The FAA this week named the organizations that will have seats on its unleaded avgas transition aviation rulemaking committee (ARC), which is tasked to investigate the current issues relating to the transition to an unleaded fuel, and recommend the tasks necessary to investigate and resolve these issues.
Five members of the General Aviation Avgas Coalition will serve on the ARC, including the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the American Petroleum Institute, the Experimental Aircraft Association, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, and the National Air Transportation Association. The Clean 100 Coalition, representing users of aircraft with high compression engines, will have a seat. Cessna, Cirrus, Teledyne Continental, and Lycoming will represent airframe and engine manufacturers. Shell, ExxonMobil, General Aviation Modifications, Inc. (GAMI), and Swift fuels will represent refiners and alternative fuel developers. The Environmental Protection Agency, the FAA’s Emissions Division of the Office of Environment and Energy, and the Friends of the Earth will represent environmental interests.
“The chartering of the rulemaking committee and naming of its members is clear evidence that the FAA is stepping into a leadership role on the issue – a role that is vital if we’re going to succeed in finding an unleaded alternative,” said Rob Hackman, AOPA’s vice president of regulatory affairs and liaison to the GA Avgas Coalition. “The agency will have to certify current and future aircraft engines to operate on any new fuel and has pulled together a group that can identify the issues that need to be addressed, from production to distribution to operations to environmental impact.”
The ARC is expected to issue a report by the end of July that provides recommendations for a collaborative industry-government initiative to “facilitate the development and deployment of an unleaded avgas with the least impact on the existing piston-engine aircraft fleet.”
The head of the FAA’s Engine and Propeller Directorate has the option to extend the charter by an additional six months.
For more information: FAA.gov
More years ago than I care to remember I attended a talk at Oshkosh by a Shell engineer on this subject. His punchline: Just give us a spec and we’ll make the fuel. That begs the question: Why should it be so hard to come up with a spec, since we have proof positive that Mogas works just fine in most, probably 90%, of GA engines and octane enhancers and knock preventers have a long track record with fuels for combustion engines and could be “approved” for the few engines and applications that require it. Let’s focus on the 10% and, in the interim, cut the crap with the boutique Mogas fuels and give us a true petroleum product at each pump in the nation. BTW: What expertise do “Friends of the Earth” bring to this table?
Is there any substantial difference between the new FAA ARC and its equally ineffective predecessor, the GA Avgas Coalition? Is this anything more than a shuffling of the same chairs, with the same people going through the motions of trying to appear worthy of their K Street jobs?
I have a question that might sound, at first blush, impertinent. My question is, since there are so relatively few aircraft that burn leaded (low lead) fuel, and since our planet is so enormous, why are we to spend such huge amounts of resources to eliminate what must be a negligible atmospheric contaminant? This program of eliminating lead from av gas seems to be a ZEN-LIKE RELIGIOUS BATTLE engaged in by religious fanatics called “environmentalists”. This program should be rejected by the aviation industry; In other words we must reject the false paradigm of the Washington D. C. parasites who COUNT ON “We the People” being GUTLESS and spineless automatons who actually accept the lie that the minuscule amounts of low lead av gas produced and burned are an environmental concern. Fellow pilots, lets “GROW A PAIR!” Lets speak plainly and refuse to be DOORMATS. We need to argue against providing the parasites with another excuse to continue their valueless endeavor; that of being model “environmentalists.” If we who fly low lead burning aircraft and instruct in those aircraft will not trouble ourselves to be honest, then it is time for us to forget about flight because we do not have the visceral equipment to engage in such a vocation.
Andrew Edward Briseno, CFI, Instrument Airplane, and Licensed Attorney in California, Nevada & Alaska.
So where is the representative for the other approved aviation fuel, which happens to be unleaded already, that is disappearing because of EPA inaction? Why don’t we have equal representation for all approved aviation fuels that are in jeopardy? Why isn’t their a voice for the 80+% of aircraft that need ethanol free mogas which is rapidly disappearing?