Oshkosh Bound: Has anything changed in the last year?

By DEAN BILLING.

As I was preparing my motorhome for the trip to AirVenture 2016, it dawned on me that I haven’t written anything for the GA Fuels blog in quite sometime. Perhaps that’s because not much is happening in the aviation fuel arena despite the nagging problems of TEL contamination and the perceptible decline in general aviation overall. The decline shows up in piston aircraft sales and the steady decline in avgas production.

Here is a short review of what has happened since AirVenture 2015:

• Despite the TEL contamination brouhaha in California, not one airport in California is supplying unleaded fuel (mogas) for the thousands of aircraft that could use it.
• Despite a TEL contamination brouhaha and an expensive environmental study and mogas mitigation proposal at Hillsboro Airport in Oregon, no unleaded fuel is available at any additional airports in Oregon, other than the two that had it before the firestorm.
• According to the mogas airports statistics on my flyunleaded website, there are three fewer airports selling mogas than there were a year ago.
• The selection of the two unleaded 100 octane fuels for further testing was announced more than a month late after 18 months of research. Does not bode well for the more than two years remaining until the possible selection is made and there is no guarantee when it will be produced … unless TEL disappears since there is only one company making it. Perhaps we will learn more at the PAFI forum at AirVenture. Maybe I’ll see you there.
• One bright spot in the unleaded aviation fuel conundrum is the spread of Swift UL94 to 15 airports since its announcement at AirVenture 2015. Swift will be presenting several forums about UL94 at Airventure. Maybe I’ll see you at this one.

In any event, I do plan on being at AirVenture 2016 and will be presenting a forum that has nothing to do with aviation fuel. If you would like to understand how to keep your iPads, other tablets, phones and ADS-B boxes charged whether flying on leaded or unleaded fuel, maybe I’ll see you at this forum.

Of course, I would rather you fly on unleaded fuel.