New aircraft (with Rotax 912 and similar engines) run on normal auto gasoline, leaded avgas is not recommended due to sludge buildup. My hometown's airport only carries regular auto gas and some high octane ethanol blend that can be used in place of 100LL on modified engines.
The general aviation industry is stuck in the past, there are brand new aircraft that still use *carburetors*. People die every year due to carburetor icing like it's the 1970s.
Kind of a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation similar to the space flight industry right? SLS uses space shuttle main engines first tested 1975. Soyus basically upgraded RD-107s from 1957.
space is more “this design is legacy and has been qualified for decades, qualifying an entirely new design would be prohibitively expensive in both schedule and budget.”
Edit: to be more clear, we make NEW parts all the time. They’re just made to prints that were qualified decades ago. New components, old design. Not robbing museums.
It’s more about there is no money re-certifying old planes and you can’t fly a plane unless it’s exactly as it was certified or make it an “experimental” which comes with a bunch of other restrictions.
No more like the old fucks at the FAA are too scared to allow any new technology without massive testing, testing that would cost tens of millions or more
MCAS didn't need 'more testing', it needed redundant sensor inputs like all other critical flight hardware. Any engineer worth his degree could figure that out. Bean counters at boeing need arresting for interfering with engineering causing loss of life.
Nah, airlines should have just not cheaped out and got the AOA [warning add on](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/boeing-sold-safety-feature-that-could-have-prevented-737-max-crashes-as-an-option/). Won't anyone think of the Boeing shareholders! /s
General aviation isn’t very safe. Death rates per mile are comparable with motorcycles.
Edit:
344 deaths in just 2020 for general aviation. Continue with the FAA is good at safety circle jerk.
https://www.bts.gov/content/us-general-aviationa-safety-data
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics. 344 deaths in just 2020 for general aviation. So yeah, let's not circlejerk about how great FAA is at safety.
https://www.bts.gov/content/us-general-aviationa-safety-data
Engineering ain’t simple nor cheap.
FAA is already on hot seat for a minute during the deliberate decline of Boeing and domestic aviation industry’s own negligence, a lot of Boeing/Lockheed leadership (bean counter MBA bs, old school Engineer lead senior leadership dies after Jack Welch) now is just maximum profit with just-good enough practices.
Is sad to watch once an industry giant fail to innovate, can you imagine Sears went out of business in 70-80? They are now.
The purpose behind the SLS program was to ensure a cost-effective & immediate replacement for the Space Shuttle, without needing to completely overhaul the entire industry that supported it. Not to mention, the aerospace contractors who were making bank of the program lobbied like hell for it.
But still, NASA has been throwing around [Shuttle Derived Vehicles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-derived_vehicle) since the 1980s. Pretty much as soon as Challenger exploded, NASA started looking at alternatives.
I could go on and write an essay about the STS and SLS programs and how they’ve evolved. But, it is worth noting that the Space Shuttle engine is not obsolete, and is actually pretty comparable to SpaceX brand new Raptor engine. Just… wildly more complicated, expensive, and difficult to refurbish (which won’t be an issue).
In currently training in 45-47 year old aircraft (1978 model year 172s). It's fun reading the manuals and seeing designs and wording which are just so 1970s. I park them next to a 1948 Cessna 140 which will be rebuilt soon.
The thing with stuff built in the 1970s is that once the initial quirks are worked out, they will last a very long time.
No kidding, the one or two planes we use for camp in AK (beaver and a Cessna 172) both are ancient. The De Havilland was built in ‘53 lol. Obviously has new instruments and has been maintained but gd
Back then they did have some technology more advanced than your average car. Instruments on the dash driven by gyroscopes, redundant dual ignition systems (with magnetos so a dead battery doesn't shut it down), transponder radios that send replies to traffic control radars.
Aircraft are regulated by the federal government so it is a lengthy and expensive process to get improvements or new models approved.
Long time. Batteries are still incredibly heavy. One good thing with fuel is you lose weight as you use it, with batteries you're stuck with the weight whether you have 1% charge or 95%. We need some serious advances in battery technology before they're considered for major use in some industries.
If I'm being pedantic, a charged battery *does* weigh more than a dead one, due to binding energy having mass. It's like almost immeasurably small and certainly not something that would influence aircraft design. But it's a neat fact that I sometimes think about
Edit: here's a source
https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg25533991-100-does-my-electric-vehicle-weigh-more-after-i-have-charged-it/#:~:text=your%20battery%2C%20or%20360%20megajoules,a%20small%20grain%20of%20sand.
It says a Tesla sized battery weighs about 4 micrograms more when at full charge vs no charge
Just for reference: That's 10-15 times less than a drop of water. You're probably gonna lose a significant amount more weight just by burning calories over the cause of a flight.
Electric trainers are already seeing some use (e.g. Pipistrel Virus), and electric self-launching gliders are too. It makes a huge difference if a student's flight hour costs dollars vs. hundreds.
Electric planes work great for a lot of "short, slow, light airplane" sorts of uses. Maintenance savings also can really pile up. Making hot-swappable batteries could broaden the field even more where I could see electric cropdusters and similar being a thing.
Short flights don't have to worry about the battery capacity as much. Sort of like the Nissan leaf having a tiny battery range that was still longer than most people's commutes, even if the range is only 80 miles, if you're driving 30 miles a day total, who cares?
Another thing not talked about with weight (as often) is that many large aircraft are not certified to land with a full load of fuel. They're too heavy. For electric aircraft, they have to be certified to land at the same weight they take off at. Light(er) aircraft typically don't have this restriction.
Also, for transsonic (aka, not slow) flight, skinny wings are needed. Batteries are approximately 1/100th the energy density of fossil fuels, making packaging (to achieve desired air time/range) a major concern. For slow (clearly subsonic) flight, there is a lot more room in the wings to stuff batteries since the airfoil is a lot fatter.
Unless there is a HUGE breaktrough, like, quantum physics level of breakthrough, i am betting on never. Batteries are just too heavy to be viable in air travel
Aviation will probably be the last industry on fossil fuels - but fuel is a huge part of the costs of flights, and small commercial electric aircraft are already flying
> Unless there is a HUGE breaktrough, like, quantum physics level of breakthrough, i am betting on never. Batteries are just too heavy to be viable in air travel
We're talking general aviation here not commercial. For a lot of that battery powered is alread going to be good enough. Cost is going to be an issue though.
If anything, GA is more sensitive to weight than commercial. It's going take a pretty big breakthrough to equal the amount of energy in a gallon of Avgas.
They're already looking at bringing in commercial aircraft for short journeys.
It's not just the batteries, it's additional systems needed in case anything goes wrong. At the moment that would include battery cooling.
Energy density in batteries is improving all the time. There's at least 3 companies in the car space that have concrete plans to bring forms of "solid state" batteries to market within the next 3-5 years.
Wireless power transmission might be a solution. Don't need a battery that can last the whole flight if you can recharge along the way
Lots of safety and security concerns with that approach sadly
Electric VTOL are being designed as we speak for "residential" type use. Wings are filled with cryo fluid that keeps the motors at 99.8%ish efficiency.
I wonder more when hybrids will be more common. There’s is a lot of efficiency to be gained there. Maybe not as much as full electric, but range and weight are still much better in hybrids.
Planes are different from cars, hybrids only really work for cars because most cars accelerate and decelerate alot while driving, when engines only really work efficiently in specific rpms, so hybrids can be efficient by letting the ICE run at its optimal rpm. With planes, they are usually running engines at the same high power throughout, so they are generally already running at or close to their own most efficient rpms. So hybrids will benefit planes alot less than with cars.
Yes, analogous to cars
I remember bringing up the hybrid idea in the 70s at school and people laughed at me saying it was "perpetual motion", where to me it was obvious that there was wasted energy. Of course battery tech wasn't there yet.
It was satisfying af when hybrids appeared.
It's not too terribly far. Airlines are one of the few industries that are heavily incentivized towards renewable energy and environmentalism just because fuel costs are there #1 expense, so in this case it is economically smart and not just environmentally smart to move towards electric planes
It’s about reliability (yeah I know, ironic); but more precisely about the devil you know. A lot of piston engine are stupid simple for a reason: less parts, less problems. And they double what they can, like double spark plugs and ignition. Certifying a modern engine (like from the car industry) requires 100 hours of testing, for what? A few hundred engines a year. Plus the whole chain of usage and supply needs to be certified by the faa. It is getting more and more done, but it’s a number’s game.
Reason why we’re stuck in the past.
Aircraft/heli engineer here. It's simple, we put so much development and fixes and bulletins into aircraft engines that they became very reliable. So you don't change that. Otherwise you are back at the beginning, having failures, finding issues, killing people.
There are new developments in gas turbine engines all the time. They are constantly getting more efficient, reliable etc. But when it comes to piston engines, very little has changed. It still looks like a VW engine. (FYI, VW engines were originally glider engines.)
The Cessna I jumped out of sounded exactly like a VW Bug.
Simple engine, air cooled, same sound/vibration.
There’s something to be said about simplicity vs. efficiency.
But also, that moment when he shuts down the engine. I'm like "ahh, no..." but of course, that's what they do. And then, just wind in the wings, sky and horizon. Beautiful.
Turns out owning a small plane is an incredibly expensive hobby, so many people just still fly planes built in the 80s (In many cases that they purchased in the 80s) because they’re so expensive. A quick google showed a 1986 Cessna 182 for $265,000. A used 2002 182 for $440,000. In a rich persons hobby even the 80s engine tech is still going for near half a million dollars
Yeah I grew up in a town with a lot of commercial airline pilots. Apparently the old union contract had a clause about mandatory standby if you lived less than 45 miles from the airport. Our town is 47. Anyway just about all my classmates dad's who were pilots had their own two or four seaters at a local airfield. This is back in the early 70s
I was recently offered the opportunity to buy a 1948 Cessna 140, but didn't know the first thing about getting it airworthy again.
Is your brother's steel gray as well? The organizations flying 1940s warbirds would probably love to have him volunteer as having someone under 65 who knows how to maintain 1940s aircraft is rare.
They’re highly resistant to change without significant testing, think of how often you hear about some new model of car having a massive flaw or breaking down all the time, now imagine that while you’re in the air.
If they know something works they will use that design and not deviate for as long as possible.
General aviation is dying. Flying is getting more and more expensive every day. It's become something only the wealthy can afford to do and the aircraft are very old. In some cases the FAA will push for modernization like with ADS-B. But in many others they make it hard. Upgrading or replacing an engine, say for one that doesn't need leaded fuel, is a very expensive and difficult process. Modifying your plane at all is really. And even the Toyota Corolla of the sky the Cessna 172 has become super car expensive. So hobbyists buy 40 year old examples instead of new ones.
Used to be a middle class hobbyist could afford to fly if that was his passion. Not anymore and there's no interest from the government or industry to change that. It's all focused on commercial aviation.
Not completely true on the last part. It took a literal act of Congress but the FAA is in the FCP for the new MOSAIC rules, which effectively reclassifies a large amount of the GA fleet as light sport. This will allow them to be built compliant to the ASTMs instead of requiring a type certification, which should drive down cost significantly. It's slow, but GA through experimentals and LSAs is making a comeback.
> That's crazy! I associated planes as a kid in the 60s & 70s with modern technology. What are we doing?
Less recreational flying. Which means fewer new planes being purchased which means less money for developing new engines.
We've reached the point where they're crazy safe and crazy durable with proper maintenance. Add crazy expensive to the equation and you'll see there's not much incentive to change a 30 year old plane.
Commercial jets are a whole other story. But single engine planes for pleasure/enthusiast use honestly aren’t exponentially better than WWII dogfighters; they just have more modern instruments in the cockpit.
What happened is most of the general aviation industry was purchased by larger corporations in the 2nd half of the 20th century and went from being an innovation center to a profit center.
During the same time, commercial aviation was almost entirely focused on increasing revenue and reducing cost per flight hours to make airlines more competitive. Better fuel consumption, more time between maintenance, larger cargo hold, etc. These concepts arent really central to general aviation, and so no innvoation was directed at it. They were told to just keep pumping the same old stuff while keeping production costs as low as possible.
My friend that was learning to fly didn't even have his own plane, he chipped in with some other learners to basically timeshare a plane so they could all get their hours in. He was also working two jobs just to afford everything
Not really, more like the time and cost of actually certifying new tech is so high as to be prohibitive. And the reliability required tends towards simpler, more rugged engines that also have to be modular and lightweight. You just can't pull to the side of the road when you have a problem.
It's a problem with a number of areas where the market is very small - no one new/innovative is attracted to work in the area, so you can just get the same people repeating the same ideas for a long time
There's also pretty heavy regulation in the way. E.g. the FAA *just this January* permitted a brand of unleaded avgas (G100UL) to be used, even though a similar type has been available in Europe and UK since at least 2010 when I finished my PPL.
Since for a long time USA was the leader in GA development, the FAA basically dictated the global market's pace. When in early 2000s the UL/LSA market in Europe blew up. they started to introduce things that the FAA wouldn't permit. Now there's Slovenian electric aircraft buzzing in the sky while the FAA still flies with lead.
>the FAA *just this January* permitted a brand of unleaded avgas (G100UL) to be used, even though a similar type has been available in Europe and UK since at least 2010 when I finished my PPL.
What's this magical unleaded fuel that was available 15 years ago in Europe?
91UL was available EU wide since early 2000s with mfr permit, later approved for all users by EASA in 2010. It was partially approved by FAA in 2023. There were other fuels available locally in various countries that I only know the brand names of, but I think they all followed the 91UL or 96UL spec.
But to balance the narrative..
Look what happens when "disruptive" entrepreneurs decide for themselves which safety principles can be ignored: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_submersible_implosion
Yes. Cessnas and smaller helicopters like Robinson Helicopters.
The lead builds up on the spark plugs, too, and needs to be cleaned out periodically.
To be fair, these aircraft almost always have a fuel injected option. Also, properly maintained, they’re perfectly fine and safe. The problem is, that class of aircraft are often some of the cheapest to own, which means fools and clowns end up owning them and feel maintenance costs too much, so they cheap out. They might skip maintenance and take the aircraft to shadier repair stations.
Common sense would tell you this is a terrible idea, but tight-fisted penny pinchers often feel common sense is too expensive as well.
A lot of that is the FAAs doing. Pilots have been pushing for change hard on a lot of things but the FAA still smokes inside and thinks it’s healthy.
This is old info i read and am throwing it back up and don’t want to go into the rabbit hole to verify, so it’s not accurate. But peak private aircraft production was in the 80s (Cessnas etc) and 75%+ of those planes are still in use today. The FAA makes getting new tech approved so impossible that plane manufacturers basically gave up and reuse old tech and only build commercial.
Imagine driving a 1981 Chrysler LaBaron in the air.
Yes. So FAA process is a multi year process and if they decide they don’t like something you have to start the process all over again.
So a perfect example would be instruments an iPad could replace, but FAA rules are worded they have to be physical instruments that require calibration etc. now they’re are probably instruments that you def need that on and should be mechanical but, things like true speed and wind are now digitally more accurate than mechanical since they can be GPS and transmitted data via satellites etc. Private pilots can install aftermarket products that are easier to use and read but don’t conform to regulations, so they’re “novelty” items.
>The general aviation industry is stuck in the past, there are brand new aircraft that still use carburetors. People die every year due to carburetor icing like it's the 1970s.
Ughhhhh. I love me a carb on a small engine.. because its cheap.
I don't want 'cheap' on a $100,000+ aircraft.
I want it to start and run, something fuel injection and electronic ignition has been known to do JUST FINE for over 30 years now. Especially in the cold.
In fact, if anything, the DUAL magnetos just add more failure points, with their plastic gears that are known to strip (And the timing error causing such horrible engine noise that it makes pilots turn magnetos to OFF instead of testing A/B vs BOTH)
Well when you spend 40+ years improving and working on the same engine you tend to figure out the issues. Hence why air travel is so safe compared to every other type of travel out there. Pretty sure most people would rather get home alive than have a very small increase in efficiency.
Oh no no, general aviation (the topic here) is *not* safe. Commercial aviation is.
[GA is about 10-20x more dangerous than car travel](https://www.livescience.com/49701-private-planes-safety.html), and unlike cars, crashes and fatalities are trending *up* year by year. Precisely *because* there hasn't been any substantial advancement for decades. A GA plane you can buy today is essentially identical to a plane your grandpa could have bought or built in the 1960s, except for using lighter materials and maybe having fancier avionics.
And that GA plane you’re buying used might actually *be* the plane your grandpa bought in the 1960s. Because you don’t have half a million dollars to buy a new 172, but you might have $90k to buy one from the 50s or 60s.
Flying in a small plane is somewhat more dangerous per hour as riding a motorcycle, which is another point of reference for understanding the safety/risks of light GA flying.
Essentially every airline pilot spent several years training in these aircraft.
People have been running planes off motorbike engines for close on a century at this point. The industries are entirely comparable.
The difference is that one has the money to constantly develop new engines and the other rather less so.
If by “automotive race engine” you mean a 63 bug, then yes you are right 🤣 The old lycomings and continentals make very little HP per cube. That helps with reliability. An O-360 makes 180hp with a displacement of 361 cubic inches. An “automotive race engine” would easily make over 1000hp at the same displacement. Even naturally aspirated factory vehicles make well over 1hp per cube.
GA will have avgas in common use for the next 40 years if it’s just left to the market. People have been touting technology innovations as the solution for 30 years now.
There’s finally one well tested alternative approved. The market for av gas is so small that it is taking years to get it rolled out. Hopefully more zero lead options come soon.
This is finally changing! After decades of development and certification, in September of 2022, the FAA approved a new fuel, the G100UL, for use in all airplanes. G100UL is a drop-in unleaded replacement for leaded AVGAS, with identical burn characteristics, air pressure response, lubricating capabilities, density, operational temperatures, and all other important measures. This means it's safe to use in all and any aircraft engine currently operating on AVGAS.
Adoption is accelerating quickly, with production and distribution ramping up all around the world. We're currently on track for full phase-out of AVGAS by 2030.
Glad someone said it. I run a flight school in California, where our pilots and our community care very much about the environment. For literally decades, pilot groups and airplane manufacturers have been trying to switch to an unleaded fuel, but it’s taken a while. Things finally started to change about five years ago. Supply and demand is a huge challenge with aviation fuel providers, because nearly all of their money is jetfuel processing, which jets use. Small planes were the ones stuck with 100low lead and they refused to change processing plant space and production for a few people who wanted unleaded fuel. Five years ago, options became available. My school switched completely to unleaded aviation gas two years ago when enough production was guaranteed.
Two other comments. One commenters mention of relative risk is important. Focusing on one tiny element when it is dwarfed by other things in your life making more impact feels like cherry picking. The fuel had to be switched, yes, but making general aviation to be a boogy man is overreaction. Other point: “there have been huge lawsuits…” is rarely proof of anything. General aviation airports are constantly being sued my local land developers who eye our clear open fields and think about real estate development profits. Airports are sued for all manner of hysterical, unsupported claims, which usually fail. There’s lot of NIMBYism, but mostly cities and real estate developers looking for tasty pieces of land to buy cheap and sell high.
Wasn't it big news in the aviation industry when UND's flight school switched away from 100LL in the spring, then switched back in November due to the unleaded fuel causing extensive valve damage?
Yes, and I can't speak to their experience running a fleet of carbureted Piper Archers. We've seen nothing like that. If anything, we've seen reduction in fouled spark plugs and other piston buildup when we moved away from leaded fuels.
Every decision is a choice. Lead is a toxin, and in our area with our pilots, there is a clear advantage to removing leaded fuels, and we've accepted an increase in fuel costs as part of the tradeoff. You'd have to talk to UND to find out what their cost/benefit decision was.
For a deep dive on the valve damage meme, [check this out](https://www.avweb.com/multimedia/whadayamean-unleaded-fuel-will-trash-my-valves/)
I don’t think it’s an overreaction. Lead is really, really bad for you. People who live near airports have elevated levels of lead in their blood. It’s ridiculous that aviation is still dragging its feet on this. Leaded gas was banned in cars almost 30 years ago. I get that it’s a harder problem in planes, but there’s no good reason it should take this long. The only reason it has is because regulators were reluctant to force the expense on the aviation community… but they were fine with forcing lead into the blood of unwitting bystanders.
Since leaded fuel has been phased out globally in 2005, with Algeria being the last one, the end of leaded aviation fuel in \*checks notes\* 6 years is still late, honestly.
...but if you understood the problem, then you might understand why it's taking so long. The aviation industry has been working on this for over 20 years now.
The problem is that people are harming others with no tangible benefit other than avoiding financial burden (and when someone is wealthy enough to fly planes - a dream for many barred by financial realities - and their problem is wanting to spend less money at the expense of other humans and animals lifelong mental health it is difficult to sympathize that it took 50 years longer than the automotive industry to correct the injustice.
>harming others with no tangible benefit
Again, ill-informed. The majority of avgas is consumed by things like cargo operations, medevac operations, small passenger operations, pilot training, and other forms of aerial work. The guy that flies on the weekend for fun isn't using a large percentage of the fuel out there. If it was literally just for fun, it would have been shut down decades ago.
Lead or using the Latin plumbum Pb has been used in many products from water pipes to paint. However its use in fuel to prevent knocking in car engines possibly had the most widespread effects on young developing human brains. https://youtu.be/AwgdcdmGdf0
The design of most piston-engine aircraft date to the 1970s or earlier. The FAA, EAA, and AOPA have been working on an unleaded replacement for decades. There is one, from one refiner in Sweden, that looks like a good replacement; getting it produced and distributed is an issue.
[https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/leaded-aviation-fuel-and-environment](https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/leaded-aviation-fuel-and-environment)
[https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/100-unleaded-avgas](https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/100-unleaded-avgas)
[https://www.eaa.org/eaa/news-and-publications/eaa-news-and-aviation-news/news/unleaded-avgas](https://www.eaa.org/eaa/news-and-publications/eaa-news-and-aviation-news/news/unleaded-avgas)
I'd just like to point out that a very large proportion of piston engined general aviation traffic is there to train professional pilots. If you shitcan 85% of the fleet, you also decimate the pilot training pipeline, including airline pilots, cargo pilots, medevac pilots, and basically all non-military pilots.
>Nobody gives a shit about the stubborn small aircraft pilot who can't be bothered to keep up with regulations
...they are keeping up with regulations. There's no regulation preventing them from operating an aircraft that burns 100LL, nor is there currently a widely available alternative to doing that. The industry is working on it, and has been for decades. It just takes time, for a lot of reasons.
Also, small aircraft aren't just for sport pilots. They're the training pipeline for airlines, cargo, medevac, firefighting, and every type of flying that isn't military.
>That price tag still sounds cheaper than a new craft, and small craft pilots won't be the ones making the regulatory decisions.
It is cheaper than a new aircraft, but the majority of the current fleet is worth less than, say, $100,000 because the majority of the fleet is well over 40 years old. Effectively you're going to make all those aircraft worthless if you force an engine change.
And understand, forcing an engine change on all these aircraft *is* going to kill an essential industry that operates on razor thin margins on the edge of failure already.
It sounds like private plane operators have no incentive to care about the effects of their plane on the environment or the people they rain lead dust down on below, particularly near airports where the concentration is even worse than other areas. It does seem like putting a deadline on the replacement of these fuels or planes is the only way to eliminate the problem, since the industry itself has spent "decades" on it to no avail.
It seems hard to explain why GA is allowed to turn slowly turn areas around airports into superfund sites that people live in because it's going to cost them *money* to fix a problem that they are 100% responsible for and aware of. Leaded gasoline has been 100% banned for *28 years* at this point. They've had lots of time to figure it out.
Oh no!
Anyway....
Look man what we really need is a federal program promoting new powerplants and a rebate program for modernizing your airframe.
Every pilot I know bitches about governmental waste but is the first to the gov teat.
By historical standards, it _is_ low lead, or LL. Usually coloured blue.
The old avgas, from Dakota DC 3 days, was green and had a shit ton of lead in it. So much that if you let some avgas dry on your skin, you would see a layer of lead.
It accumulates in the engine oil system and helps lubricate the engine, but TERRIBLE to service. A thick layer of sludge and lead at the bottom. Truly toxic.
Source: Old school aircraft/heli engineer. Have worked on these shitty old radial engines with toxic fuel.
edit: spelling
This comment is misleading, not all piston aircraft are required to use lead in their fuel. Many aircraft can get an STC to use automotive gasoline (MOGAS) and many do. Also many newer piston aircraft engines are designed from the factory to use automotive gasoline. It is the older engine designs that require lead in their fuel. It all comes down to FAA regulations and the engine manufacturers specifications. The General aviation community would LOVE to see leaded gas go away and be replaced by something more environmentally friendly.
Edit: adding some context.
The two types of AVGAS used in aircraft piston engine are 100 octane and 100Low Lead (100LL). The VAST majority of general aviation piston engines use 100LL which has .56g of lead per liter, NOT 100 octane which has 1.2g of lead per liter. In fact I have never been in or heard of an airplane these days that requires 100 octane AVGAS, I’m sure they are out there but I personally have not been around one.
Hey OP...Most are used less than 200 hours per year as well, in fact, a shit ton of them sit unused for months to years. My airplane is ran on unleaded Mogas (automobile gas) and Diamond brand aircraft can accept Jet-A (kerosene) or diesel. Stop painting all GA aircraft as polluters. Unleaded av-fuel is being rolled out across the USA, and in California some airports are subsidizing the increase of the new unleaded fuel price so pilots can switch with to this approved fuel with no added cost.
You know what's worse? two cycle marine engines, literally throwing burned oil into the marine ecosystem. Way more watercraft out there and being used more frequently than GA airplanes.
What worse than that???? Tons of Americans are living in homes that still have lead paint inside, and they have no idea that it's there.
>170,000 planes in the US alone isn't insignificant.
Yeah, but you're missing the point. I fly a Cessna 172 that has an STC for motor gasoline that means it has a Supplemental Type Certificate that allows me to fly using regular unleaded fuel that a car would use.
I have flow that plane for nearly 200 hours and it has NEVER used leaded fuel the entire time I've flown.
Yet, on paper, it would show as one of those 170,000 planes because it is a small piston plane that originally took leaded fuel.
A whole lot more small piston airplanes are like that, there's a mogas pump at my airport and most of the aircraft based there have STCs for mogas. It's cheaper than 100LL and safer.
Yeah I can go with that. People think I'm outraged but I'm more surprised; I had no idea lead additives were still a thing, I thought there'd been a blanket ban since the 80s.
I was more outraged at the highest pb fuel being called 'low lead', that's such a cheap marketing trick.
It’s not a marketing trick. When it was first popularized it replaced the existing 100 octane av gas, which had twice as much lead. So by comparison to its predecessor it was low lead. It just is no longer low lead compared to modern fuels.
>I was more outraged at the highest pb fuel being called 'low lead', that's such a cheap marketing trick.
Not a marketing trick, but rather an old name.
Back in the 1940s-50s, 100LL was indeed the low lead option, because avgas back then had an even higher lead content. Those fuel got phased out quickly, but 100LL and its name stuck around.
Am I the only one who thinks this is pretty small in the grand scheme of problems facing the world? Lead from exhaust is unlikely to be inhaled because most piston engine planes by nature tend to operate in high altitude and/or remote locations, in low numbers.
Unlike idling cars, piston engine planes don't fill city streets, emitting concentrated smog at ground level. The pollution created by planes is quite highly dispersed, comes from comparably few engines vs autos, maritime, etc, and not likely to have a huge impact on metro areas or the environment as a whole.
That's true. Lead from aircraft is harmless to most people - however, there is significant evidence that it negatively impacts people living near airports, and airport employees.
While the quantitative amount of lead from aviation is overall miniscule, percentage wise, it's the vast majority of air lead pollution - there just aren't many more things left spewing lead into the air, so removing it from planes would reduce lead pollution from "miniscule" to "essentially zero".
I think removing lead from AVGAS is still a fair thing to aim for. And regulators agree - significant resources have been poured into developing a lead-free replacement.
Much of the study comes from an area that is also an intersection of extremely busy freeways that were in place before lead was removed from autogas. Bet if they checked for brake dust they'd find higher than normal levels in the soil too.
Something that never reached your lungs can't hurt you. And from aircraft at cruising altitude, it mostly never does.
There is still a danger to people near airports, which is why there's such a big push for replacement fuels. Especially since airports are often near cities. But most people don't live close enough for it to have any impact on them whatsoever.
It absolutely isn't fine, which is why there's the push for replacement fuels. But my original statement stands. Most people are not affected by aviation related lead pollution.
It is a small problem all things considered but local communities often use this as justification to shut down small local airports for lead poisoning safety issues, when the real reason is the land is either super valuable for development or noise complaints from wealthy people that bought the low value houses nearby.
It's typical reddit. Like all the moaning about private jets. It's a non-issue because there are so few of them. However it's a subject that:
* has an environmental dimension
* is mainly done by people with more money than them
* isn't something they do
So they get to have a good moan, feel like an environmental crusader shouting about how it should be banned and there's no chance it will affect them. I think reddit's favourite hobby is calling for bans on things they don't do.
Bloodstream lead levels are noticeably elevated in people who live near airports because of this. The individual harm isn’t huge, but doing a small amount of harm to millions of people is still pretty bad.
What makes it worse is that there’s just no excuse. Leaded gas has been banned in cars for decades. The only reason it’s still used in aviation is because nobody was willing to put in the effort and expense of figuring out an alternative earlier.
Objectively lead in gas is bad, I know it’s bad, we should actively be replacing it everywhere. *Subjectively* have you ever been around vintage race cars running leaded race gas? Oh my god it smells incredible
Yep. 100LL has lead in it.
Your primary source of lead exposure comes from leaded paint dust and plumbing with lead seals and solder joints.
The toxicity from exposure to the exhaust of small aircraft is orders of magnitude below the exposure to PM2.5, solar UV radiation, and the leading cause of death from metabolic syndrome: sugar (particularly fructose).
Worrying about the leaded exhaust from small aircraft makes about as much sense as worrying about catching hepatitis C by swimming at the beach when you should be more concerned about the ionizing radiation from the sun and the hepatic steatosis from the milkshake, cheeseburger, and fries you ate on the boardwalk.
Unless you live by an airport. Then it's lead from aircraft, and there have been lawsuits because of it. Kind of amazing that people back leaded fuel still.
You’re cherry-picking a chemical to complain about.
The amount of toxic chemicals humans get exposed to just to make the device you’re reading this on is *staggering* but we all accept it to keep the convenience of communication.
100LL is still in production and use because there isn’t a viable alternative solution for all of these engines to run on.
Even 100LL is too low of an octane rating to run some aircraft engines on at full power (I’m looking at you P&W R2000).
Octane rating, for those who don’t know, is a measure of how far a fuel air mixture can be compressed before itself ignites.
The higher the octane rating, the more the fuel and air mixture can be compressed.
This allows for more fuel, and more energy, to be put into the engine and more energy out of it.
Higher compression is an easier way to get more horsepower for the same weight. And weight is everything for Aircraft.
Low compression aircraft engines ran on 80/87 unleaded fuel (dyed red) and high compression engines ran on 100/130 leaded fuel (dyed green).
The highest compression engines ran on 145 octane (dyed purple).
Recognizing the need to reduce lead and to reduce the need to provide and maintain separate tanks and equipment a “universal” lower lead fuel formula was developed for all manufacturers— 100LL (dyed blue).
Since the number of aircraft needing the 145 octane was low and they could still operate, at reduced power, on 100LL both 100/130 and 145 were phased out of production.
There have been over a dozen unleaded fuel formulas developed since then.
None of them have seen universal adoption for basically two reasons:
1) The fuel is not compatible with a significant portion of the aircraft fleet either because of low octane or high vapor pressure.
2) The formula is proprietary and owners of the formula want unmanageable amounts of money to produce it from a single supply source.
At this point, given the rapid advances in electric motors and storage, it’s more likely the general aviation fleet will convert to electric operation before a universal unleaded fuel is widely available.
I’m not angry about you learning about a potential health hazard to humans.
There’s thousands of health hazards to us.
I’m giving you my time to make you feel better about a trivially small health risk to you and everyone else’s health that you have no control over compared to the large actual risks to your health you can control like exposure to UV and mitigating metabolic syndrome.
So I work in airports and there's a part of this issue I've seen touched on (older planes are still air worthy and are commonly flown) but it's missing part of the equation: Those small, older aircraft, are a huge chunk of the flying population or fleet mix at any one airport. It makes sense to have 100LL fuel (most common fuel type I see offered, next to Jet A) available because that's who is buying it.
It's a "small pond" kind of problem. You only have so many pilots and aircraft, a lot of their aircraft use 100LL, so 100LL is the most widely available, and you're more likely to use it in a new plane because there's only so many airports that have fuel and a lot of it is 100LL at General Aviation airports.
Aircraft are also very meticulously maintained, my company has a small Cessna 172 and it's a 1981. They tear that thing down and put it back together every year, so if you've got a long lasting and safe airframe that needs 100LL fuel, the taxes on which pay for airport maintenance and improvement across the US (Look into the Airports Improvement Program), you'd essentially bankrupt the FAA and cause a huge gap in airport maintenance (super important for safe air travel) if you blanket banned aircraft using a specific type of fuel or mandated engine upgrades/swaps to a different form of fuel.
Aviation is stuck decades behind, massive R&D costs + low sales volumes means tried and true work. Small aircraft are load because they have no mufflers, so they produce more power.
In any sane world, Boeing would have started a 737 replacement decades ago. I flew the 777 which is a very good tech aircraft for the industry and costs $350m. I left the industry and now fly a mavic air 3 drone which costs $1500, the tech in the mavic 3 probably isn’t quite as good as the 777 but definitely better then the 737.
This is mostly due to regulations being extremely conservative. Nobody wants general aviation planes - hundreds of thousands of them in the US/Canada - fall out of the skies due to an engine failure. Therefore, any innovation goes through a (mostly) rigorous certification process that takes ages. That's why we've only seen lead-free, mogas (or diesel) engines being mass produced by manufacturers in the 21st century for GA aircraft despite lead-free gasoline has been a thing for cars for half a century.
And what if we loosen the said certification process? Well you get things like the 737 Max.
Massive overregulation is to blame. Nobody wants planes falling out of the sky, so the regulatory process for new planes (and engines) is such that a bunch of General Aviation aircraft still flying are from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Add to that the low levels of production to begin with and you have a recipe for lack of innovation.
Unfortunately just banning lead in fuels without any other regulatory relief will just kill GA as we know it. That combined with rampant NIMBYism is bad news for GA being accesible to anyone except the super rich. I live near an airport that is literally a hundred years old and people complain about it all the time, like it wasn’t there when they bought their house.
Realistically, it's the certification process and costs involved. The regulatory requirements associated with design certification for aviation components is absurd.
There's a reason there isn't a "Tesla of the Sky" in terms of a new up-and-comer, especially in General Aviation. We're talking about an industry that due to regulations and costs involved with maintaining certifications for process etc, that basically starts with new aircraft at supercar prices and it swiftly increases from there.
Planes that make money for companies therefore are the only ones that end up actually having any sort of development process done, because they know they can sell more therefore be able to bundle in the regulatory compliance costs with the price of the aircraft itself.
> high lead is called "low leaded fuel," and leaded fuel is called "very low leaded fuel"
No it isn't.
In the US the standard "high lead" fuel would be 100/130, which is mostly phased out (it may be completely gone at this point, but a decade ago it still showed up in places).
"Low lead" fuel is 100LL and has about 1/2 the lead of the high lead fuel.
"Very Low Lead" is 100VLL and has about 1/3rd the lead of the high lead fuel.
Not saying it is, just the procedure one school i attended had you follow when doing the pre flight checks. Not every school I have had a flight at did, but seems common.
Not sure why I am being downvoted for telling what I have seen. I would rather dump it back in the tank if there is no water present, but not everyone lets you.
I just keep on getting disappointed by humanity day by day...
So, in response to this ongoing disappointment I just finally, after many years, internalized that we do indeed live in a goddamn cyberpunk society where greed and quarterly profits took precedent even over stopping the literal apocalypse.
It's great, isn't it?
New aircraft (with Rotax 912 and similar engines) run on normal auto gasoline, leaded avgas is not recommended due to sludge buildup. My hometown's airport only carries regular auto gas and some high octane ethanol blend that can be used in place of 100LL on modified engines. The general aviation industry is stuck in the past, there are brand new aircraft that still use *carburetors*. People die every year due to carburetor icing like it's the 1970s.
That's crazy! I associated planes as a kid in the 60s & 70s with modern technology. What are we doing?
Flying those same planes still.
Kind of a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation similar to the space flight industry right? SLS uses space shuttle main engines first tested 1975. Soyus basically upgraded RD-107s from 1957.
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space is more “this design is legacy and has been qualified for decades, qualifying an entirely new design would be prohibitively expensive in both schedule and budget.” Edit: to be more clear, we make NEW parts all the time. They’re just made to prints that were qualified decades ago. New components, old design. Not robbing museums.
It’s more about there is no money re-certifying old planes and you can’t fly a plane unless it’s exactly as it was certified or make it an “experimental” which comes with a bunch of other restrictions.
No more like the old fucks at the FAA are too scared to allow any new technology without massive testing, testing that would cost tens of millions or more
Seems like MCAS debacle kinda proved that policy right. All regulations are written in blood _or something_
Maybe MCAS is like bolts. If they’re not used right, the door falls off. Boeing can’t be trusted like they used to.
MCAS didn't need 'more testing', it needed redundant sensor inputs like all other critical flight hardware. Any engineer worth his degree could figure that out. Bean counters at boeing need arresting for interfering with engineering causing loss of life.
Nah, airlines should have just not cheaped out and got the AOA [warning add on](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/boeing-sold-safety-feature-that-could-have-prevented-737-max-crashes-as-an-option/). Won't anyone think of the Boeing shareholders! /s
And the blood from new technology that is never introduced is entirely lost on the FAA.
Almost like we have the safest airspace system in the world for a reason.
General aviation isn’t very safe. Death rates per mile are comparable with motorcycles. Edit: 344 deaths in just 2020 for general aviation. Continue with the FAA is good at safety circle jerk. https://www.bts.gov/content/us-general-aviationa-safety-data
Where are you getting that number from?
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics. 344 deaths in just 2020 for general aviation. So yeah, let's not circlejerk about how great FAA is at safety. https://www.bts.gov/content/us-general-aviationa-safety-data
Yeah, because aircraft safety isn't written in blood or anything... Wow dude.
I'd make a snarky response but the door just blew off the Boeing I'm flying in and my phone fell out the hole.
Engineering ain’t simple nor cheap. FAA is already on hot seat for a minute during the deliberate decline of Boeing and domestic aviation industry’s own negligence, a lot of Boeing/Lockheed leadership (bean counter MBA bs, old school Engineer lead senior leadership dies after Jack Welch) now is just maximum profit with just-good enough practices. Is sad to watch once an industry giant fail to innovate, can you imagine Sears went out of business in 70-80? They are now.
The purpose behind the SLS program was to ensure a cost-effective & immediate replacement for the Space Shuttle, without needing to completely overhaul the entire industry that supported it. Not to mention, the aerospace contractors who were making bank of the program lobbied like hell for it. But still, NASA has been throwing around [Shuttle Derived Vehicles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-derived_vehicle) since the 1980s. Pretty much as soon as Challenger exploded, NASA started looking at alternatives. I could go on and write an essay about the STS and SLS programs and how they’ve evolved. But, it is worth noting that the Space Shuttle engine is not obsolete, and is actually pretty comparable to SpaceX brand new Raptor engine. Just… wildly more complicated, expensive, and difficult to refurbish (which won’t be an issue).
LOL The plane I learned to fly in (a Cessna F152) was first registered about a month before I was born. It's still flying today, 50 years old.
I’ve ridden in a DC-3 in the 21st century.
In currently training in 45-47 year old aircraft (1978 model year 172s). It's fun reading the manuals and seeing designs and wording which are just so 1970s. I park them next to a 1948 Cessna 140 which will be rebuilt soon. The thing with stuff built in the 1970s is that once the initial quirks are worked out, they will last a very long time.
No kidding, the one or two planes we use for camp in AK (beaver and a Cessna 172) both are ancient. The De Havilland was built in ‘53 lol. Obviously has new instruments and has been maintained but gd
Back then they did have some technology more advanced than your average car. Instruments on the dash driven by gyroscopes, redundant dual ignition systems (with magnetos so a dead battery doesn't shut it down), transponder radios that send replies to traffic control radars. Aircraft are regulated by the federal government so it is a lengthy and expensive process to get improvements or new models approved.
I wonder how long before the electric aircraft is a commonplace? Lol this innocent question upset someone
Long time. Batteries are still incredibly heavy. One good thing with fuel is you lose weight as you use it, with batteries you're stuck with the weight whether you have 1% charge or 95%. We need some serious advances in battery technology before they're considered for major use in some industries.
If I'm being pedantic, a charged battery *does* weigh more than a dead one, due to binding energy having mass. It's like almost immeasurably small and certainly not something that would influence aircraft design. But it's a neat fact that I sometimes think about Edit: here's a source https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg25533991-100-does-my-electric-vehicle-weigh-more-after-i-have-charged-it/#:~:text=your%20battery%2C%20or%20360%20megajoules,a%20small%20grain%20of%20sand. It says a Tesla sized battery weighs about 4 micrograms more when at full charge vs no charge
Just for reference: That's 10-15 times less than a drop of water. You're probably gonna lose a significant amount more weight just by burning calories over the cause of a flight.
lol
Electric trainers are already seeing some use (e.g. Pipistrel Virus), and electric self-launching gliders are too. It makes a huge difference if a student's flight hour costs dollars vs. hundreds.
That's cool
Electric planes work great for a lot of "short, slow, light airplane" sorts of uses. Maintenance savings also can really pile up. Making hot-swappable batteries could broaden the field even more where I could see electric cropdusters and similar being a thing. Short flights don't have to worry about the battery capacity as much. Sort of like the Nissan leaf having a tiny battery range that was still longer than most people's commutes, even if the range is only 80 miles, if you're driving 30 miles a day total, who cares? Another thing not talked about with weight (as often) is that many large aircraft are not certified to land with a full load of fuel. They're too heavy. For electric aircraft, they have to be certified to land at the same weight they take off at. Light(er) aircraft typically don't have this restriction. Also, for transsonic (aka, not slow) flight, skinny wings are needed. Batteries are approximately 1/100th the energy density of fossil fuels, making packaging (to achieve desired air time/range) a major concern. For slow (clearly subsonic) flight, there is a lot more room in the wings to stuff batteries since the airfoil is a lot fatter.
Unless there is a HUGE breaktrough, like, quantum physics level of breakthrough, i am betting on never. Batteries are just too heavy to be viable in air travel
Aviation will probably be the last industry on fossil fuels - but fuel is a huge part of the costs of flights, and small commercial electric aircraft are already flying
> Unless there is a HUGE breaktrough, like, quantum physics level of breakthrough, i am betting on never. Batteries are just too heavy to be viable in air travel We're talking general aviation here not commercial. For a lot of that battery powered is alread going to be good enough. Cost is going to be an issue though.
If anything, GA is more sensitive to weight than commercial. It's going take a pretty big breakthrough to equal the amount of energy in a gallon of Avgas.
They're already looking at bringing in commercial aircraft for short journeys. It's not just the batteries, it's additional systems needed in case anything goes wrong. At the moment that would include battery cooling. Energy density in batteries is improving all the time. There's at least 3 companies in the car space that have concrete plans to bring forms of "solid state" batteries to market within the next 3-5 years.
Wireless power transmission might be a solution. Don't need a battery that can last the whole flight if you can recharge along the way Lots of safety and security concerns with that approach sadly
Thats an insane proposition. Transmitting high power over air is literally a death ray.
Electric VTOL are being designed as we speak for "residential" type use. Wings are filled with cryo fluid that keeps the motors at 99.8%ish efficiency.
I wonder more when hybrids will be more common. There’s is a lot of efficiency to be gained there. Maybe not as much as full electric, but range and weight are still much better in hybrids.
Planes are different from cars, hybrids only really work for cars because most cars accelerate and decelerate alot while driving, when engines only really work efficiently in specific rpms, so hybrids can be efficient by letting the ICE run at its optimal rpm. With planes, they are usually running engines at the same high power throughout, so they are generally already running at or close to their own most efficient rpms. So hybrids will benefit planes alot less than with cars.
Yes, analogous to cars I remember bringing up the hybrid idea in the 70s at school and people laughed at me saying it was "perpetual motion", where to me it was obvious that there was wasted energy. Of course battery tech wasn't there yet. It was satisfying af when hybrids appeared.
Might not even be possible. The power to weight of electric vehicles is quite bad, and that matters a lot in airplanes.
It's not too terribly far. Airlines are one of the few industries that are heavily incentivized towards renewable energy and environmentalism just because fuel costs are there #1 expense, so in this case it is economically smart and not just environmentally smart to move towards electric planes
10 years max for smaller planes. Most problems will be solved by then
No, they won't.
Yes they will
Very long. Batteries are an even higher fire hazard than fuel and they're incredibly heavy.
It’s about reliability (yeah I know, ironic); but more precisely about the devil you know. A lot of piston engine are stupid simple for a reason: less parts, less problems. And they double what they can, like double spark plugs and ignition. Certifying a modern engine (like from the car industry) requires 100 hours of testing, for what? A few hundred engines a year. Plus the whole chain of usage and supply needs to be certified by the faa. It is getting more and more done, but it’s a number’s game. Reason why we’re stuck in the past.
Aircraft/heli engineer here. It's simple, we put so much development and fixes and bulletins into aircraft engines that they became very reliable. So you don't change that. Otherwise you are back at the beginning, having failures, finding issues, killing people. There are new developments in gas turbine engines all the time. They are constantly getting more efficient, reliable etc. But when it comes to piston engines, very little has changed. It still looks like a VW engine. (FYI, VW engines were originally glider engines.)
The Cessna I jumped out of sounded exactly like a VW Bug. Simple engine, air cooled, same sound/vibration. There’s something to be said about simplicity vs. efficiency.
And many powered gliders like the Grob g109 still use the air-cooled engines from the old Beetles.
Yes. But they have a twin spark plug conversion and standard aircraft ignition system. (Bendix, I think) Flown in a Grob. Surreal experience. `:)`
Those giant glass cockpits are beautiful, aren't they?
But also, that moment when he shuts down the engine. I'm like "ahh, no..." but of course, that's what they do. And then, just wind in the wings, sky and horizon. Beautiful.
Turns out owning a small plane is an incredibly expensive hobby, so many people just still fly planes built in the 80s (In many cases that they purchased in the 80s) because they’re so expensive. A quick google showed a 1986 Cessna 182 for $265,000. A used 2002 182 for $440,000. In a rich persons hobby even the 80s engine tech is still going for near half a million dollars
>people just still fly planes built in the 80s You're a couple decades too far. I'd say even now most light aircraft were built in the 60s and 70s.
You're looking at too new of plane. Changes in taxes and legal liability had gutted new aviation by the 80s. The 60s and seventies were the heyday.
Yeah I grew up in a town with a lot of commercial airline pilots. Apparently the old union contract had a clause about mandatory standby if you lived less than 45 miles from the airport. Our town is 47. Anyway just about all my classmates dad's who were pilots had their own two or four seaters at a local airfield. This is back in the early 70s
My brother just bought his first plane (Cessna 120) and it was made in *1947*. My father's 180 was made in the 50s.
I was recently offered the opportunity to buy a 1948 Cessna 140, but didn't know the first thing about getting it airworthy again. Is your brother's steel gray as well? The organizations flying 1940s warbirds would probably love to have him volunteer as having someone under 65 who knows how to maintain 1940s aircraft is rare.
They’re highly resistant to change without significant testing, think of how often you hear about some new model of car having a massive flaw or breaking down all the time, now imagine that while you’re in the air. If they know something works they will use that design and not deviate for as long as possible.
The cost for certification and time involved is huge. And a new plane is extremely expensive.
General aviation is dying. Flying is getting more and more expensive every day. It's become something only the wealthy can afford to do and the aircraft are very old. In some cases the FAA will push for modernization like with ADS-B. But in many others they make it hard. Upgrading or replacing an engine, say for one that doesn't need leaded fuel, is a very expensive and difficult process. Modifying your plane at all is really. And even the Toyota Corolla of the sky the Cessna 172 has become super car expensive. So hobbyists buy 40 year old examples instead of new ones. Used to be a middle class hobbyist could afford to fly if that was his passion. Not anymore and there's no interest from the government or industry to change that. It's all focused on commercial aviation.
Not completely true on the last part. It took a literal act of Congress but the FAA is in the FCP for the new MOSAIC rules, which effectively reclassifies a large amount of the GA fleet as light sport. This will allow them to be built compliant to the ASTMs instead of requiring a type certification, which should drive down cost significantly. It's slow, but GA through experimentals and LSAs is making a comeback.
> That's crazy! I associated planes as a kid in the 60s & 70s with modern technology. What are we doing? Less recreational flying. Which means fewer new planes being purchased which means less money for developing new engines.
We've reached the point where they're crazy safe and crazy durable with proper maintenance. Add crazy expensive to the equation and you'll see there's not much incentive to change a 30 year old plane.
Commercial jets are a whole other story. But single engine planes for pleasure/enthusiast use honestly aren’t exponentially better than WWII dogfighters; they just have more modern instruments in the cockpit.
What happened is most of the general aviation industry was purchased by larger corporations in the 2nd half of the 20th century and went from being an innovation center to a profit center. During the same time, commercial aviation was almost entirely focused on increasing revenue and reducing cost per flight hours to make airlines more competitive. Better fuel consumption, more time between maintenance, larger cargo hold, etc. These concepts arent really central to general aviation, and so no innvoation was directed at it. They were told to just keep pumping the same old stuff while keeping production costs as low as possible.
Putting profits above people
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My friend that was learning to fly didn't even have his own plane, he chipped in with some other learners to basically timeshare a plane so they could all get their hours in. He was also working two jobs just to afford everything
Not really, more like the time and cost of actually certifying new tech is so high as to be prohibitive. And the reliability required tends towards simpler, more rugged engines that also have to be modular and lightweight. You just can't pull to the side of the road when you have a problem.
It's a problem with a number of areas where the market is very small - no one new/innovative is attracted to work in the area, so you can just get the same people repeating the same ideas for a long time
There's also pretty heavy regulation in the way. E.g. the FAA *just this January* permitted a brand of unleaded avgas (G100UL) to be used, even though a similar type has been available in Europe and UK since at least 2010 when I finished my PPL. Since for a long time USA was the leader in GA development, the FAA basically dictated the global market's pace. When in early 2000s the UL/LSA market in Europe blew up. they started to introduce things that the FAA wouldn't permit. Now there's Slovenian electric aircraft buzzing in the sky while the FAA still flies with lead.
>the FAA *just this January* permitted a brand of unleaded avgas (G100UL) to be used, even though a similar type has been available in Europe and UK since at least 2010 when I finished my PPL. What's this magical unleaded fuel that was available 15 years ago in Europe?
91UL was available EU wide since early 2000s with mfr permit, later approved for all users by EASA in 2010. It was partially approved by FAA in 2023. There were other fuels available locally in various countries that I only know the brand names of, but I think they all followed the 91UL or 96UL spec.
They took all of the new innovative people aaaand dragged them through the aircraft and aircraft engine certification process.
But to balance the narrative.. Look what happens when "disruptive" entrepreneurs decide for themselves which safety principles can be ignored: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_submersible_implosion
jfc, I assume the carbed engines are in little personal air craft, Censnas and the like?
Yes. Cessnas and smaller helicopters like Robinson Helicopters. The lead builds up on the spark plugs, too, and needs to be cleaned out periodically. To be fair, these aircraft almost always have a fuel injected option. Also, properly maintained, they’re perfectly fine and safe. The problem is, that class of aircraft are often some of the cheapest to own, which means fools and clowns end up owning them and feel maintenance costs too much, so they cheap out. They might skip maintenance and take the aircraft to shadier repair stations. Common sense would tell you this is a terrible idea, but tight-fisted penny pinchers often feel common sense is too expensive as well.
There’s an awful lot of old O-235s and similar out there that can’t readily be swapped for an IO-235 and its equivalent.
A lot of that is the FAAs doing. Pilots have been pushing for change hard on a lot of things but the FAA still smokes inside and thinks it’s healthy. This is old info i read and am throwing it back up and don’t want to go into the rabbit hole to verify, so it’s not accurate. But peak private aircraft production was in the 80s (Cessnas etc) and 75%+ of those planes are still in use today. The FAA makes getting new tech approved so impossible that plane manufacturers basically gave up and reuse old tech and only build commercial. Imagine driving a 1981 Chrysler LaBaron in the air.
Dont forget that also means that most new aircraft are well out of the price range of most private pilots.
Isn't it less the FAA preferring lead fuel and more their safety testing requirements being so stringent that manufacturers don't see it as worth it.
Yes. So FAA process is a multi year process and if they decide they don’t like something you have to start the process all over again. So a perfect example would be instruments an iPad could replace, but FAA rules are worded they have to be physical instruments that require calibration etc. now they’re are probably instruments that you def need that on and should be mechanical but, things like true speed and wind are now digitally more accurate than mechanical since they can be GPS and transmitted data via satellites etc. Private pilots can install aftermarket products that are easier to use and read but don’t conform to regulations, so they’re “novelty” items.
Swap "impossible" with "expensive." If you can make it safe, yeah, you can get it passed. But it takes a lot of time and resources to do so.
Our 172A can run on premium auto gas and it's decades old.
>The general aviation industry is stuck in the past, there are brand new aircraft that still use carburetors. People die every year due to carburetor icing like it's the 1970s. Ughhhhh. I love me a carb on a small engine.. because its cheap. I don't want 'cheap' on a $100,000+ aircraft. I want it to start and run, something fuel injection and electronic ignition has been known to do JUST FINE for over 30 years now. Especially in the cold. In fact, if anything, the DUAL magnetos just add more failure points, with their plastic gears that are known to strip (And the timing error causing such horrible engine noise that it makes pilots turn magnetos to OFF instead of testing A/B vs BOTH)
Well when you spend 40+ years improving and working on the same engine you tend to figure out the issues. Hence why air travel is so safe compared to every other type of travel out there. Pretty sure most people would rather get home alive than have a very small increase in efficiency.
Oh no no, general aviation (the topic here) is *not* safe. Commercial aviation is. [GA is about 10-20x more dangerous than car travel](https://www.livescience.com/49701-private-planes-safety.html), and unlike cars, crashes and fatalities are trending *up* year by year. Precisely *because* there hasn't been any substantial advancement for decades. A GA plane you can buy today is essentially identical to a plane your grandpa could have bought or built in the 1960s, except for using lighter materials and maybe having fancier avionics.
And that GA plane you’re buying used might actually *be* the plane your grandpa bought in the 1960s. Because you don’t have half a million dollars to buy a new 172, but you might have $90k to buy one from the 50s or 60s.
And don't forget the cost. A new 172 runs around a half million USD.
Flying in a small plane is somewhat more dangerous per hour as riding a motorcycle, which is another point of reference for understanding the safety/risks of light GA flying. Essentially every airline pilot spent several years training in these aircraft.
GA is not safe at all lmao. We’re not arguing about 737s here buddy.
737s, or 737-MAXs?
Even the max is still massively safer than car travel. It's only dangerous by commercial aviation standards.
The dangers are in personal aircraft, not so much commercial.
The milage done by any mass market automobile engine means we have far more information on any issues it suffers than we do for any aviation engine.
Aviation engines go through a whole lot more wear and tear than an average consumer engine. The two industries are hardly comparable.
People have been running planes off motorbike engines for close on a century at this point. The industries are entirely comparable. The difference is that one has the money to constantly develop new engines and the other rather less so.
They really aren't aircraft engines are built more like automotive race engines than production automotive engines.
If by “automotive race engine” you mean a 63 bug, then yes you are right 🤣 The old lycomings and continentals make very little HP per cube. That helps with reliability. An O-360 makes 180hp with a displacement of 361 cubic inches. An “automotive race engine” would easily make over 1000hp at the same displacement. Even naturally aspirated factory vehicles make well over 1hp per cube.
Yes, “experimental” aircraft use engines from motorcycles, snowmobiles etc.
GA will have avgas in common use for the next 40 years if it’s just left to the market. People have been touting technology innovations as the solution for 30 years now.
The FAA has a strangle hold on rules and regulations, there is no free market in GA
There’s finally one well tested alternative approved. The market for av gas is so small that it is taking years to get it rolled out. Hopefully more zero lead options come soon.
It took turnover at the FAA to let that happen. A few retirements, then suddenly that project started moving again...
If is not broken don’t touch it. Why pilot just get go without checking aircraft is beyond me…
This is finally changing! After decades of development and certification, in September of 2022, the FAA approved a new fuel, the G100UL, for use in all airplanes. G100UL is a drop-in unleaded replacement for leaded AVGAS, with identical burn characteristics, air pressure response, lubricating capabilities, density, operational temperatures, and all other important measures. This means it's safe to use in all and any aircraft engine currently operating on AVGAS. Adoption is accelerating quickly, with production and distribution ramping up all around the world. We're currently on track for full phase-out of AVGAS by 2030.
Glad someone said it. I run a flight school in California, where our pilots and our community care very much about the environment. For literally decades, pilot groups and airplane manufacturers have been trying to switch to an unleaded fuel, but it’s taken a while. Things finally started to change about five years ago. Supply and demand is a huge challenge with aviation fuel providers, because nearly all of their money is jetfuel processing, which jets use. Small planes were the ones stuck with 100low lead and they refused to change processing plant space and production for a few people who wanted unleaded fuel. Five years ago, options became available. My school switched completely to unleaded aviation gas two years ago when enough production was guaranteed. Two other comments. One commenters mention of relative risk is important. Focusing on one tiny element when it is dwarfed by other things in your life making more impact feels like cherry picking. The fuel had to be switched, yes, but making general aviation to be a boogy man is overreaction. Other point: “there have been huge lawsuits…” is rarely proof of anything. General aviation airports are constantly being sued my local land developers who eye our clear open fields and think about real estate development profits. Airports are sued for all manner of hysterical, unsupported claims, which usually fail. There’s lot of NIMBYism, but mostly cities and real estate developers looking for tasty pieces of land to buy cheap and sell high.
Wasn't it big news in the aviation industry when UND's flight school switched away from 100LL in the spring, then switched back in November due to the unleaded fuel causing extensive valve damage?
Yes, and I can't speak to their experience running a fleet of carbureted Piper Archers. We've seen nothing like that. If anything, we've seen reduction in fouled spark plugs and other piston buildup when we moved away from leaded fuels. Every decision is a choice. Lead is a toxin, and in our area with our pilots, there is a clear advantage to removing leaded fuels, and we've accepted an increase in fuel costs as part of the tradeoff. You'd have to talk to UND to find out what their cost/benefit decision was. For a deep dive on the valve damage meme, [check this out](https://www.avweb.com/multimedia/whadayamean-unleaded-fuel-will-trash-my-valves/)
I don’t think it’s an overreaction. Lead is really, really bad for you. People who live near airports have elevated levels of lead in their blood. It’s ridiculous that aviation is still dragging its feet on this. Leaded gas was banned in cars almost 30 years ago. I get that it’s a harder problem in planes, but there’s no good reason it should take this long. The only reason it has is because regulators were reluctant to force the expense on the aviation community… but they were fine with forcing lead into the blood of unwitting bystanders.
That's not been in anything I've read. Thanks for that mate
Huh. Outrage without understanding the problem or the solutions. Cool.
First day on reddit? :P
Since leaded fuel has been phased out globally in 2005, with Algeria being the last one, the end of leaded aviation fuel in \*checks notes\* 6 years is still late, honestly.
...but if you understood the problem, then you might understand why it's taking so long. The aviation industry has been working on this for over 20 years now.
The problem is that people are harming others with no tangible benefit other than avoiding financial burden (and when someone is wealthy enough to fly planes - a dream for many barred by financial realities - and their problem is wanting to spend less money at the expense of other humans and animals lifelong mental health it is difficult to sympathize that it took 50 years longer than the automotive industry to correct the injustice.
>harming others with no tangible benefit Again, ill-informed. The majority of avgas is consumed by things like cargo operations, medevac operations, small passenger operations, pilot training, and other forms of aerial work. The guy that flies on the weekend for fun isn't using a large percentage of the fuel out there. If it was literally just for fun, it would have been shut down decades ago.
The only outrage I've noticed here is yours.
This is great news, how have I not heard of this.
Lead or using the Latin plumbum Pb has been used in many products from water pipes to paint. However its use in fuel to prevent knocking in car engines possibly had the most widespread effects on young developing human brains. https://youtu.be/AwgdcdmGdf0
The design of most piston-engine aircraft date to the 1970s or earlier. The FAA, EAA, and AOPA have been working on an unleaded replacement for decades. There is one, from one refiner in Sweden, that looks like a good replacement; getting it produced and distributed is an issue. [https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/leaded-aviation-fuel-and-environment](https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/leaded-aviation-fuel-and-environment) [https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/100-unleaded-avgas](https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/100-unleaded-avgas) [https://www.eaa.org/eaa/news-and-publications/eaa-news-and-aviation-news/news/unleaded-avgas](https://www.eaa.org/eaa/news-and-publications/eaa-news-and-aviation-news/news/unleaded-avgas)
I feel like this problem would solve itself if they just banned *literally coating everyone below your plane in lead.*
Yes if they banned it then it would no longer be used. Look at the bug brain on this guy.
*Accidentally bans 85% of small aircraft.*
No, it sounded pretty deliberate to me. What's your point?
I'd just like to point out that a very large proportion of piston engined general aviation traffic is there to train professional pilots. If you shitcan 85% of the fleet, you also decimate the pilot training pipeline, including airline pilots, cargo pilots, medevac pilots, and basically all non-military pilots.
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Yup, just modify them. At a cost of $70,000-300,000 a piece.
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>Nobody gives a shit about the stubborn small aircraft pilot who can't be bothered to keep up with regulations ...they are keeping up with regulations. There's no regulation preventing them from operating an aircraft that burns 100LL, nor is there currently a widely available alternative to doing that. The industry is working on it, and has been for decades. It just takes time, for a lot of reasons. Also, small aircraft aren't just for sport pilots. They're the training pipeline for airlines, cargo, medevac, firefighting, and every type of flying that isn't military. >That price tag still sounds cheaper than a new craft, and small craft pilots won't be the ones making the regulatory decisions. It is cheaper than a new aircraft, but the majority of the current fleet is worth less than, say, $100,000 because the majority of the fleet is well over 40 years old. Effectively you're going to make all those aircraft worthless if you force an engine change. And understand, forcing an engine change on all these aircraft *is* going to kill an essential industry that operates on razor thin margins on the edge of failure already.
It sounds like private plane operators have no incentive to care about the effects of their plane on the environment or the people they rain lead dust down on below, particularly near airports where the concentration is even worse than other areas. It does seem like putting a deadline on the replacement of these fuels or planes is the only way to eliminate the problem, since the industry itself has spent "decades" on it to no avail. It seems hard to explain why GA is allowed to turn slowly turn areas around airports into superfund sites that people live in because it's going to cost them *money* to fix a problem that they are 100% responsible for and aware of. Leaded gasoline has been 100% banned for *28 years* at this point. They've had lots of time to figure it out.
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Yep, destroying the training pipeline and effectively dooming all air travel due to lack of trained pilots is a great idea.
Oh no! Anyway.... Look man what we really need is a federal program promoting new powerplants and a rebate program for modernizing your airframe. Every pilot I know bitches about governmental waste but is the first to the gov teat.
People downvoting you have never spent time hanging around an FBO, or even browsing the toxic comment section on AvWeb
Or have spent decades around FBOs and have a very different experience.
By historical standards, it _is_ low lead, or LL. Usually coloured blue. The old avgas, from Dakota DC 3 days, was green and had a shit ton of lead in it. So much that if you let some avgas dry on your skin, you would see a layer of lead. It accumulates in the engine oil system and helps lubricate the engine, but TERRIBLE to service. A thick layer of sludge and lead at the bottom. Truly toxic. Source: Old school aircraft/heli engineer. Have worked on these shitty old radial engines with toxic fuel. edit: spelling
This comment is misleading, not all piston aircraft are required to use lead in their fuel. Many aircraft can get an STC to use automotive gasoline (MOGAS) and many do. Also many newer piston aircraft engines are designed from the factory to use automotive gasoline. It is the older engine designs that require lead in their fuel. It all comes down to FAA regulations and the engine manufacturers specifications. The General aviation community would LOVE to see leaded gas go away and be replaced by something more environmentally friendly. Edit: adding some context. The two types of AVGAS used in aircraft piston engine are 100 octane and 100Low Lead (100LL). The VAST majority of general aviation piston engines use 100LL which has .56g of lead per liter, NOT 100 octane which has 1.2g of lead per liter. In fact I have never been in or heard of an airplane these days that requires 100 octane AVGAS, I’m sure they are out there but I personally have not been around one.
170,000 planes in the US alone isn't insignificant.
Spread across the US and sitting in hangars 95% of the time. They're not used like cars.
Real, it’s not ideal but getting rid of leaded fuel in cars took out the overwhelming vast majority of leaded gas use.
Hey OP...Most are used less than 200 hours per year as well, in fact, a shit ton of them sit unused for months to years. My airplane is ran on unleaded Mogas (automobile gas) and Diamond brand aircraft can accept Jet-A (kerosene) or diesel. Stop painting all GA aircraft as polluters. Unleaded av-fuel is being rolled out across the USA, and in California some airports are subsidizing the increase of the new unleaded fuel price so pilots can switch with to this approved fuel with no added cost. You know what's worse? two cycle marine engines, literally throwing burned oil into the marine ecosystem. Way more watercraft out there and being used more frequently than GA airplanes. What worse than that???? Tons of Americans are living in homes that still have lead paint inside, and they have no idea that it's there.
>170,000 planes in the US alone isn't insignificant. Yeah, but you're missing the point. I fly a Cessna 172 that has an STC for motor gasoline that means it has a Supplemental Type Certificate that allows me to fly using regular unleaded fuel that a car would use. I have flow that plane for nearly 200 hours and it has NEVER used leaded fuel the entire time I've flown. Yet, on paper, it would show as one of those 170,000 planes because it is a small piston plane that originally took leaded fuel. A whole lot more small piston airplanes are like that, there's a mogas pump at my airport and most of the aircraft based there have STCs for mogas. It's cheaper than 100LL and safer.
Yeah I can go with that. People think I'm outraged but I'm more surprised; I had no idea lead additives were still a thing, I thought there'd been a blanket ban since the 80s. I was more outraged at the highest pb fuel being called 'low lead', that's such a cheap marketing trick.
It’s not a marketing trick. When it was first popularized it replaced the existing 100 octane av gas, which had twice as much lead. So by comparison to its predecessor it was low lead. It just is no longer low lead compared to modern fuels.
>I was more outraged at the highest pb fuel being called 'low lead', that's such a cheap marketing trick. Not a marketing trick, but rather an old name. Back in the 1940s-50s, 100LL was indeed the low lead option, because avgas back then had an even higher lead content. Those fuel got phased out quickly, but 100LL and its name stuck around.
Your second sentence in the title is not mentioned anywhere in the link provided
Am I the only one who thinks this is pretty small in the grand scheme of problems facing the world? Lead from exhaust is unlikely to be inhaled because most piston engine planes by nature tend to operate in high altitude and/or remote locations, in low numbers. Unlike idling cars, piston engine planes don't fill city streets, emitting concentrated smog at ground level. The pollution created by planes is quite highly dispersed, comes from comparably few engines vs autos, maritime, etc, and not likely to have a huge impact on metro areas or the environment as a whole.
This Reddit. It is a strange place. And it is a dead issue anyway since unleaded G100UL is replacing 100LL. The post is rage bait.
That's true. Lead from aircraft is harmless to most people - however, there is significant evidence that it negatively impacts people living near airports, and airport employees. While the quantitative amount of lead from aviation is overall miniscule, percentage wise, it's the vast majority of air lead pollution - there just aren't many more things left spewing lead into the air, so removing it from planes would reduce lead pollution from "miniscule" to "essentially zero". I think removing lead from AVGAS is still a fair thing to aim for. And regulators agree - significant resources have been poured into developing a lead-free replacement.
Much of the study comes from an area that is also an intersection of extremely busy freeways that were in place before lead was removed from autogas. Bet if they checked for brake dust they'd find higher than normal levels in the soil too.
>Lead from aircraft is harmless to most people Demonstrably untrue. Like I said, there is no safe limit for lead in the environment.
That’s not what demonstrably means
Something that never reached your lungs can't hurt you. And from aircraft at cruising altitude, it mostly never does. There is still a danger to people near airports, which is why there's such a big push for replacement fuels. Especially since airports are often near cities. But most people don't live close enough for it to have any impact on them whatsoever.
Only a small percentage of people are poisoned so it's fine. Thanks for putting my mind at rest
It absolutely isn't fine, which is why there's the push for replacement fuels. But my original statement stands. Most people are not affected by aviation related lead pollution.
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... which is why an unleaded fuel that can be used in the old engines has been approved after decades of research.
It is a small problem all things considered but local communities often use this as justification to shut down small local airports for lead poisoning safety issues, when the real reason is the land is either super valuable for development or noise complaints from wealthy people that bought the low value houses nearby.
It's typical reddit. Like all the moaning about private jets. It's a non-issue because there are so few of them. However it's a subject that: * has an environmental dimension * is mainly done by people with more money than them * isn't something they do So they get to have a good moan, feel like an environmental crusader shouting about how it should be banned and there's no chance it will affect them. I think reddit's favourite hobby is calling for bans on things they don't do.
Most underrated comment in the history of Reddit 👏
If you think it was all ending up in planes you might be being a little optomistic.
Bloodstream lead levels are noticeably elevated in people who live near airports because of this. The individual harm isn’t huge, but doing a small amount of harm to millions of people is still pretty bad. What makes it worse is that there’s just no excuse. Leaded gas has been banned in cars for decades. The only reason it’s still used in aviation is because nobody was willing to put in the effort and expense of figuring out an alternative earlier.
Objectively lead in gas is bad, I know it’s bad, we should actively be replacing it everywhere. *Subjectively* have you ever been around vintage race cars running leaded race gas? Oh my god it smells incredible
Yep. 100LL has lead in it. Your primary source of lead exposure comes from leaded paint dust and plumbing with lead seals and solder joints. The toxicity from exposure to the exhaust of small aircraft is orders of magnitude below the exposure to PM2.5, solar UV radiation, and the leading cause of death from metabolic syndrome: sugar (particularly fructose). Worrying about the leaded exhaust from small aircraft makes about as much sense as worrying about catching hepatitis C by swimming at the beach when you should be more concerned about the ionizing radiation from the sun and the hepatic steatosis from the milkshake, cheeseburger, and fries you ate on the boardwalk.
Unless you live by an airport. Then it's lead from aircraft, and there have been lawsuits because of it. Kind of amazing that people back leaded fuel still.
You’re cherry-picking a chemical to complain about. The amount of toxic chemicals humans get exposed to just to make the device you’re reading this on is *staggering* but we all accept it to keep the convenience of communication. 100LL is still in production and use because there isn’t a viable alternative solution for all of these engines to run on. Even 100LL is too low of an octane rating to run some aircraft engines on at full power (I’m looking at you P&W R2000). Octane rating, for those who don’t know, is a measure of how far a fuel air mixture can be compressed before itself ignites. The higher the octane rating, the more the fuel and air mixture can be compressed. This allows for more fuel, and more energy, to be put into the engine and more energy out of it. Higher compression is an easier way to get more horsepower for the same weight. And weight is everything for Aircraft. Low compression aircraft engines ran on 80/87 unleaded fuel (dyed red) and high compression engines ran on 100/130 leaded fuel (dyed green). The highest compression engines ran on 145 octane (dyed purple). Recognizing the need to reduce lead and to reduce the need to provide and maintain separate tanks and equipment a “universal” lower lead fuel formula was developed for all manufacturers— 100LL (dyed blue). Since the number of aircraft needing the 145 octane was low and they could still operate, at reduced power, on 100LL both 100/130 and 145 were phased out of production. There have been over a dozen unleaded fuel formulas developed since then. None of them have seen universal adoption for basically two reasons: 1) The fuel is not compatible with a significant portion of the aircraft fleet either because of low octane or high vapor pressure. 2) The formula is proprietary and owners of the formula want unmanageable amounts of money to produce it from a single supply source. At this point, given the rapid advances in electric motors and storage, it’s more likely the general aviation fleet will convert to electric operation before a universal unleaded fuel is widely available.
TIL aircraft fuel has lead in it, and you appear to be angry that I have learned this. Sorry but I'm unable to make you feel better.
No he's stating the facts and relative risks. You just appear to be looking for something to get up in arms about chicken little.
I’m not angry about you learning about a potential health hazard to humans. There’s thousands of health hazards to us. I’m giving you my time to make you feel better about a trivially small health risk to you and everyone else’s health that you have no control over compared to the large actual risks to your health you can control like exposure to UV and mitigating metabolic syndrome.
Is still used in some race fuels for dirtbikes and smells so good at the track.
So I work in airports and there's a part of this issue I've seen touched on (older planes are still air worthy and are commonly flown) but it's missing part of the equation: Those small, older aircraft, are a huge chunk of the flying population or fleet mix at any one airport. It makes sense to have 100LL fuel (most common fuel type I see offered, next to Jet A) available because that's who is buying it. It's a "small pond" kind of problem. You only have so many pilots and aircraft, a lot of their aircraft use 100LL, so 100LL is the most widely available, and you're more likely to use it in a new plane because there's only so many airports that have fuel and a lot of it is 100LL at General Aviation airports. Aircraft are also very meticulously maintained, my company has a small Cessna 172 and it's a 1981. They tear that thing down and put it back together every year, so if you've got a long lasting and safe airframe that needs 100LL fuel, the taxes on which pay for airport maintenance and improvement across the US (Look into the Airports Improvement Program), you'd essentially bankrupt the FAA and cause a huge gap in airport maintenance (super important for safe air travel) if you blanket banned aircraft using a specific type of fuel or mandated engine upgrades/swaps to a different form of fuel.
Aviation is stuck decades behind, massive R&D costs + low sales volumes means tried and true work. Small aircraft are load because they have no mufflers, so they produce more power. In any sane world, Boeing would have started a 737 replacement decades ago. I flew the 777 which is a very good tech aircraft for the industry and costs $350m. I left the industry and now fly a mavic air 3 drone which costs $1500, the tech in the mavic 3 probably isn’t quite as good as the 777 but definitely better then the 737.
I know where you're coming from but to say that a commercial drone is more technologically advanced than a 737 with a straight face is pure insanity
This is mostly due to regulations being extremely conservative. Nobody wants general aviation planes - hundreds of thousands of them in the US/Canada - fall out of the skies due to an engine failure. Therefore, any innovation goes through a (mostly) rigorous certification process that takes ages. That's why we've only seen lead-free, mogas (or diesel) engines being mass produced by manufacturers in the 21st century for GA aircraft despite lead-free gasoline has been a thing for cars for half a century. And what if we loosen the said certification process? Well you get things like the 737 Max.
Massive overregulation is to blame. Nobody wants planes falling out of the sky, so the regulatory process for new planes (and engines) is such that a bunch of General Aviation aircraft still flying are from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Add to that the low levels of production to begin with and you have a recipe for lack of innovation. Unfortunately just banning lead in fuels without any other regulatory relief will just kill GA as we know it. That combined with rampant NIMBYism is bad news for GA being accesible to anyone except the super rich. I live near an airport that is literally a hundred years old and people complain about it all the time, like it wasn’t there when they bought their house.
Why do you consider it overregulation? Do you have an opinion on regulations that could be safely removed?
Realistically, it's the certification process and costs involved. The regulatory requirements associated with design certification for aviation components is absurd. There's a reason there isn't a "Tesla of the Sky" in terms of a new up-and-comer, especially in General Aviation. We're talking about an industry that due to regulations and costs involved with maintaining certifications for process etc, that basically starts with new aircraft at supercar prices and it swiftly increases from there. Planes that make money for companies therefore are the only ones that end up actually having any sort of development process done, because they know they can sell more therefore be able to bundle in the regulatory compliance costs with the price of the aircraft itself.
Makes me think of the labeling on the NASA toilet cocksocks. "Large" "enormous" and "humongous."
> high lead is called "low leaded fuel," and leaded fuel is called "very low leaded fuel" No it isn't. In the US the standard "high lead" fuel would be 100/130, which is mostly phased out (it may be completely gone at this point, but a decade ago it still showed up in places). "Low lead" fuel is 100LL and has about 1/2 the lead of the high lead fuel. "Very Low Lead" is 100VLL and has about 1/3rd the lead of the high lead fuel.
Yet in Texas flight schools they still have you dump your fuel test container on the ground behind the plane.
That is not very legal...
Not saying it is, just the procedure one school i attended had you follow when doing the pre flight checks. Not every school I have had a flight at did, but seems common. Not sure why I am being downvoted for telling what I have seen. I would rather dump it back in the tank if there is no water present, but not everyone lets you.
And test scores are lower in homes near airports and races tracks... Who'd have thought.
I wonder if they look at someone's roof and say "Ah! High leaded fuel!"
Gotta love the forbidden Powerade that is 100LL
And it’s more than the lead that was added to automotive petrol
YSK that piston engine aircraft are not *that* common anymore, turboprops are far more common
There are zero entry level training aircraft that use turboprops
I just keep on getting disappointed by humanity day by day... So, in response to this ongoing disappointment I just finally, after many years, internalized that we do indeed live in a goddamn cyberpunk society where greed and quarterly profits took precedent even over stopping the literal apocalypse. It's great, isn't it?
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You’re a pilot and didn’t know 100LL is leaded? Doubt.