Has General Aviation Modifications found the replacement for 100LL? It’s developing a new fuel called G100UL and AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli took a sneak peek last week in a test flight.
The new fuel is made entirely of petroleum components using what GAMI’s George Braly describes as well-known refining techniques, Bertorelli reports.
Find out more here.
WE are using an STC on our Cessna’s that alows us to run 95% ethanol – can run 100% but they need to denature it so the ground crew’s don’t drink it. We are paying $1.50 per gallon this week for fuel and pump it ourselves. Anyone in the Texas area is welcome to come for a flight here in Houston in one of the 5 planes we are running this on.
We use the planes for survey work and pilot training.
Bruce Gustafson – 832-326-5367
Neither the reporter nor the GAMI rep seemed to understand the bureaucratic hurdles of getting a new unleaded avgas approved. It cannot be merged into the ASTM spec for 100 LL, D910, because that spec requires some lead. That is why the new 91 UL avgas spec requested by DOD had to go through a new approval process and ended up with a new number. It is also why 94 UL will have a new ASTM number. They are a long way, from approval, unless TEL disappears, which is a good possibility.
Another interesting catch is that avgas represents just 0.14% of the gasoline production in the US, it was about 186 million gallons in 2008. I’m sure the gasoline industry would love to stop making 100 LL and handling TEL, but as has been pointed out, the gasoline will be an expensive boutique fuel.
Did everyone catch the reference from the reporter about Swift Fuel that said the economics aren’t “looking too promising”?