Will 100LL really stop in 2029/2030?

traumamed said:
If the only form of data that works for you is "my airplane melted," hey, you do you. :thumbsup:

The materials testing videos done by Michael Iuvara are useful data points. As with any scientific process, repeatability is important. I don't know who Michael Iuvara is, and what, if any, conflicts of interest he may have.

I also have specific concerns. I am mainly interested in seals/rubber compatibility. I could care less about risk to paint. I am a big boy. I can fill up my tanks without spraying fuel all over my wing, just like I can eat without getting food all over the table.

...Then again, I think back to my days of being a restaurant server, and that's a pretty tall ask for apparently more than half of restaurant-going folks.
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I'm interested in what it does to pro seal.
 
I’ve purposely avoided aircraft the require 100 octane fuel.
My 152 has the Petersen auto gas STC that gives me access to 91 octane auto fuel, 91UL, and 94UL.
My Tampico has the Swift Forever STC that gives me access to 94UL and 100R. The O-320-D2A in it can run on 91 octane auto gas, but there is no STC for the airframe.
 
traumamed said:
I am a big boy. I can fill up my tanks without spraying fuel all over my wing,
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I've been to quite a few self service pumps where I think even you would be challenged to get it all inside the tank without some dripping or spraying on the wing. Last week I turned off the pump after about 2 gallons and flew to another airport because of the amount that was leaking from the nozzle onto the wing. Other times the end of the filler tube was so banged up that fuel sprayed everywhere. It was ok if you kept the nozzle down inside the tank but then there is that label that says not to insert the nozzle more than 3 inches. I was at one the other day that when you released the handle the fuel wouldn't stop flowing right away. Then it would pop closed and jerk back so hard you couldn't help spill fuel, unless you were fully prepared and expecting it. Even so, it took me about 3 tries to figure out how to keep the kickback from pouring fuel on the wing.
 
pfarber said:
i've linked to the FAA study done by Baylor at least half a dozen times. If you can't find it you're not trying.
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I found all of those. So has Jim_R (quoted below) It doesn't mention a mythical flight school
pfarber said:
All you have to do is email the Baylor Aviation email and ask. they know all about it. they can forward your message to the principals.
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Not my job. It's you that that need to provide the proof.
pfarber said:
Its LAUGHABLE that its inferred that I'm making it up when I linked to the PDF multiple times and its all over google.
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We saw the links you provided. However, you never even provided the name of the flight school mentioned here:
pfarber said:
I just re-read the email chain and its a soaring flight school/club trying to convert the tow planes to enthanol. The tow planes engine (o-540) is covered by one of Baylors STC so I think they are trying to use the approved data as a basis for a new STC.
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We realize you wouldn't want to share all the contents of a private email chain however the name of a souring/flight school isn't particularly private. The reticence to share the name of the business suggests that the "souring flight school/club" doesn't exist.
pfarber said:
Its HILARIOUS that the usual suspects are trying to imply that 'its a big nothing' when there is an STC issued, a 12+ year FAA study and currently a flight school trying to implement it for commercial ops.

You can also search for the STC. I mean i've been *told* by many people here that they are more knowledgeable than I yet many of those same people can't do 5 minutes of work and find the information like I did.
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Again, what flight school?
pfarber said:
Seriously... here's a hint: https://aviation.ecs.baylor.edu/ folks need to put on your big boy/girl/they/them pants and educate themselves.
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That's just a link the the school's web site and nothing in particular to the studies you cited. It's not our job dig through a web page.

It's not just me. You only seem to reply/quote my posts so it is reasonable to suppose that you missed this one who also notes the only information available are the links you already provided.
Jim_R said:
I was moderately interested, so I did some Googling and found about a half dozen different documents about ethanol use in aircraft published by Baylor personnel from Masters students to professors, with and without affiliation to Baylor's Renewable Aviation Fuels Development Center, none of which seemed to be the "study" you are referring to. At least, none seem to back up the claims you've been making.

Some little clue, like a document title, or an author, or better yet a URL to the specific document you keep alluding to, might allow me to follow in your footsteps. But so far, I've found bupkis. I don't care to go on any more of an Easter egg hunt to try to figure out what in the hell document you're going on about.

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." You're definitely not going to get this horse to drink by hiding the water and demand he go and find it himself. I've got plenty of beer in the fridge....
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No soaring/flight school using the STC was found.


Nonetheless, ethanol has many problems mentioned in various threads that make it a sub-optimal choice of fuel.
 
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Cap'n Jack said:
Again, what flight school?

That's just a link the the school's web site and nothing in particular to the studies you cited. It's not our job dig through a web page.

It's not just me.
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It's not just you. I also went to the Baylor link posted above, and found exactly nothing that was relevant to this discussion.
 
StraightnLevel said:
It's not just you. I also went to the Baylor link posted above, and found exactly nothing that was relevant to this discussion.
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I did find it interesting that one of the reports stated there is 4x the production of ethanol over AVGAS, no way 100LL isn't cooked
 
I shared dinner at Oshkosh last night with someone from one of the big Avgas providers/manufacturers. He's convinced the can will be kicked a few years down the road since there is still a LOT of work to be done. That surprised me.
 
Did he happen to have a supplier in mind for the lead?
This would not surprise me, but just deferring the prohibition on leaded avgas does nothing to ensure the supply.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I found all of those. So has Jim_R (quoted below) It doesn't mention a mythical flight school

Not my job. It's you that that need to provide the proof.

We saw the links you provided. However, you never even provided the name of the flight school mentioned here:

We realize you wouldn't want to share all the contents of a private email chain however the name of a souring/flight school isn't particularly private. The reticence to share the name of the business suggests that the "souring flight school/club" doesn't exist.

Again, what flight school?

That's just a link the the school's web site and nothing in particular to the studies you cited. It's not our job dig through a web page.

It's not just me. You only seem to reply/quote my posts so it is reasonable to suppose that you missed this one who also notes the only information available are the links you already provided.

No soaring/flight school using the STC was found.


Nonetheless, ethanol has many problems mentioned in various threads that make it a sub-optimal choice of fuel.
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I too have previously went down the Baylor rabbit hole. Put that one on ignore or continue to bash your head against the wall.
 
737steve said:
Did he happen to have a supplier in mind for the lead?
This would not surprise me, but just deferring the prohibition on leaded avgas does nothing to ensure the supply.
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Sorry, no. I did not get into the details of the topic.
 
Well, I did put this on my bingo card. I was only mildly confident that it would hit.

So I guess the answer to the thread title is no. The more interesting question now is whether Innospec says "We're sticking with our timeline. Have fun finding more TEL."

avbrief.com

2030 Unleaded Fuel Deadline To Slip, New 'Roadmap' in the Works - AvBrief.com

FAA Deputy Administrator Chris Rocheleau says "no drop and go" unleaded replacement for 100LL has been identified.
avbrief.com avbrief.com
P.S. Mods, I'm asking advance for the inevitable thread merge :)
 
Yeah...but the American Congress has backed down. Isn't that a global mandate? ;)
 
asicer said:
The more interesting question now is whether Innospec says "We're sticking with our timeline. Have fun finding more TEL."
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Indeed. Congress can say what it likes. The FAA can say what they like. People can debate the safety and utility of 100LL until they are blue in the face. None of it matters if Innospec decides to follow through with its shutdown.
 
AvNavCom said:
Indeed. Congress can say what it likes. The FAA can say what they like. People can debate the safety and utility of 100LL until they are blue in the face. None of it matters if Innospec decides to follow through with its shutdown.
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Good point. What prevents Shell or some other AvGas supplier from making a "last-time buy" order of enough TEL to supply us for another, say, 5 years?
 
I've followed the publications of Octel, later Innospec for quite a few years. This is not a sudden change in corporate plans. It's been in the works for decades. I have no expectation of availability of 100LL past the deadline. Hopefully, I'm wrong.
 
StraightnLevel said:
What prevents Shell or some other AvGas supplier from making a "last-time buy" order of enough TEL to supply us for another, say, 5 years?
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I suppose nothing. But I also suppose it's the same nothing that prevents Innospec from saying "Thanks, but we can't fill that."
 
StraightnLevel said:
Good point. What prevents Shell or some other AvGas supplier from making a "last-time buy" order of enough TEL to supply us for another, say, 5 years?
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I suppose it would depend on the capacity and willingness of Innospec to ramp up production and make TEL on demand in that way, beyond their normal production rate. It would also depend on an AvGas supplier caring enough to make it happen and being willing to assume the liability of storing a large amount of very toxic TEL for later usage. 100LL is presumably unlikely to be high on Shell's priority list, given the tiny percentage of sales compared to other fuels, so I have little confidence that this will happen. More likely the FAA will issue provisional blanket approvals for some of the unleaded candidates. Or perhaps they'll just shrug and let the market sort itself out with a portion of the GA fleet effectively grounded. Hard to say.
 
asicer said:
I suppose nothing. But I also suppose it's the same nothing that prevents Innospec from saying "Thanks, but we can't fill that."
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True, but most ops mgrs will fill every order they can right up until the shutdown. Who turns away a profitable order
AvNavCom said:
. Or perhaps they'll just shrug and let the market sort itself out with a portion of the GA fleet effectively grounded. Hard to say.
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...and strand every SR22, Bonanza, 421 and Malibu(among others)? That would be a highly vocal group to leave without a means to keep their $$$ flying.
 
StraightnLevel said:
True, but most ops mgrs will fill every order they can right up until the shutdown. Who turns away a profitable order

...and strand every SR22, Bonanza, 421 and Malibu(among others)? That would be a highly vocal group to leave without a means to keep their $$$ flying.
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Of that group, I'd suspect the Cirrus crowd to be the most likely to have sufficient influence (both social media-wise and monetary-wise) to maybe get Congress to intervene and have the FAA broadly approve an unleaded candidate. We'll see, I suppose. We live in interesting times! Meanwhile, I'll be busy trying to convince my home-drome to get a tank of ethanol-free mogas for the lower-class piston peasants on the field.
 
AvNavCom said:
Of that group, I'd suspect the Cirrus crowd to be the most likely to have sufficient influence (both social media-wise and monetary-wise) to maybe get Congress to intervene and have the FAA broadly approve an unleaded candidate. We'll see, I suppose. We live in interesting times! Meanwhile, I'll be busy trying to convince my home-drome to get a tank of ethanol-free mogas for the lower-class piston peasants on the field.
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Good luck with that. I'm guessing that even if you succeed you will not like the price.
 
StraightnLevel said:
Good point. What prevents Shell or some other AvGas supplier from making a "last-time buy" order of enough TEL to supply us for another, say, 5 years?
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The infrastructure used to make TEL is life limited. It's a very corrosive process that erodes the wall thickness of the pipes... Or something like that If the pipes can only withstand 100 more uses before needing replacement it doesn't matter when those 100 uses. Buy now. Buy later. It's all the same.
 
AvNavCom said:
Of that group, I'd suspect the Cirrus crowd to be the most likely to have sufficient influence (both social media-wise and monetary-wise) to maybe get Congress to intervene and have the FAA broadly approve an unleaded candidate. We'll see, I suppose. We live in interesting times! Meanwhile, I'll be busy trying to convince my home-drome to get a tank of ethanol-free mogas for the lower-class piston peasants on the field.
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Years ago, I worked with a local airport manager to see about providing autogas on the field. We evaluated a few options at the time. I forget the numbers, so I will just list them from most expensive to least as I recall. The manager was predicting just a few thousand gallons a month in sales if memory serves.
1. Install a permanent storage tank.
2. Rent a full size tanker trailer, and buy a used pump truck that is not road certified.
3. Buy a used pump truck that is road certified, and when the truck runs out, go buy the fuel (figured the truck would be gone most of the day).
4. Buy a much larger pump truck that is not road certified, work with a local gas station to get autogas when they do.

The downside of the last option; you are stuck ordering fuel only when the local gas station needs it also. This shared load cut the costs for all involved.

Good luck, the numbers were not pretty.

Tim
 
I suspect the innospec announcement is in the same category as the EAGLE timeline. You know, like how American has "firm" orders for electric aircraft? Maybe Deltahawk is a better example... certification was coming "any day now" for about 10 years. It eventually happened, but we had all kind of given up on it by the time it did. Just pretend Elon said it: double the timeline and you'll pretty close. Press Releases have little connection with reality, and I'd bet they actually turn off the switch the same day the FAA announces the replacement fuel.
 
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Jim K said:
I suspect the innospec announcement is in the same category as the EAGLE timeline.
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Except that the degradation of the TEL production infrastructure will eventually have a hard end date. Maybe it's 2030, maybe it's not, but what it absolutely isn't is infinitely far in the future.
 
Jim_R said:
Except that the degradation of the TEL production infrastructure will eventually have a hard end date. Maybe it's 2030, maybe it's not, but what it absolutely isn't is infinitely far in the future.
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Clearly. It's not just a coincidence though that their announced date matches up with the eagle mandate. Nor (do I suspect at least) will it be a coincidence that they decide they can squeeze a few more years out of the old girl when the FAA announces that "now we're definitely, really, actually, totally getting rid of leaded avgas by 2035".

For that matter, we have no idea of the condition of the physical plant. Might be tip-top for all we know. It mightve been brand new in 1975 and could last a century at current production levels.
 
Jim K said:
Clearly. It's not just a coincidence though that their announced date matches up with the eagle mandate. Nor (do I suspect at least) will it be a coincidence that they decide they can squeeze a few more years out of the old girl when the FAA announces that "now we're definitely, really, actually, totally getting rid of leaded avgas by 2035".

For that matter, we have no idea of the condition of the physical plant. Might be tip-top for all we know. It mightve been brand new in 1975 and could last a century at current production levels.
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It's true that Innospec hasn't publicly advertised the condition of their plant. But knowledgeable people in the field have some insight and can make reasonable inferences. From the OP of this thread:
First, a little bit about the TEL manufacturing process. TEL comes from the reaction of metallic lead alloyed with sodium to form a reactive sodium-lead alloy. This alloy is then bubbled with ethyl chloride (chloroethane) gas in a controlled reaction vessel. The process itself is not just toxic, but corrosive, and the reaction equipment is of finite life, limited by corrosion allowances.

It is very likely that Innospec’s statements about stopping the production of TEL by 2030 are based on its estimates of remaining corrosion allowance in the equipment. Periodically, significant investment is required to replace or renew that equipment. It wouldn’t make economic sense for Innospec to make that re-investment with the end of TEL in sight.
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Is that gospel? No. But it's probably closer to the truth than an estimate of 100 years of life left in the plant.
 
GLMS_NC said:
Told ya. 2030 ain't gonna happen.

avbrief.com

2030 Unleaded Fuel Deadline To Slip, New 'Roadmap' in the Works - AvBrief.com

FAA Deputy Administrator Chris Rocheleau says "no drop and go" unleaded replacement for 100LL has been identified.
avbrief.com avbrief.com
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Already posted back in post #291, and indeed is the subject of the following nearly 20 posts. Again, the feds can "slip" the deadline all they like, but they have no authority over the only source of acceptable TEL, which has announced that they will shutter production in 2030. Without that TEL, there's no 100LL, irrespective of the legislative deadline. Will Innospec play ball? Maybe. Maybe not. Only time will tell. I wouldn't count on it, unless Innospec makes a public announcement that they will continue production.
 
AvNavCom said:
which has announced that they will shutter production in 2030
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~2028, actually. Their intention was to empty the stockpile after that. If the FAA held to their original date, would you want to be holding warehouses full of worthless and corrosive toxic material on 12/31/2030?
 
asicer said:
~2028, actually. Their intention was to empty the stockpile after that. If the FAA held to their original date, would you want to be holding warehouses full of worthless and corrosive toxic material on 12/31/2030?
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I stand corrected! That makes a lot more sense.
 
It took roughly four years for Congress to pass the original extension of PAFI to EAGLE giving an end date of 2030; and that was with the complete alphabet of interested parties advocating for it.
Considering that Congress has become even more dysfunctional, how many believe Congress will actually act fast enough, and provide enough of a runway for Innospec to recover any investment made to extend production.

Tim
 
AvNavCom said:
Already posted back in post #291, and indeed is the subject of the following nearly 20 posts. Again, the feds can "slip" the deadline all they like, but they have no authority over the only source of acceptable TEL, which has announced that they will shutter production in 2030. Without that TEL, there's no 100LL, irrespective of the legislative deadline. Will Innospec play ball? Maybe. Maybe not. Only time will tell. I wouldn't count on it, unless Innospec makes a public announcement that they will continue production.
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Long before 3 days ago I posted 2030 would not happen. Innospec.... all I will say is stay tuned.
 
At some point, the valuable asset (TEL) becomes an expensive liability. There must have been some interesting discussions at Innospec regarding how late to hit the brakes. The cost of a bad decision would encourage a conservative approach.
 
The weird thing is that at the Monday Airventure forum on unleaded, the FAA folks swore that Innospec has never given a shutdown date. But I know at least one aviation news source says they have. I don't know the truth anymore.
 
Half Fast said:
Could you give us the gist of his talk?
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Ok - the gist.

Introduction. Pilot for many years. Electrical engineer by trade. Flies a 182 based a Reid-Hillview in San Jose. That airport banned 100LL and so everyone was forced to G100UL or go get gas elsewhere. His Pponk engine was not approved on the STC for G100UL so he couldn't use it. Soon after use of G100UL at the airport, heard a lot of issues coming up with people around the field. Talked to those people. Got curious himself as to being able to reproduce those issues. Began doing his own independent, non-controlled, in-his-garage testing out of curiousity.

His testing is all shown in his Youtube videos. He was able to get G100UL (from the airport of course) and then later was able to get 100R from Swift and UL100E from VP/Lyondell. Nobody is paying him to do testing. All of the expenses come from his own pocket. He is not sponsored. All of this is on his own time and dime. This did not start as a crusade against anyone or a goal to make lots of Youtube videos. He was just curious since it was front and center at his airport.

He has tested all sorts of things. Paint, o-rings; fuel valve gaskets, bladders, etc. He even tested fuel sampler bottles. The G100UL one turned yellow very quickly. None of the other fuels have shown any noticeable issues.

His slides from the presentation are here: https://sites.google.com/view/unleaded-avgas
 
737steve said:
At some point, the valuable asset (TEL) becomes an expensive liability. There must have been some interesting discussions at Innospec regarding how late to hit the brakes. The cost of a bad decision would encourage a conservative approach.
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That time is long past. The Port Ellesmere facility is a major liability and has significant reserves set aside with the expectation of it being closed and the resulting remediation work that would have to happen. They've already had significant write downs from exiting the TEL business for automotive fuels in 2019. They don't even report that as a segment anymore. The remediation costs, like most other costs are only going up. They want out of the business. It's a miniscule share of their total revenue, and the fixed costs of operating make it a likely loser of a fully loaded basis.
 
let's imagine that Congress extends the deadline

The TEL supplier stops production and sale of TEL in 2030 anyway.

Then Congresscritters can say it wasn't a federal mandate that killed 100LL
 
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