AvGas Sales in Steep Decline

[TMetzinger]

Lots of the fleet that burned most of the avgas is now burning Jet A as they retire the older airframes and engines.

 

[SoonerAviator]

. . . I've asked the FBO why, and he cited mainly costs along with availability. After the cost of the equipment (which is more like North of $1MM), it's sketchy getting it. I'm guessing the oil company on the field has some say-so in the matter. The big question I guess is, who's going to pay to set it up and guarantee delivery? And insure it?

I'm sure it costs a pretty penny to get an above ground (not even touching in-ground) storage container for just E0 along with all of the EPA containment requirements. You'd have to have a pretty stout demand in order to make the finances work I'd think. I doubt the oil company would have a problem with it at all since it likely contains about the same amount of their "product" in E0 as 100LL does.

I've heard most people using E0 at the airfield find a small utility/motorcycle trailer with a simple 50-80gallon tank and tow it back and forth from the local fuel stop to the hangar. However, I doubt most airports operators will allow you to store the trailer/fuel on airport grounds, but it's generally small enough to fit in a backyard at the house.

 

[BGF_Yankee]

I've asked the FBO why, and he cited mainly costs along with availability. After the cost of the equipment (which is more like North of $1MM), it's sketchy getting it. I'm guessing the oil company on the field has some say-so in the matter. The big question I guess is, who's going to pay to set it up and guarantee delivery? And insure it?

You are very correct sir. The cost to maintain a separate farm from 100LL given that the margin isn't that high to begin with is prohibitive. Also, yes, many branded companies will not allow you to carry mogas if you are flying their flag. It has a lot to do with liability I think because there are not a lot of standardized testing methods, product varies so much from place to place, and it would just be one more option for a mis-fuel. I'm just speaking from experience with our current brand, of course, so I can't comment on what the policies of others are.

If ever anyone has questions like these and would like an airport manger and/or FBO operator viewpoint, I'd be happy to comment based strictly on my experience. Just hit me up! I know there have been plenty of times I've asked myself, "Why the hell don't they do this?!"

 

[Jimmy cooper]

This is a real no-brainer. Folks aren't flying the way they used to. It isn't legions of experimentals burning mogas. Most of those spend more time begin tinkered with than flying, I think. Heck, if I want to buy mogas sans booze I have to go to a marina. That's open if I could get my airplane STC'd to burn the stuff which I can't.

This is very true! Some years back, small airports were BUSY! lots of twins flying, like Comanches , 310s, commanders, beech 18s ,etc. lots of them! Not to mention singles!
Very few sat for long like they do today. Lots more young people were interested and learning to fly. Even the 99s were quite active. Far different today. It's far more expensive today, much more.

 

[jsstevens]

The twin Velocity!

I've looked at them! And I've flown into Sebastian a couple of times (their home factory). But it's still 4 seats.

John

 

[N801BH]

I'm sure it costs a pretty penny to get an above ground (not even touching in-ground) storage container for just E0 along with all of the EPA containment requirements. You'd have to have a pretty stout demand in order to make the finances work I'd think. I doubt the oil company would have a problem with it at all since it likely contains about the same amount of their "product" in E0 as 100LL does.

I've heard most people using E0 at the airfield find a small utility/motorcycle trailer with a simple 50-80gallon tank and tow it back and forth from the local fuel stop to the hangar. However, I doubt most airports operators will allow you to store the trailer/fuel on airport grounds, but it's generally small enough to fit in a backyard at the house.

Also.... Fuel distributors need dedicated trucks for 100LL... They cannot carry any other unleaded products in it since the residual lead will contaminate an unleaded product....

 

[JHW]

The question was "What should we use?" not "What can we use?" We should be using bio fuels, but we can't.

speak for yourself. The only biofuel i want to use is the one made from dead dinosaurs. Nearly all commercially viable biofuel processes today use material that can be food, and I personally find it immoral to be burning our food and driving up the worldwide cost of nutrition while we sit on an ever-increasing glut of petroleum.

Is it possible we could run out of petroleum someday? Maybe. I doubt it.

Is it possible that someday biofuels will be more economical to produce than petroleum ? Yes, probably. So let's leave it to the market to determine when and if that happens, and leave utopian idealism out of energy policy in the meantime.

 

[retailguy]

speak for yourself. The only biofuel i want to use is the one made from dead dinosaurs. Nearly all commercially viable biofuel processes today use material that can be food, and I personally find it immoral to be burning our food and driving up the worldwide cost of nutrition while we sit on an ever-increasing glut of petroleum.

Is it possible we could run out of petroleum someday? Maybe. I doubt it.

Is it possible that someday biofuels will be more economical to produce than petroleum ? Yes, probably. So let's leave it to the market to determine when and if that happens, and leave utopian idealism out of energy policy in the meantime.

bravo!

 

[Jimmy cooper]

speak for yourself. The only biofuel i want to use is the one made from dead dinosaurs. Nearly all commercially viable biofuel processes today use material that can be food, and I personally find it immoral to be burning our food and driving up the worldwide cost of nutrition while we sit on an ever-increasing glut of petroleum.

Is it possible we could run out of petroleum someday? Maybe. I doubt it.

Is it possible that someday biofuels will be more economical to produce than petroleum ? Yes, probably. So let's leave it to the market to determine when and if that happens, and leave utopian idealism out of energy policy in the meantime.

This sounds like the owner of a buggy whip factory in 1850. It's not maybe but a certainy that we will run out of petro." The market" has never been very good at determining anything! Most real advances in the U.S. Have initially been government funded. The market was thought ( for instance) to be able to police Wall Street and we see how that's worked out both in 1929 and 2007! A disaster! Allan Greenspan, mr. Mumbles , finally apologized but the damage was done.

 

[JHW]

This sounds like the owner of a buggy whip factory in 1850. It's not maybe but a certainy that we will run out of petro." The market" has never been very good at determining anything! Most real advances in the U.S. Have initially been government funded. The market was thought ( for instance) to be able to police Wall Street and we see how that's worked out both in 1929 and 2007! A disaster! Allan Greenspan, mr. Mumbles , finally apologized but the damage was done.

yawn. How short is your memory ? It was just a few years ago we were at "peak oil". $150/BBL is just the beginning. Get your solar panels and bicycle now while they're still available.

Back to reality. Known oil reserves are going up up up. We're finding it faster than we could ever use it. People who subscribe to peak oil are people who doubt the ingenuity and capability of human beings. Personally, I'll always bet on people finding a way to keep moving forward. But you're in good company, a certain segment of the population has been proclaiming the end is nigh since the dawn of time. What's written on your sandwich board ?

It must really grate on you that all this new shale oil has been produced by the private sector on private lands despite the best efforts of government to thwart it. meantime, how are those "government advances" in wind & solar panning out that you're so proud of? Last I saw those companies are on a fast track to bankruptcy. better get some more government bailout money for them to protect your notion of progress courtesy of uncle sam.

 

[vintage cessna]

This sounds like the owner of a buggy whip factory in 1850. It's not maybe but a certainy that we will run out of petro." The market" has never been very good at determining anything! Most real advances in the U.S. Have initially been government funded. The market was thought ( for instance) to be able to police Wall Street and we see how that's worked out both in 1929 and 2007! A disaster! Allan Greenspan, mr. Mumbles , finally apologized but the damage was done.

The depression of 1929 would not have been as long or severe if the Federal Reserve had not been invented. A run started on the banks and the Fed did nothing to stop it. Previously, the big banks would have intervened and prevented wide spread panic, but that was now the Federal Reserves job.The crisis of 2007 was also government fueled by underwriting too much risky debt and easy money.

 

[vintage cessna]

This sounds like the owner of a buggy whip factory in 1850. It's not maybe but a certainy that we will run out of petro." The market" has never been very good at determining anything! Most real advances in the U.S. Have initially been government funded. The market was thought ( for instance) to be able to police Wall Street and we see how that's worked out both in 1929 and 2007! A disaster! Allan Greenspan, mr. Mumbles , finally apologized but the damage was done.

I forgot to mention the other "real advance" the government has done for us with it's' invention of central banking. We can now deficit finance war. When the Kings treasury was emptied from war, the war ended. Now it can go on for a long, long time.

 

[Jimmy cooper]

The depression of 1929 would not have been as long or severe if the Federal Reserve had not been invented. A run started on the banks and the Fed did nothing to stop it. Previously, the big banks would have intervened and prevented wide spread panic, but that was now the Federal Reserves job.The crisis of 2007 was also government fueled by underwriting too much risky debt and easy money.

They were both due to deregulation which started in Ernest under Ronnie who was total b.s. Subprime loans, no docs, were not dreamed up by the government. They were encouraged by Wall Street. Country wide , for instance, was not a government entity! After 1929, in 1933 Roosevelt formed the Pechora commission which set new rules for Wall Street. Slowly, then more rapidly under Ronnie Reagan, these rules were thrown out. No Wall Street higher up has gone to jail and Wall Street whines about too much regulation. Pitiful!

 

[philiplane]

There is a difference between "peak recoverable oil" and "peak affordable oil". The first is based on available oil, which is not unlimited but we are getting ever more creative in finding and recovering it. The real problem is "peak affordable oil. We are already there. Oil is worth $40-70 per barrel to the economy. But increasingly expensive means of extraction will drive the price past $70, where it begins to slow the economy. Once it passes $140 a barrel, recessions result because money is diverted from consumer goods to simply paying the energy bill, and the resulting higher costs of everything.

For those of you who don't have access to mogas, lobby your gubmint to remove the artificial obstacles. It is a viable alternative for a very large portion of the fleet. Contact Petersen about developing a system for your plane if it has a compatible engine, but needs mods to the airframe. Most incompatible airframes simply need larger fuel lines to accommodate lower vapor pressure fuels to mitigate vapor lock or hydraulic lock.

There are a few planes available now that far exceed the Comanche's performance, and do it on mogas. The Piper Apache has 140-150 knot cruise speeds, 1100-1400 lb useful loads, five seats, burning 16-18 GPH of 87 or 91 octane mogas (150 or 160 HP versions.) I have a few thousand hours in type and I know all the positives and negatives. Move up to a Beech 55 series Baron, also mogas capable when using ADI water/alcohol injection. Now you are talking 175 knot cruise speeds, 5 or 6 seats, 1300 lb useful loads, and 22-25 GPH on, yes, mogas.

It's obviously not easy for everyone, but in many states you can buy ethanol free-gas off the field, and fuel your own plane. I use an 80 gallon, DOT approved tank with pump and filter. The tank paid for itself on the fourth trip. That was 11 years ago and 24,000 gallons ago, at an average of $2 per gallon savings, not to mention lower maintenance costs through increased spark plug and oil life.

 

[JHW]

That's enough of that kind of talk, Philip. You are talking about practical, proven things people can do to save money and fly more. No one wants to hear about stuff like that here. The storyline is that mogas is bad and aviation is dying. Try to stick to that script, if you can find the time in between all your cheap flying on clean unleaded fuel.

 

[Henning]

speak for yourself. The only biofuel i want to use is the one made from dead dinosaurs. Nearly all commercially viable biofuel processes today use material that can be food, and I personally find it immoral to be burning our food and driving up the worldwide cost of nutrition while we sit on an ever-increasing glut of petroleum.

Is it possible we could run out of petroleum someday? Maybe. I doubt it.

Is it possible that someday biofuels will be more economical to produce than petroleum ? Yes, probably. So let's leave it to the market to determine when and if that happens, and leave utopian idealism out of energy policy in the meantime.

Algae can be used as either and grown off the waste of turning natural gas into electricity.

 

[vintage cessna]

They were both due to deregulation which started in Ernest under Ronnie who was total b.s. Subprime loans, no docs, were not dreamed up by the government. They were encouraged by Wall Street. Country wide , for instance, was not a government entity! After 1929, in 1933 Roosevelt formed the Pechora commission which set new rules for Wall Street. Slowly, then more rapidly under Ronnie Reagan, these rules were thrown out. No Wall Street higher up has gone to jail and Wall Street whines about too much regulation. Pitiful!

Your wrong about that. The government was aware of those loans and encouraged them. Everyone was enjoying the ride. Fannie and Freddy were for all essential purposes government agencies despite what some say. In congressional testimony officials of these agencies assured representatives that were concerned with the risk, that everything was fine, no way housing prices could decline. What do you think is happening with student loans today that are being underwritten by the government?

The stock market crash didn't cause the depression, the unchecked run on the banks did. All the money dried up.

 

[JHW]

Algae can be used as either and grown off the waste of turning natural gas into electricity.

yes it can, and someday it will on its own when the economics dictate it. Until that time I'd rather not have parasites in washington or brussels dictating that it happen on a particular date and taxing/subsidizing to select the winners&losers of the changeover.

 

[Jimmy cooper]

That's enough of that kind of talk, Philip. You are talking about practical, proven things people can do to save money and fly more. No one wants to hear about stuff like that here. The storyline is that mogas is bad and aviation is dying. Try to stick to that script, if you can find the time in between all your cheap flying on clean unleaded fuel.

Reality is a *****! GA in the U.S. Is a shadow of what it was thirty years ago. No one had to lug mo gas around in a can either. Fuel was dirt cheap and bonanzas didn't cost half a million dollars. It's gotten very expensive, plus we are now flying fifty sixty year old aircraft any paying too much for them.

 

[JHW]

Reality is a *****! GA in the U.S. Is a shadow of what it was thirty years ago. No one had to lug mo gas around in a can either. Fuel was dirt cheap and bonanzas didn't cost half a million dollars. It's gotten very expensive, plus we are now flying fifty sixty year old aircraft any paying too much for them.

Yep times change. Some adapt to change and succeed. Other's chose to blame others for their inability to adapt. I'm not going to stop flying and I am confident my kids will be flying when their have their own kids. GA isn't dying, it's just evolving. As I look around our home airports in IL and KS it's the E/AB planes that are flying every weekend, not the Nixon-era spam cans. If you'r rather wallow in self pity, that's ok. Gotta go with your strengths. Meantime we'll be out flying.

 

[Henning]

yes it can, and someday it will on its own when the economics dictate it. Until that time I'd rather not have parasites in washington or brussels dictating that it happen on a particular date and taxing/subsidizing to select the winners&losers of the changeover.

In the mean time Richard Branson and the U.S. Navy are buying every drop being produced. I don't understand why people think government should invest in new infrastructure, they have all along.

 

[JHW]

In the mean time Richard Branson and the U.S. Navy are buying every drop being produced. I don't understand why people think government should invest in new infrastructure, they have all along.

sort of. The navy algae fuel program is a scam and a huge waste of taxpayer money, especially in a time of already money-constrained readiness.

 

[pilot_dude]

They were both due to deregulation which started in Ernest under Ronnie who was total b.s. Subprime loans, no docs, were not dreamed up by the government. They were encouraged by Wall Street. Country wide , for instance, was not a government entity! After 1929, in 1933 Roosevelt formed the Pechora commission which set new rules for Wall Street. Slowly, then more rapidly under Ronnie Reagan, these rules were thrown out. No Wall Street higher up has gone to jail and Wall Street whines about too much regulation. Pitiful!

This isn't SZ. Take your drivel there if you so desire.

 

[Graueradler]

I plotted the data against our sales volume from 2006 on. Thought it might tell me if we were gaining or losing market share. I used 11 months of 2014 data to approximate a 2014 annual national number. About all it told me was that regional data would sure be interesting for my purpose. While the end points (total fuel sold, 2006 thru 2014)matched within 1/2 percent, the path to get there was very different. The close match with 9 years of data seems to be just a coincidence because any other period would not have been as close. Our peak was a few years earlier than national and we had a 25% dip in 2013. Both 2012 and 2014 were about 25% higher than 2013. Right now, we are on a good upslope and ahead of where we should be if we were tracking the national trend.

The national trend in the short term may not match what you observe locally.

For the long term, things look pretty grim for the 100LL market.

I tried to find the same data for Jet A but wasn't successful.

 

[Dav8or]

speak for yourself. The only biofuel i want to use is the one made from dead dinosaurs. Nearly all commercially viable biofuel processes today use material that can be food, and I personally find it immoral to be burning our food and driving up the worldwide cost of nutrition while we sit on an ever-increasing glut of petroleum.

Again, I'm saying it's what we should be burning, not what we as consumers can be burning. You should do some reading on bio fuels. There is no need to use food stocks to make bio fuels and the proponents of bio fuels absolutely agree with you that we should not use food stocks in part because they aren't the most efficient.

People who subscribe to peak oil are people who doubt the ingenuity and capability of human beings. Personally, I'll always bet on people finding a way to keep moving forward.

I guess you're super optimistic about our ingenuity as long as it keeps that flow of oil coming. What about our ingenuity to produce a different fuel? Why do you have no faith in that? I think it's quite the opposite, people that cling to oil as the only possibility are the ones that doubt the ingenuity and capability of human beings. I'd like to see us move forward too, but I see us clinging to the past with all our might instead.

We will be forever beholden to foreign countries if we keep this oil addiction going. Notice how the Saudis can flip a switch and our miracle shale oil machine comes to a halt? Ever wonder why a country as big as China doesn't seem to produce much oil? They have oil, they're just waiting their turn. They will be the next Saudi Arabia when the time is right. They want the world to be dependent on them next.

True energy independence is being able to make your own energy at home, forever. No foreign wars required.

 

[N801BH]

.........
True energy independence is being able to make your own energy at home, forever. No foreign wars required.

The government will never go for that... They would have no way of taxing you on that fuel............

 

[retailguy]

Reality is a *****! GA in the U.S. Is a shadow of what it was thirty years ago. No one had to lug mo gas around in a can either. Fuel was dirt cheap and bonanzas didn't cost half a million dollars. It's gotten very expensive, plus we are now flying fifty sixty year old aircraft any paying too much for them.

Yep times change. Some adapt to change and succeed. Other's chose to blame others for their inability to adapt. I'm not going to stop flying and I am confident my kids will be flying when their have their own kids. GA isn't dying, it's just evolving. As I look around our home airports in IL and KS it's the E/AB planes that are flying every weekend, not the Nixon-era spam cans. If you'r rather wallow in self pity, that's ok. Gotta go with your strengths. Meantime we'll be out flying.

Well said Jeff. At one little airport in Houston - KIWS, we have 30+ active partnerships with 90+ partners. We're burning some serious avgas down here.

Turn out is 10 to 15 pilots on Saturday morning. We go all over the south for lunch, sometimes as many as 6 planes headed to the same place. The biggest issue we face besides weather is how many crew cars they have, or how many trips we need to make to get everyone there.

I'm so tired of "things aren't like they used to be". Yep, they aren't. But ONE GUY down here made it better than it used to be. Yes, I said that right. One guy. He keeps buying good planes and linking people up. Sometimes he makes money, sometimes he probably doesn't. But he just keeps doing it.

So, if you're out there feeling like "things ain't like they used to be", maybe YOU are the guy that should change it?

 

[Alexb2000]

So what if avgas is in decline? The future is diesel Jet-A. It may take another 10-20 years to get there, but so what? In the meantime we can continue to fly on Avgas. Ironically, drones may speed the development/adoption of Jet-A burning diesels. Diamond has a drone DA42 program that seems successful and I'm sure we'll see a lot more along those lines. The driver being that they use the same fuel as the rest of military/government aviation.

My hope is that we let the progression happen naturally vs. force it too early with government mandate.

 

[SoonerAviator]

Also.... Fuel distributors need dedicated trucks for 100LL... They cannot carry any other unleaded products in it since the residual lead will contaminate an unleaded product....

I was simply referring to a self-serve type container, as far as making it available at an airport. If an FBO wants to provide fuel delivery for it, then yes, a dedicated fuel truck will need to be acquired.

 

[JHW]

Again, I'm saying it's what we should be burning, not what we as consumers can be burning. You should do some reading on bio fuels. There is no need to use food stocks to make bio fuels and the proponents of bio fuels absolutely agree with you that we should not use food stocks in part because they aren't the most efficient.

I don't need to read articles from "internet experts". This is my business, I work with it every day.