Scare tactics from our local news

Yep, it's true and shouldn't be there. We had decades to get up to speed but cried "NOOOOOOO" every time something was mentioned so it went away. Now the issue is not going away. 100LL was renamed to delay the verbal wrangling another round, but in the end the issue of getting rig of the lead in AvGas is inevitable and it will save a fortune in valves, guides and cylinders.
 
1/2 ton per years dumped on Seattle each year is BS.

There isn't that much 100LL used, and there isn't that much lead in 100LL to start with. and a lot of it stays in the engine, and doesn't leave until you change oil or scrape it off the pistons and valves.
 
Tom-D said:
1/2 ton per years dumped on Seattle each year is BS.

There isn't that much 100LL used, and there isn't that much lead in 100LL to start with. and a lot of it stays in the engine, and doesn't leave until you change oil or scrape it off the pistons and valves.
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That's about 300,000 gallons worth of avgas (1.5 grams per gallon) being burned to put out that lead, that's 37,500 hrs in a 172. 20 172s flying 10 hrs a month is 20,000 gallons a year. 10 421s doing 15 hrs a month is another 72,000 a year. That accounts for 1/3 of that figure alone. If anything the number is limited in geographic range.
 
Henning said:
That's about 300,000 gallons worth of avgas (1.5 grams per gallon) being burned to put out that lead...
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You are assuming all the lead in the fuel goes out the exhaust. I imagine that people fighting lead-fouling of their plugs would love to see all the lead burned rather than collect on their plugs.
 
Bob Noel said:
You are assuming all the lead in the fuel goes out the exhaust. I imagine that people fighting lead-fouling of their plugs would love to see all the lead burned rather than collect on their plugs.
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What you see collect in an engine is but a fraction and is evidence of insufficient leaning.
 
Henning said:
That's about 300,000 gallons worth of avgas (1.5 grams per gallon) being burned to put out that lead, that's 37,500 hrs in a 172. 20 172s flying 10 hrs a month is 20,000 gallons a year. 10 421s doing 15 hrs a month is another 72,000 a year. That accounts for 1/3 of that figure alone. If anything the number is limited in geographic range.
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If they are worried about metallic lead, your number is off by 33%. One third of the weight of tetraethyl lead is in the four ethyl groups, so the amount of lead in a gallon of avgas is actually closer to one gram per gallon. This makes the math easier.
1000 pounds of lead comes to 454,000 grams (rounded), or 454,000 gallons of avgas at Boeing field, using the numbers in the linked article.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
If they are worried about metallic lead, your number is off by 33%. One third of the weight of tetraethyl lead is in the four ethyl groups, so the amount of lead in a gallon of avgas is actually closer to one gram per gallon. This makes the math easier.
1000 pounds of lead comes to 454,000 grams (rounded), or 454,000 gallons of avgas at Boeing field, using the numbers in the linked article.
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Bottom line on the article is BS designed to scare the public. Maybe in the hay day of aviation they may have seen that, but not lately.
 
Tom-D said:
Bottom line on the article is BS designed to scare the public. Maybe in the hay day of aviation they may have seen that, but not lately.
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Henning got the science wrong again, but he's made a case for the number of gallons burned. I'm pretty sure that place has more than 20 C-172s and 10 421s. According to AirNav, there's 257 single engine planes and 89 multi-engine planes. You can back-out 77 jets.

Assuming 1/2 the planes there actually fly, that comes to 4,540 gallons per plane, not including transients. I don't think it's impossible, even now, for them to go through that fuel.

Of course, most of this fuel is burned elsewhere unless they have a lot of student traffic staying in the pattern. They get around 200 takeoffs and landings per day attributed to local general aviation (AirNav, 710 operations per day, 28% local GA).
 
Of course, the article on KOMO's web site (citing the original) said "hundreds of thousands of airplanes". Really? Did I miss something?
 
I don't see the problem with lead in general.
We used to have lead in paint, lead in car gas, more lead in batteriesm etc.

Then some fool started the "Lead causes Dain Bramage" BS.


As far as I can tell kids have gotten dumber and more lethargic since we cut out lead in everything...:mad2:

I remember seeing a stat that 100LL is responsible for less than 1% of lead emissions per year. I can't recall offhand where I saw that though...


I put lots of lead in the air every week thanks to my .45's. You don't think they'll come after my bullets do you?

Chris
 
Hiperbiper said:
I don't see the problem with lead in general.
We used to have lead in paint, lead in car gas, more lead in batteriesm etc.

Then some fool started the "Lead causes Dain Bramage" BS.


As far as I can tell kids have gotten dumber and more lethargic since we cut out lead in everything...:mad2:

I remember seeing a stat that 100LL is responsible for less than 1% of lead emissions per year. I can't recall offhand where I saw that though...


I put lots of lead in the air every week thanks to my .45's. You don't think they'll come after my bullets do you?

Chris
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Dooooooomed.....:popcorn:
 
Ghery said:
Of course, the article on KOMO's web site (citing the original) said "hundreds of thousands of airplanes". Really? Did I miss something?
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I wonder where they are hiding them. The ramp at BFI looks like a parking lot for an aviation junk yard, some of the aircraft look like they haven't been flown in years.

I was handed to the tower at Schillshow marina and got a straight in to 16 left, it was that slow, there wasn't another light civil flying the whole time I was there. Galvan's lot was empty, and the transit lot at gate 5 was empty too.

ghost town is the best name for the place.
 
Hiperbiper said:
I put lots of lead in the air every week thanks to my .45's. You don't think they'll come after my bullets do you?
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I understand that some areas of California prohibit lead bullets. So, yeah, I think they'll come after our bullets at some point.
 
Henning said:
AvGas is inevitable and it will save a fortune in valves, guides and cylinders.
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Actually that isn't true, the carbon made by burning a no lead fuel creates a hard carbon, when it attaches its self to the valve stem it will wear the guide faster than the softer carbon made by leaded fuel.
 

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Yes, the left is trying to implement a de facto gun ban by using the environmental argument that lead in bullets is destroying the environment. :rolleyes:

For sure Greenies, lead is posionous if injected at high speed to the right places. ;)
 
Anthony said:
Yes, the left is trying to implement a de facto gun ban by using the environmental argument that lead in bullets is destroying the environment. :rolleyes:

For sure Greenies, lead is posionous if injected at high speed to the right places. ;)
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otoh - lead, properly applied, can be used to save lives and feed people.

:wink2:
 
Hiperbiper said:
Then some fool started the "Lead causes Dain Bramage" BS.
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Do you have a study that indicates it is "BS"? The volume of medical research indicates otherwise. Lead exposure in children has long been proven to affect the development of portions of the brain involved in impulse control. The drop in crime rates we have been seeing since the 1980s have been very strongly correlated with the drop in environmental lead emissions in a study done across nine countries.

Hiperbiper said:
I remember seeing a stat that 100LL is responsible for less than 1% of lead emissions per year. I can't recall offhand where I saw that though...
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I'd be interested to know where you saw that. All the current sources I can find states that AvGas is responsible for 45% of lead emissions.

The evidence simply does not support the claim that this is BS or a witch hunt. We need to get serious about alternatives. TEL is also greatly limited in availability these days and responsible for a nontrivial portion of the cost of 100LL. Finding a suitable alternative would be win-win, and would also improve the public image of GA. It seems many people are more interested in attacking the messenger than solving the problem. Sigh.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
If they are worried about metallic lead, your number is off by 33%. One third of the weight of tetraethyl lead is in the four ethyl groups, so the amount of lead in a gallon of avgas is actually closer to one gram per gallon. This makes the math easier.
1000 pounds of lead comes to 454,000 grams (rounded), or 454,000 gallons of avgas at Boeing field, using the numbers in the linked article.
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The TEL standard figure I found was 2 gram TEL/ gallon, so yeah, I was still a bit high on the metallic lead value; not enough to disprove the issue though. The gallons sold are representative of the lead values that airport puts, for the vast most part into the US environment ( not that what is dumped on the PNW of Canada is much better. Why someone who lives among all that would condone dumping lead all over it... It kinda confuses me).
 
I've heard a few conspiracy theories about lead. It's alleged that GA is forced to keep lead in fuel in order to make the west coast (where there's plenty of GA traffic) "dumb."

The theory claimed basically the same thing as this article. Not enough GA aircraft flying around a specific area to do that much damage.

Who flies in crop dusting patterns with super rich mixture ensuring that they dump as much lead around the airport and residential areas as possible? It's a problem but it's a dispersed one.

If this is an issue , what about my middle school that was built in 1946 and had lead paint and asbestos? They're just now starting to build a replacement.
 
I don't care if it has lead or fairy dust, I can burn 91 mogas on these 1940 tractor engines no problem and the thing don't hiccup; forget the vaporization and moisture collection issue with the inclusion of ethanol.No different than storing mogas on your boat. Just be reasonable about it. The price difference is not trivial. What's with the love affair with 100LL anyways? The thing has three times the amount of lead my engine was planned for (so much for low lead). Few are running these contraptions anywhere in the vicinity of the altitude where vapor lock and gellin' of the fuel would be an issue. If your precious turbo piston flying is that finnicky that flying that high and running such sick compression ratios makes you ping 91/96 UL, just get on with the program and retrofit to diesel/Jet-A and stop holding hostage the silent majority of GA users that are paying way too much for the privilege of ****ing unburned performance out the exhaust stacks.

That lead is generally toxic is just icing on the cake of that dead horse. Let's get with the program and take advantage of some economies of scale, God knows this niche hobby needs some of that. The "im so elitist I'll poison myself before I let the riff raff in" argument is not very supportive of the survival of low end GA, where most of us are clinging on by. We need Lyco and Conti to stop the obstructionism and let UL gets us into the 21st century. We shouldn't support a fuel that actively excludes us from the economies of scale offered by the wide availability of unleaded fuel. These engines are not pinging off the airframe on 91 UL I can suggest that much. Petersen and those mogas STC guys know it too but they couldn't get it through the FAA to expand on it.

I fundamentally disagree that the UL replacement of 100LL has to be soooo specialized so as to effectively render it as uneconomical as the distribution of 100LL currently is. That's more status quo cartel scare tactics. Just a humble air pirate's free internet opinion.... :D
 
bigblockz8 said:
I've heard a few conspiracy theories about lead. It's alleged that GA is forced to keep lead in fuel in order to make the west coast (where there's plenty of GA traffic) "dumb."

The theory claimed basically the same thing as this article. Not enough GA aircraft flying around a specific area to do that much damage.

Who flies in crop dusting patterns with super rich mixture ensuring that they dump as much lead around the airport and residential areas as possible? It's a problem but it's a dispersed one.

If this is an issue , what about my middle school that was built in 1946 and had lead paint and asbestos? They're just now starting to build a replacement.
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The problem with lead exposure is it's cumulative through life and the effects are incipient. Careless handling of AvGas right now can affect the chromosomes in your sperm because guess what, that's where heavy metals love to settle in your body, in your sack, how's about that, most all the heavy metals will settle in your reproductive tissues and accumulate there often leading to Willy Wonka losing his lust for Oopa Loompas in a type of chemical castration. This was an ancient method of treating syphilis and other venerial infections using arsenic, lead and other heavy metals in compounds.

You may think this stuff is a joke, but it's really not. On top of that the fuel part regardless of the lead is horribly unhealthy to the skin and through dermal absorption.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I don't care if it has lead or fairy dust, I can burn 91 mogas on these 1940 tractor engines no problem and the thing don't hiccup; forget the vaporization and moisture collection issue with the inclusion of ethanol.No different than storing mogas on your boat. Just be reasonable about it. The price difference is not trivial. What's with the love affair with 100LL anyways? The thing has three times the amount of lead my engine was planned for (so much for low lead). Few are running these contraptions anywhere in the vicinity of the altitude where vapor lock and gellin' of the fuel would be an issue. If your precious turbo piston flying is that finnicky that flying that high and running such sick compression ratios makes you ping 91/96 UL, just get on with the program and retrofit to diesel/Jet-A and stop holding hostage the silent majority of GA users that are paying way too much for the privilege of ****ing unburned performance out the exhaust stacks.

That lead is generally toxic is just icing on the cake of that dead horse. Let's get with the program and take advantage of some economies of scale, God knows this niche hobby needs some of that. The "im so elitist I'll poison myself before I let the riff raff in" argument is not very supportive of the survival of low end GA, where most of us are clinging on by. We need Lyco and Conti to stop the obstructionism and let UL gets us into the 21st century. We shouldn't support a fuel that actively excludes us from the economies of scale offered by the wide availability of unleaded fuel. These engines are not pinging off the airframe on 91 UL I can suggest that much. Petersen and those mogas STC guys know it too but they couldn't get it through the FAA to expand on it.

I fundamentally disagree that the UL replacement of 100LL has to be soooo specialized so as to effectively render it as uneconomical as the distribution of 100LL currently is. That's more status quo cartel scare tactics. Just a humble air pirate's free internet opinion.... :D
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Given that 80+% of the Avgas is used by the 15-20% of the fleet which requires more octane than any currently offered unleaded gasoline along with the fact that there are constraints on things like vapor pressure which can't be met by the standard supply chain for auto fuel, I think your idea is a non-starter. IMO George Braly has quite correctly concluded that any replacement for 100LL has to be compatible with 100LL and provide the same detonation margins for big bore and/or turbocharged engines as the current fuel does.
 
Henning said:
The problem with lead exposure is it's cumulative through life and the effects are incipient. Careless handling of AvGas right now can affect the chromosomes in your sperm because guess what, that's where heavy metals love to settle in your body, in your sack, how's about that, most all the heavy metals will settle in your reproductive tissues and accumulate there often leading to Willy Wonka losing his lust for Oopa Loompas in a type of chemical castration. This was an ancient method of treating syphilis and other venerial infections using arsenic, lead and other heavy metals in compounds.

You may think this stuff is a joke, but it's really not. On top of that the fuel part regardless of the lead is horribly unhealthy to the skin and through dermal absorption.
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Henning- lead is a nasty substance, but the BS you're spouting here really doesn't add to the conversation.

Lead is bad because it mimics other metals that are co-factors in a number of biological processes all over the body. It especially affects the nervous system. To affect the reproductive system, you already have a pretty high dose. Chromosome issues don't seem to be cited in the literature. As for curing syphilis, you're thinking of "blue mass" or "blue pill", a compound of mercury and used for many illnesses. Patrick O'Brien did the proper research before describing the use of this compound in the Jack Aubrey books. Lead was more likely to be used as a sweetener- lead compounds are supposed to taste sweet (I don't personally know- but lead acetate used the have the name "lead sugar"), and that the big problem for children. They eat the sweet paint chip that damages their brain and nervous system.
 
I'm talking prior to that, pre Renaissance era medical texts including writings from what Marco Polo brought back from the Islamic world of the time; bizarre crap that makes you go "Wow, WTF, sucks to have gotten sick back then!"
 
Henning said:
I'm talking prior to that, pre Renaissance era medical texts including writings from what Marco Polo brought back from the Islamic world of the time; bizarre crap that makes you go "Wow, WTF, sucks to have gotten sick back then!"
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I'm pretty sure they didn't mention chromosome issues.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm pretty sure they didn't mention chromosome issues.
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No, but they mentioned the results of the treatments including fertility and birth defect (women were treated this way as well) issues that we now know are caused by genetic damage.
 
Henning said:
No, but they mentioned the results of the treatments including fertility and birth defect (women were treated this way as well) issues that we now know are caused by genetic damage.
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Ya sure? Could be neurological damage. The fetus picks up lead from the mother.

How about a citation?
 
hindsight2020 said:
If your precious turbo piston flying is that finnicky that flying that high and running such sick compression ratios makes you ping 91/96 UL, just get on with the program and retrofit to diesel/Jet-A and stop holding hostage the silent majority of GA users that are paying way too much for the privilege of ****ing unburned performance out the exhaust stacks.

I fundamentally disagree that the UL replacement of 100LL has to be soooo specialized so as to effectively render it as uneconomical as the distribution of 100LL currently is. That's more status quo cartel scare tactics. Just a humble air pirate's free internet opinion.... :D
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Aside from what Lance pointed out, I think that splitting the avgas-burning fleet into two fuels will drive prices UP, even after any price advantages that you're talking about, due to higher distribution costs.

Also, it's not just "precious turbo piston flying" by a bunch of rich guys who can afford nonexistent diesel retrofits that would run well more than what the airplanes were worth - You know all those beautiful old warbirds that we see at airshows that are our own living history? Yeah, kiss 'em all goodbye and put 'em on a stick in front of the local American Legion because that's all they'll be able to do if we don't come up with a SINGLE alternative to 100LL that works for all of us.

Hopefully, between GAMI and Swift Fuels we'll have something before too much longer.

This might also be an opportunity to expose the major weaknesses in the FAA certification process that are causing us to always have to do thing the old way, rather than use modern technology.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Ya sure? Could be neurological damage. The fetus picks up lead from the mother.

How about a citation?
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Could be, lots of things could be, none of them particularly good. Lead isn't the only deadly metal used in medical compounds back then. However colloidal <sp?> silver still exists from back in those times IIRC.... If you can name some positive benefits of even minor lead exposure, I'd be interested to hear it. The problem with flying outside of populated areas is that much of our 'flyover' territory deposits that lead into our food chain.

The Continental guy at OSH pointed at an engine "350hp Turbo ready for 94 UL, I'd love to put it on a 414...". I think the answer is to just lightly pressurize the fuel tanks/system through the vent system with the pneumatic system, that should handle vapor issues to any recip altitude.
 
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Henning said:
Could be, lots of things could be, none of them particularly good. Lead isn't the only deadly metal used in medical compounds back then. However colloidal <sp?> silver still exists from back in those times IIRC.... If you can name some positive benefits of even minor lead exposure, I'd be interested to hear it. The problem with flying outside of populated areas is that much of our 'flyover' territory deposits that lead into our food chain.

<SNIP>
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I never said there were any benefits from lead exposure. I was pointing out that there is no need for BS when the correct information is available.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I never said there were any benefits from lead exposure. I was pointing out that there is no need for BS when the correct information is available.
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the BS is the numbers that the article has quoted, BFI as is the whole industry is on its ass, the amount of fuel burned is no wheres near the amount the author is saying is causing the problem.
 
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Tom-D said:
the BS is the numbers that the article has quoted, BFI as is the whole industry is on its ass, the amount of fuel burned is no wheres near the amount the author is saying is causing the problem.
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The amount of fuel the airport pumps should be a matter of public record.
 
Henning said:
The amount of fuel the airport pumps should be a matter of public record.
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not really. its mostly a jet base, and the cost of 100LL is off the scale, so many haul it in, what they are hauling is any ones guess. So any figures the airport has will be tainted, good or bad.

and the article isn't even talking PAE, RTN, or Bremerton, or any of the airports in the area, IMHO the author does't have a clue to the facts of the subject.

the author jumped on the subject because the announced study on the airport about the amount of lead being used there, he jumped the gun on the results of the study, and hyped in the bad pretexts in the worst case possible to increase his audience.
 
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Environmentalist are always going to be looking around for further ways to reduce emissions. Avgas has just worked it's way up the list even though Avgas use is declining by ~4% a year. I would rather see them press the government to find an alternative vs. trying to get it banned. Continuing to attack our own economy in an effort to create a pollution free utopia is fine as long as you don't mind living in the 17th century.

They really should be focusing their efforts on the larger picture vs. what amounts to a chicken s*it issue on the global scale. China for example is far and away the number one polluter. Scarier still is their rate of increase.

See this chart:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...oxine_Emissions_from_Consumption_in_China.png

Or this on lead pollution in China:

http://blog.oup.com/2011/06/lead-pollution/

Why can't any of this be done with a modicum of common sense?
 
Tom-D said:
not really. its mostly a jet base, and the cost of 100LL is off the scale, so many haul it in, what they are hauling is any ones guess. So any figures the airport has will be tainted, good or bad.

and the article isn't even talking PAE, RTN, or Bremerton, or any of the airports in the area, IMHO the author does't have a clue to the facts of the subject.

the author jumped on the subject because the announced study on the airport about the amount of lead being used there, he jumped the gun on the results of the study, and hyped in the bad pretexts in the worst case possible to increase his audience.
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And did the author use the old stats (lead in PPM) or the newer stats which are lower. As the higher numbers generate more "concern" I'd say nay...

From EAA in 9/2011:

"100VLL retains all of the essential safety requirements important to aircraft owners and operators and of critical significance to those flying airplanes with high compression engines. The FAA also states, “Consequently, and most importantly, grade 100VLL has the same minimum octane rating and will provide the same level of anti-knock performance as 100LL and 100 avgas grades.”
Much of the avgas sold today uses less than the maximum amount of lead allowed by the current 100LL specification and already meets the new “very low lead” specification. The addition of 100VLL is an important development in that it more accurately reflects the small amount of lead actually in avgas today."

The entire story on the EAA website notes that the amount of lead in 100LL has been dropped to the lowest level possible to still maintain the detonation margins of the fuel. Before the FAA mandate.

As least now we can say we've done something, Officially I mean.

Chris
(who chewed in his grandmaws windowsill painted with lead paint
and still has na..na..na...na...na...no...mental problems...).
 
spinfire said:
TEL is also greatly limited in availability these days and responsible for a nontrivial portion of the cost of 100LL. Finding a suitable alternative would be win-win, and would also improve the public image of GA.
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Were you implying that lead-free fuel might in fact be cheaper than 100LL?

I've been following the periodic updates from AOPA and other av publications, and the theme from those reports has consistently been "don't worry, the replacement won't cost *too* much more than the current avgas blend".

There may be very good reasons to swap from 100LL to lead-free fuel, but I don't think cost will be one of them. I have yet to see any proposed alternative with a seemingly reasonable chance of success touted as being cheaper than 100LL.
 
Hiperbiper said:
And did the author use the old stats (lead in PPM) or the newer stats which are lower. As the higher numbers generate more "concern" I'd say nay...
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Chris, I don't think this author had any facts, unless he made them up as he wrote. He sure as hell doesn't know how bad the GA has shrunk since any numbers are published.

he never though of the aircraft already running auto fuels, or the amount of lead that stays in the engine.
 
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