[Flyin'Dutch']

I’d have thought that EASA would be banging at the door of the EU Chemicals Agency, but it all seems very quite on that front.

The times they are achanging and rapidly so.

The social climate will make it untenable to keep lead in aviation fuel so that a tiny minority of people cannot undertake their hobby is shielded from having to fork out to keep being able to exercise that hobby*

And to be fair it is not as though the writing has not been on the wall for a few decades.

FTAOD - our club is also affected as only 1 of 2 machines can run on unleaded fuel, so hugely sympathetic to those who are faced with some difficult decisions.



*that is how it will look from the political and population perspective.

[TLRippon]

FD

That sounds like an Huge FU from someone who is all right Jack.

12 years ago when I bought this aircraft it wasn’t an issue. When it became an issue, there was no alternative. The airframe is exactly the same as the 114 which can use UL91, parts are interchangeable but there isn’t an approved upgrade path. You can’t fit an IO540 in a 112. There wont ever be. The cost to the type certificate holder to gain approval is prohibitive. The cost to an owner of a new IO540 would be pointless in an airframe worth so little. My aircraft represents an investment of a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade. If it is such a small number of owners affected, why doesn’t the government buy us out then if we are such big polluters, it would make it go away overnight.

Or is it just a big FU.

[TLRippon]

AOPA are working on this. UL94 may be the answer, but that has to be determined, especially for Warbird types.

From AOPA USA this may be of interest.

It’s an interesting route, the Commander owners group have been liaising with Swift for a number of years. As things stand it looks like UL 94 will help with the IO540 cam issues but we would need a 100 octane unleaded to sort out the high compression engines.

[Human Factor]

I wonder how the Yaks and Nanchangs will deal with this. The Chang in particular was designed to run on 87 octane Chinese moonshine but I believe that was leaded.

[Flyin'Dutch']

FD

That sounds like an Huge FU from someone who is all right Jack.

As I wrote, see above, you are not the only one affected, so am I/we.

[Paul_Sengupta]

I presume it’ll just be the same for aero engines. Unless they have hardened valve seats already?

Most do already, but not all.

but we would need a 100 octane unleaded to sort out the high compression engines.

My high compression (8.7:1!) but non turbocharged Lycoming 360 has a list of fuels it will run on, and one of them is Russian 95 octane. 94 is quite close to this. It may be the case that 94 will be fine with certain temperature and pressure limitations. Or it may not. Dunno.

I wonder how the Yaks and Nanchangs will deal with this. The Chang in particular was designed to run on 87 octane Chinese moonshine but I believe that was leaded.

Are these supercharged engines? Radials are normally quite low compression so should be ok with low octane fuel. But do they have hardened valve seats?

[Flyin'Dutch']

Does anyone have a link to something authoritative in this area, as in that AvGas will no longer be available in the near future?

[Adrian]

I wonder what became of this? Perhaps its time has finally come.

https://gami.com/g100ul/g100ul.php

[Joe Dell]

production of TEL is about to cease making leaded AVGAS a thing of the past. .

What a difference a comma would make.

[patowalker]

There are approximately 167,000 aircraft in the United States and a total of 230,000 worldwide that rely on 100 low lead avgas for safe operation.

https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/ne ... wsId=14754