrote: | Well, NO, lead tetraethyl is not naturally present. It's | a human-made metallo-organic molecule. | lazide wrote: | Elemental lead is nearly completely insoluble and very | difficult to absorb. If entrained in dirt, even more so. | Breathing vapors or aerosolized fine powders isn't great, | but uptake even then isn't high compared to many other | toxic substances - that is usually the dominant form | however. It usually requires some kind direct ingestion + | acid exposure of a significant amount of lead, or | breathing in a large quantity of lead vapor or fine dust | to get notable exposure. | | Which is exactly what you get when every car in a city | was burning tetra ethyl lead in large quantities, and/or | kids were eating sweet tasting lead paint chips. | | Leaded AVgas is a concern, but dilution of the resulting | lead from combustion gets diluted very widely very | quickly resulting in actual low concentrations. And since | it's not 'every car in the LA basin', it just isn't at | the scope or scale of a problem you're making it out to | be. We're probably having bigger issues from all the | random new stuff companies put into tires (including | carbon nanotubes now), which then gets ground up and | dispersed as fine power at the million ton scale every | day. | | Lead is not mobile in typical soil or water environments, | and as long as the water isn't strongly acidic, it | settles out and stays where it lands. There is naturally | occurring trace lead in most soils - it's a somewhat | common element. | nate_meurer wrote: | Contaminated soils don't contain elemental lead. The | dominant form is lead oxide, one of the two common | additives in lead paint (along with the carbonate) and | also the end point of the combustion of TEL in fuel. Lead | from lead oxide is easily absorbed orally from soil, | paint chips, and household dust, and it's also a serious | inhalation hazard. | | > _sweet tasting lead paint chips_ | | What makes you think lead paint tastes sweet? | | > _Lead is not mobile in typical soil or water | environments_ | | Which is exactly the reason lead-contaminated soils are | such a long-lasting hazard. It's the reason little kids | playing in the dirt around old houses can be poisoned | decades after contamination was laid down. For example, | here in Denver entire urban neighborhoods were built on | the site of a smelter that was demolished a hundred years | ago, and the contamination is still largely unchanged. | Remediation requires completely replacing the top several | feet of soil. | | > _There is naturally occurring trace lead in most soils | - it's a somewhat common element._ | | Significant deposits of lead in surface soil are rare, | and are limited to sites with unique geology. The vast | majority of distributed lead in surface soils is of human | origin. | sokoloff wrote: | > What makes you think lead paint tastes sweet? | | Lead acetate has a sweet taste. Lead paint flakes/dust | contain lead acetate. | | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sugar-of- | lead-a-... | henearkr wrote: | Lead tetraethyl is _not_ elemental lead. | | I think you are mixed up. | | Lead tetraethyl (the component found in lewded gas) _is_ | easily absorbed, it even diffuses through skin to the | blood! | sokoloff wrote: | Once combusted, the exhaust contains primarily lead oxide | (PbO), not TEL (C8H20Pb) | Blackthorn wrote: | I hope we can get it, or even 94UL (which is 100LL minus the | lead) at airports soon. Many of us can run 94UL just fine, but | there's nowhere it's available. | sokoloff wrote: | Though many airplanes can, the working airplanes (that burn a | lot of fuel) mostly cannot and if the FBO is faced with being | able to sell fuel to all airplanes or just some with a tank and | dispenser, it's a pretty easy call. | | The promise of G100UL is that that FBO can (eventually) sell | this fuel to all gasoline-fueled airplanes. | Blackthorn wrote: | I know what the promise is. My point is I'd like _any | unleaded fuel at all_ to be available at the pump. Regardless | of whether it needs to support the world 's shittiest ancient | engines or not. | sokoloff wrote: | Being able to support turbocharged engines is critical to | being economically viable for FBOs which is critical to | being actually available for sale. (Estimates were that 70% | of the airplanes could use a 94UL-type gasoline, but that | the 30% of remaining airplanes burned [and bought] 70% of | the fuel sold, so a 94UL solution is, as you've | experienced, not economically viable.) | ericd wrote: | Apologies, I'm not very familiar with aircraft engines, | why can't we simply use high octane unleaded gasoline, | like most turbocharged car engines? Are the cylinder | pressures significantly higher in airplane engines? | btgeekboy wrote: | At least one airport I know of - KAWO - used to have it, but no | longer does. Wonder what the story is there. | 0xfaded wrote: | Approval of specific airframes and engines through STCs | (Supplementary Type Certificates) is slightly misleading. In the | same way, regular unleaded gasoline is also approved through STCs | for many airframes and engines. This isn't the silver 1:1 bullet | that replaces 100LL tomorrow. Nevertheless, I'm all for the 100LL | alternatives efforts. If I was buying an aircraft, however, I | would be more interested in a Jet-A burning piston (basically | diesel). Unfortunately that market is currently limited to | Diamond aircraft, which are fantastic if not for their tight grip | on their service network. | sidewndr46 wrote: | Given the heavy handed way that lead was removed from fuel for | passenger vehicles, I'm still perplexed that a tiny lobby has | managed to keep it around basically indefinitely. If I were to | build an aerial vehicle that sprayed a toxic substance | everywhere it went, the environmental groups would basically go | nuts. But somehow because it is in a plane, nothing ever really | happens about it. | | The logical thing to do with 100LL is to ban it, like was done | with passenger fuels. Existing planes serving a public good | (basically just bush planes at this point) can continue to | operate on it indefinitely. No sales of new planes equipped | with engines that operate on 100LL would be allowed either. | jdhn wrote: | I'm willing to bet that the amount of lead that's put out by | aircraft in a year pales in comparison to what was put out by | cars, and as a result going after lead emissions from cars | was deemed to be the best course of action by the EPA. Also, | it's worth noting that leaded gasoline didn't go away | overnight. It was still sold for awhile even after the EPA | said that you couldn't make cars that ran on leaded gas. | pc86 wrote: | Can you not see how passenger vehicles, which are | _overwhelmingly_ for personal use, is a different category | with a different economic impact than an entire class of | public transportation? | briandear wrote: | Diamond's are fine unless you need an airplane equivalent to a | Cessna T206 or a 421. Diamonds, are really competing with | Cirrus or the Cessna 172. | | As someone flying a 310 horsepower turbocharged 206, using an | unleaded AvGas is a scary proposition. The only way to operate | these turbo engines on current unleaded technology fuels would | be to significantly reduce the boost pressure of the turbo and | massively de-rate the engines. Flying heavy or out of hot or | high airports would be significantly more dangerous. On | normally aspirated 172s with a 160 or 180 horsepower engine, it | would be less of a big deal. On a turbo-high performance | engine, getting the performance out of the fuel is something | not likely (hence the STC only for 172 lycomings.) Detonation | would be the main risk or you'd have to use significantly less | power which defeats the purpose. There are already mogas STCs. | Until those fuels work in high performance engines, this isn't | really a groundbreaking thing. | | And just a point of fact, just because lead is "scary," the | actual environmental impact of leaded AvGas is trivial -- | despite the flawed "studies" put forth by the anti-airport | lobby. If we want to improve the environment, I am all for it, | but targeting AvGas is like trying to swat a fly circling a | dead elephant. One Chinese factory spits out enough toxins in a | day than the entire AvGas fleet does in a year. That's not to | say we shouldn't work for better and cleaner airplane fuels, | but in terms of environmental impact, this isn't doing much. | Resources would probably be better spent on lead and asbestos | remediation in old, low income housing -- or in the water | supply. Kids aren't getting sick from AvGas exhaust. | base698 wrote: | How much are your annuals? | wffurr wrote: | >> The EPA's own studies have shown that to prevent a | measurable decrease in IQ for children deemed most | vulnerable, the standard needs to be set much lower, to 0.02 | ug/m3. The EPA identified avgas as one of the most | "significant sources of lead". | | Atmospheric lead is pretty dangerous, more so than | encapsulated lead paint inside a wall. | lazide wrote: | That's an incredibly misleading quote - do you have | anything that can correlate atmospheric lead concentrations | at ground level with flight hours or take/offs and landings | somewhere? | sneak wrote: | Note that the word most is not in the quote from the | source. | jacobmarble wrote: | I looked into using a diesel engine in an experimental aircraft | (US/FAA definition). Unleaded car engines are fairly common in | these planes. | | It turns out that Jet-A isn't necessarily good for a piston | diesel engine, due to lubricity and cetane number. After enough | reading, I decided to stick with unleaded/100LL until the day I | can afford a proper turboprop. | | https://generalaviationnews.com/2011/03/17/jet-a-versus-dies... | | https://www.thedieselstop.com/threads/jet-a-vs-diesel.62296/ | | Having typed all this, when I was in Afghanistan with the US | Army, the tactical trucks with diesel engines all ran on the | same Jet-A that the aircraft used. I assume there was something | different about that fuel, or the engines in those trucks. | wbl wrote: | Jet-A is Jet-A. It's the engines: the Army would like to | avoid having to schlep around two kinds of fuel that can get | confused to disastrous results. | jacobmarble wrote: | Yes, obviously. Safer to drive a diesel truck on Jet-A than | a Chinook on diesel. | sokoloff wrote: | The Army is almost surely using JP-8, which is similar but | not identical to Jet-A. | selectodude wrote: | >I assume there was something different about that fuel, or | the engines in those trucks. | | Nope, it's just that the operational lifespan of those trucks | isn't long enough for the Jet-A to really matter. It's only a | major issue for the fuel pump, anyway. Those can always be | replaced. | gnopgnip wrote: | Yep, most up armored Humvee or MRAPs will last less than | 10k miles. | throwawayboise wrote: | All diesel fuels are lower lubricity than they used to be | (due to changes for modern low-emissions diesel engines). | | If you have an older diesel engine, you can use additives to | restore lubricity, but I don't know if they are approved for | use in Jet/A for a piston diesel aircraft. | mgarfias wrote: | Bout time | codetrotter wrote: | "Avgas" in Swedish means "exhaust", as in what you get from the | tail pipe of a car. But I can't tell if their use of the name | "Avgas" for the product here is intentionally connected to the | Swedish meaning of that word or not. | throwawayboise wrote: | It is a contraction of "aviation gasoline" | AlotOfReading wrote: | It's referring to avgas, a shortened name for aviation | gasoline. I don't believe there's a relationship to the | swedish. Historically there was also a corresponding mogas | (motor gasoline), but the specifier got dropped in general | usage. | iamtheworstdev wrote: | my personal guess is that this is going to lead to STCs that | allow the installation of diesel engines as replacements for | avgas engines. They're saying it's going to raise fuel by 40 to | 80 cents (USD), so it'll probably be more than that. One of the | pluses of AVGAS engines is that they can be overhauled repeatedly | which saves on engine replacement costs over the life time of the | plane. But the increase in fuel price is likely to bring it level | with the replacement cost of a new diesel engine. Since diesels | can run JET-A fuel, which is a global fuel source and much | cheaper than AVGAS.. I just don't see how AVGAS engines survive | in the long term. | | (older planes can't just adopt an electric engine. batteries are | too heavy and the airframe won't be able to carry batteries that | provide 600-800nm of range) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-28 19:00 UTC)