PIREP: Reid-Hillview, San Jose, CA, received 7,500 gallons of G100UL this past week. Yesterday I flew my C180 down from Healdsburg (HES) 95 miles to RHV and purchased 55 gallons off the fuel truck (full service) at $6.99 per gallon. STC's were $25 for my airframe and $400 for the engine (O470U). As an early supporter received 25 gallons at no charge. Looks like apple juice and smells like turpentine. It does not evaporate, spills must be wiped off and GAMI/George Braly advised after testing 10 products, Windex works the best to clean. The UV light is what causes the stains to occur. All pilots based at RHV received the STC's at no charge. The Contra Costa County stopped the selling and banned 100LL around January 2022 at RHV, and RHV was rumored to be the first airport to obtain and sell the G100UL and history was made yesterday, the flight home was uneventful. -Bruce

Ouch

I’d be tankering in from out of state

“Will not comply”


Can the 180 run MOGAS?

Curious what the cost per flight hour will be compared to 100LL. Airnav shows fuel prices within 30 miles of RHV range from $5.37 to $7.90 (excluding San Jose International which I bet doesn't get many folks like us).

Is the fuel burn (gallons per hour) similar to 100LL?

Bring it on!

My 1977 C180K engine is an O470U with 8.6 compression and requires 100 octane. I only flew an hour and the fuel burn rate was similar to the 100LL on the fuel totalizer. The airport only sells U94 and self serve price is $6.99, same as the G100UL off the truck. I do not expect this price to hold. This was a huge well attended all day promotional event with GAMI/George Braly and John Paul and an IA on site to fill out 337 paperwork. GAMI provided the fuel port stickers and metal engine tag(s). I wanted to test out the G100UL and do not expect to fly to RHV regularly. I will wait to see how this all plays out. -Bruce

limerick wrote:PIREP: Reid-Hillview, San Jose, CA, received 7,500 gallons of G100UL this past week. Yesterday I flew my C180 down from Healdsburg (HES) 95 miles to RHV and purchased 55 gallons off the fuel truck (full service) at $6.99 per gallon. STC's were $25 for my airframe and $400 for the engine (O470U). As an early supporter received 25 gallons at no charge. Looks like apple juice and smells like turpentine. It does not evaporate, spills must be wiped off and GAMI/George Braly advised after testing 10 products, Windex works the best to clean. The UV light is what causes the stains to occur. All pilots based at RHV received the STC's at no charge. The County stopped the selling of 100LL last year at RHV, and RHV was rumored to be the first airport to obtain and sell the G100UL and history was made yesterday, the flight home was uneventful. -Bruce

It wasn't just "last year" they banned it/stopped selling it. It was almost three years ago.

To receive the STC for "free", you were notified 3 days before the "event". You had to purchase it before their deadline and make yourself available for their "marketing" event. Hardly a consolation for most people operating out of RHV under this nearly 3 year ban.

Will not comply

This is exciting. Good riddance, lead. Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the PIREP, Bruce. Glad things are happening on this front.

slowmover wrote:Curious what the cost per flight hour will be compared to 100LL. Airnav shows fuel prices within 30 miles of RHV range from $5.37 to $7.90 (excluding San Jose International which I bet doesn't get many folks like us).

Is the fuel burn (gallons per hour) similar to 100LL?

G100UL burns 2-3% “hotter” and creates more HP than 100LL

UL fuel will lead to 100 hour oil changes rather than 50 hours

So there are some upsides

Like it or not… It is coming, just a matter of which UL takes over

100LL is dissappering in Europe quite fast! People are driving quite far to fill up barrels so they can keep their planes flying! Instead of looking for new fuels, the trend seem to be phasing in new engines that will run on either MOGAS or A1. In the US, this does not seem to even be considered.

I know to little to form much of a strong opinion. But the long time costs of adapting the engines to the avaliable fuel and not the other way around, seems to be the sensible choice? Can the new UL fuels ever be affordable enough, to not make a diesel engine swap more affordable in the long run?

At the moment there seems too few MOGAS or A1 alternatives. Maybe in the coming years they will catch on. I have read the threads on diesel engines here with some interest, and I see there is not much interest in the US. I am not sure these planes are even intended for the US market, but an attempt to make them more interesting in Europe again. If it will work or not I don't know. I don't see why a flight school would go for a Diesel Archer instead of a "fancier" compostive European plane of a much newer design. But I digress.

I think the industry will have a problem if the US goes for new fuels, and Europe goes for new engines. I don't know if 100LL will be more difficult to find in Europe, than A1 in the US. But I am really hoping the new fuels will catch so that thousands of birds wont die of thirst!

Said the guy who have only been sitting behind a Rotax 90% of the time...

You go Asa

…

Utah-Jay wrote:

slowmover wrote:Curious what the cost per flight hour will be compared to 100LL. Airnav shows fuel prices within 30 miles of RHV range from $5.37 to $7.90 (excluding San Jose International which I bet doesn't get many folks like us).

Is the fuel burn (gallons per hour) similar to 100LL?

G100UL burns 2-3% “hotter” and creates more HP than 100LL

UL fuel will lead to 100 hour oil changes rather than 50 hours

So there are some upsides

Like it or not… It is coming, just a matter of which UL takes over

Why is it coming?

There is nothing wrong with 100ll and it’s a time proven fuel and it costs less, doesn’t stain, etc, I also think folks are starting to wake up to the enviro extremist failed ideas.

In many places I go if you say “well in Europe” or “in California” or “in New York” folks roll their eyes

I’d say just ignore it, educate folks when you can on the topic and how it makes aviation less accessible to kids/working people/ etc Talk to airport management of the dangers of this UL mess, making flying even less affordable means less flying, means less funding, and less likely they are going to get a raise or their office re modeled, might even mean the airport eventually can’t afford their job. Add to that the loooong running track record of safe operations with existing 100ll.

I’ve spoken to my local airport managers about this and they seem quite happy to keep 100ll, I’ve also written senators, for whatever that’s worth.

If you love aviation and it staying accessible I’d do the same, this is a tent we don’t want the camel to get its nose under

Great to see some innovation and progress in GA.. new jet fuel piston power plants, new small turbines, G100.

I’ll be first in line when it shows up near me, and am willing to pay a couple bucks premium. (It will take a lot to make a dent next to my insurance bill holy smokes). My reasoning:

-The testing work here by GAMI is top notch. Their capability to take big datasets on engine performance is an asset to GA, and I’m happy to support their work with dollars when it produces value.

-GAMI, Savvy and other others have well documented the downsides of lead in engines. Deposits, engine oil issues, the list goes on. So speaking for my expensive engine, getting rid of those is concrete value.

-I don’t care for handling tetraethyl personally. As I remember 100LL is 1 cc/gal. There is ample evidence on human harm, and setting aside environmental dispersal, as an owner operator I’m likely exposing myself to a lot. If there’s an alternative I’ll take it.

-People can roll their eyes at CA all they want, the reality is CA is like it is because there are almost 40M people here, and they are pretty bunched up in a few places. Like it or not in a democracy things like municipal airports exist with the support of voters. Many of the airports here that used to be surrounded by pasture are now surrounded by the lives of thousands and thousands of people who have every right not to care about aviation. It doesn’t matter if the science is ambiguous, if enough people who live under my departure path are worried about lead, then GA here is at risk. So I don’t consider it environmental extremism to get ahead of being a good neighbor to all those other Americans, and bank a little goodwill to keep my heavily subsidized fun funded and open.

So that's me. All that said I’m not a fan of coercion, and skeptical of one-size-fits-all. It’s a big country with some vast spaces and if I lived in one of those, I might roll my eyes about dispersed lead concentration too. If people are ok living around leaded gas, people want to buy it, and someone is will to sell it then it sounds like a market to me, and in a perfect world there are lots of options. And anyway mandates piss people off and are bad politics.

b

The diesel aircraft engines never seemed to be a very viable option, there’s a thread on here about a diesel in a 206, same with small turbines, it’s just not practical and from a working standpoint it’s a expensive money hole with less practical performance. A solution in search of a problem, just like this enviro fuel

Reminds me much of the boondoggle that was putting corn in auto gas?

Also lots of these “for the children” things are for profit

The massive corn industry loved ethanol gas

The first lidar speed guns given to police were provided my the insurance industry, more tickets more premiums

The makers of this fuel have been known to talk to politicians to get them to force people to use it, some threads on that on beechtalk, gami and friends ain’t doing this to be nice to you, or because they love GA, they didn’t get that data because they care about your engine, they are doing it to make as much money as they can, full stop, and they are relying on goverment to force you to buy their inferior product.

Most of these silly products will never make it in a true free market devoid of a goverment putting their fingers on the scales and using coercion to make what is essentially monopolies.


With the nervous Nellies of aviation not only accepting, but falling over themselves to install ADSB surveillance beacons in their own aircraft. I could see a day not far from now or there are mandatory “carbon fees” for every takeoff every landing, and based on flight hour, unless you’re modern day royalty you don’t really NEED to fly your own plane, do you?





But here’s the TLDR, the big take away

Do you honestly think these people are going to stop with forcing us to use nasty GL100?

History has shown they won’t

Isn't the oil lobby known to be big and not exactly sit on their hands? That's probably an important contributing factor to why we had lead in MOGAS for such a long time after the negative effects were well known. And I got to ask out of just curiosity: is 100LL inherently better than, say MOGAS, diesel or the new UL fuels, or is it because the engines have been built and optimized for it over decades?

I also think that what's going on here in Europe should not be misrepresented. Environmentalism has pretty much nothing to do with how difficult it is to get 100LL. The oil companies just don't want to sell it! They don't think they sell enough that they can be bothered supplying it.

Some few airports have big GA communities and are the exeptions where oil companies can make money from selling 100LL. Then, most places don't have it, and the few smaller airports who do, probably has it because the airport said that if they want to sell A1, they must also supply 100LL too. But prices are not regulated so they charge so much that hardly anyone can afford it. Naturally this creates a market for engines running on A1 og MOGAS. The environmentalist movement hardly knows about GA.

The one instance where environmentalists DID engage themselves in aviation, was when the Norwegian airforce shut down an F-16 engine maintenance facility and sell the property for the highest bidder - wich is always housing. The environmentalist movement took the side who wanted to keep it - and specifically for GA aviation! They thought that it would mean that the meadows around the airport would be taken care of, and that the increased quality of life coming from both GA and the surrounding nature would easily justify emissions and noise. People were used to F-16s roaring around, so GA was nothing to be bothered by.

That was another digression, but I wanted to shed some light on how things are here in Europe - where even the environmentalists can have some sense

If one of those smaller turbine engines comes to market at an affordable price point grafting one on the nose of my bird would be a task I'd undertake.

Mapleflt wrote:If one of those smaller turbine engines comes to market at an affordable price point grafting one on the nose of my bird would be a task I'd undertake.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_T62

Super affordable and proven in fixed and RW experimentals

Good example is the jetexec, debated getting one a few times







Per the oil industry, this is off the auto fuel STC site RE testing for corn in your gas

“ …Not all gasoline service station pumps label ethanol content. The ethanol industry considers pump labeling to be discriminatory and lobbied successfully for elimination of Federal pump labeling laws in regards to ethanol content.


Today's pumps are labeled as to ethanol content only if state law requires it.
It has become increasingly difficult for many pilots in the US to obtain ethanol free gasoline.In some areas of the country, it is impossible to find. This is primarily due to Federal requirements and EPA regulations which require ever increasing quantities of ethanol to be blended into the nation's gasoline supply.

Oil companies are required to add ethanol or they face hefty fines. Most of them today however are happy to use it because it allows them to manufacture an inferior product (sub-octane gasoline) and then to sell it for the same amount of money after blending in ethanol to make up the octane deficit…”

It’s all about the $$ the corporation like gami getting paid, the politicians getting paid, 99.999% of the time it’s not about the environment, your engine, the “children” or any of that, history has shown this over and over.



If their product was actually good, why do they have to force you to buy it????

That Solar is a bit of a dinosaur from a design point of view.

I like the look of this product but it's pricy....

https://www.pbsaerospace.com/aerospace- ... aft-engine