When I attend Oshkosh, I spend most of my time trying to find what is new or changed in fuels, lubricants, and engines.
For the last several years, the big story in fuels was the proposed 100 octane unleaded avgas.
The development and testing of new fuels has gone on for well over 25 years and was supposed to be completed many times over.
Well, it is still not ready for the real world and may not be for the foreseeable future.
[Read more…]I have just returned from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2019 and really enjoyed the show.
So, what is the state of the general aviation industry as judged by things at Oshkosh? It seemed to be the normal good news/bad news thing.
Let’s get to the bad news first: There is still a shortage of technical people in many of the exhibitor booths.
But there’s much more good news.
[Read more…]In several of my previous columns, I have proposed that part of the problem with general aviation is the lack of new technology in piston-powered aircraft.
The fact that the engines are based on 1930s and 1940s technology means that many of today’s future pilots do not relate to their operating systems.
I proposed that manufacturers adapt technology from the automotive world to new aviation engines. I have received a lot of responses. The two most common are “Do you know how much that will cost?” and “Pilots prefer the old tried and proven engines.”
[Read more…]When I was young, I used to watch the TV series Dragnet. One of the famous lines from that series was “The facts, ma’am, just the facts.”
But today the question has become what are the facts and whose facts are correct?
When I watch the news, on almost every issue, one party will show facts and/or data showing their side and the other party will show just the opposite. So, which one is correct? Well kind of sort of both.
[Read more…]In my January column I wrote that not all 100 octane fuels are the same. Now it has been reported that the 100UL avgas program has been more or less put on hold. The reasons given were technical problems and the change in administrations in Washington.
This begs the questions: “Why did the program go on in the first place?” and “Why would big oil companies put so much money into a program that may not go anywhere?”
[Read more…]When I started in the fuels and lubes research business in 1967, a big part of my job was to monitor changes in automotive technology and the effect that these changes had on the fuels and lubricant requirements.
I remember the first emission control engines and their effect on temperature and operating conditions. I followed the technology through VW’s electronic fuel injection to electronic ignition, EGR, catalytic converters, and on and on.
The new technology worked very well, except for a few initial problems like when one of the manufacturers used aluminum connectors in its electronic ignition circuits. Just a small amount of corrosion increased the resistance and the engines died. But these gremlins were worked out and the new systems work very well.
[Read more…]In my January column, “All 100 octane fuels are not equal,” I explained some of the problems with assuming that an octane rating is an absolute number. One of the comments from that column concerned cetane rating for compression ignition — diesel cycle — engines.
In general, octane ratings and cetane ratings are more or less opposite. In other words, the higher the octane rating the lower the cetane rating and vice versa.
Although it is not a straight line relationship, it does follow a general trend. In octane rating we are measuring a fuel’s ability to limit auto-ignition, while the cetane rating is a measurement of a fuel’s quickness or ease to auto-ignite. [Read more…]
Recently, a friend of mine was working on a Holly carburetor off his vintage car when his nephew stopped by. The nephew looked at the carburetor and asked “what does that thing do?”
The scary point here is that the nephew had just graduated from a technical school with a degree in auto mechanics!
If new auto mechanics don’t know what a carburetor is, then how difficult is it going to be to teach Millenials how to fly?
Alas, here is a list of some, but not all, of the problems with teaching them to become pilots. [Read more…]
In the past few years, I have written a lot of columns about octane ratings. However, the questions I receive indicate there is still a lot of confusion as to what the ratings systems are and their relationship to each other.
Many people do not realize that the octane rating of a fuel is not a physical property of the fuel, like specific gravity or pour point. It is a performance perimeter that gives a rating for the fuel under very tightly controlled lab conditions.
How that fuel will perform in the real world under a variety of conditions is another matter. [Read more…]
At this time of year, pilots are wondering about winter oil and what is the best practice for their airplanes.
Many pilots are still confused about when, where — or even if — they should use a multigrade oil. They also wonder whether they can go back and forth without harming their engines. [Read more…]
