Any chance the water around Reid hill view airport has been tested for lead contamination? This sounds similar to the lead water pipe issue in flint Michigan! What are the odds it has nothing to do with leaded aviation fuel and it’s just more Californication at work?!
Am I missing something? No lead fuel will allow all those 1000's + of Rotax and other motors that prefer MOGAS to get fuel anywhere now. By having to buy and use a lead additive for all those antiques still out there flying, the cost of a "Lead Additive" adds a few pennies to their fuel costs. In other words....Not worth mentioning or getting your undies in a bundle. I went through this back in the 80's when lead was banned at fuel docks for boats in CA. I simply bought a lead additive. Any fool can measure and pour that in your tanks. This seems to be a "Chicken Little-The Sky is Falling" scenario to me...
@SN CY It's a threat. Why? Because people are too stupid to go by a lead substitute? The FAA can mandate no lead in fuel. They can not mandate what a pilot puts in his plane as an additive, whether it's a lead additive or an octane booster. The only threat caused by no lead gasoline is that the people with the antique airplanes that need the lead have to spend another couple of cents per gallon to put an additive in. Go to aircraft spruce, find the lead additive that they sell, read the directions, and do the math. It's like 2 cents a gallon. You have no argument.
I understand the efforts to move away from leaded fuel are ongoing. But prematurely banning avgas for personal or political reasons, especially based upon bad science , is not ok. Regardless of people's personal opinions on the matter one way or another, we need to call out bad ideas, actions, and studies regardless whether it hurts or helps our personal feelings or agendas. A solution to unleaded avgas will happen, but lying to get there before such a solution is ready is not acceptable, and doesn't actually help get us there any faster.
I certainly am not defending the actions of the local government, but it is long past time to admit that the aviation community has brought this on themselves. It is approaching 50 YEARS since unleaded fuel has been widely available for automobiles. Within 10 years of that, aviation engine makers like Lycoming and Continental should have been gradually introducing technology such as knock sensors and electronic ignition and fuel injection systems that would allow engines to safely operate on lower octane unleaded fuels. We are in this situation because the engine makers and the FAA certification branch have been complacent for at least 40 years now. Thankfully, engine makers like Rotax are leading the way in this regard. If only they made larger engines … which they are gradually doing. If Lycoming and Continental don’t get serious soon they will cease to exist either through legislation or competition from Rotax. As a retired engineer, I believe the aviation industry as approached this issue bassackwards. We should not be have spent decades trying to develop special fuels to allow legacy engines to keep flying. We should have developed engines that would run on widely available and economical auto fuels. We then should have set a horizon, say 20 years, when legacy engines could run 100LL, but would need to either be converted to use unleaded fuel or retired at the end of that grandfather period. If we had done this in the 80s or 90s, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion now. Yes, it is a pain for some airports to offer multiple fuels, but they did that for years with 80 and 100LL. And adding an auto fuel system is far easier than avgas since it is readily available, inexpensive (before Biden anyway) and has few safety issues than does leaded fuel. Doing this for 20 years or so would likely have been far lower in cost than trying to develop a fuel to replace 100LL and also fight all of these airport closure efforts. And I agree with the guest speaker that this is just the tip of a big iceberg. The complacency of the aviation community (AOPA, engine makers, FAA certification, etc.), is going to cost us dearly in the years ahead.
so we should ban 90% of aircraft flying today on legacy engines, and force people to buy engines they can't afford? Should we also ban all airshows and historical flying machines due to obsolete engines? No. You still need an unleaded avgas alternative. Surprise surprise, any time the gov is involved in something, massive delays and regulatory hurdles occur that prevent things from getting done. this isn't the aviation communities' fault. Many are already building airplanes that fly on unleaded mogas because it's cheaper for them to fly. But the FAA prevents new technologies like electronic ignition and such from being retrofitted to legacy aircraft. Technologies which have been available on experimental aircraft for decades and are safe and affordable, until the gov slaps a "certified" sticker on it.
@@LTVoyager I understood perfectly. but irrelevant to the issue of people lying about leaded fuel in this instance. and you're just repeating gripes we've all had for decades.
@@SoloRenegade It is absolutely relevant. If the aviation community had done what they should have done in the past, there would be no unleaded fuel to lie about today. Sorry, I had to spell it out for you to understand.
@@LTVoyager you didn't spell out anything i didn't already know. you're comprehension isn't very good. Aviation companies didn't do things because of cost, and gov regulation. Clearly you don't understand how the industry is.
We got rid of it. The people behind the "lead study" still want the airport shut, and they are not shy of blowing our money and destroying the jobs in the process
@@SergeyKataev ok but I meant in general, nationwide and worldwide. had it been done 40 years ago like it should they wouldn't have that argument against you. do you have 94ul instead then? and can the old prop planes fly on that?
Overstated the risk to the community - ??? Is there any benefit in putting lead oxides (from burning leaded gasoline) into the atmosphere? Is there any doubt that lead oxides are harmful (and even devastating) to humans? How about if we take the resources that we expend on resisting needed change and put that towards actually fixing the issue. We already have supply and cost issues with Av Gas (for a number of reasons.) There is nothing about getting lead out of the enviornment that cannot be done. Let's not concentrate on what we "Can't Do" and work on what we "Can Do."
We can do, and we do. Pretty much the whole fleet is running UL94 now. But as Cindy said after we told about it on the sup board meeting, "it's not about lead", she just wants the land repurposed. Now the Little League have lost their field and someone is blowing 1.8M of the county budget to rent another baseball patch elsewhere. Cindy is not blowing her money, it's our 1.8M going to waste, and when it's gone - we'll have neither the baseball patch nor 1.8M. And we can't recoup the 300k blown on the biased "lead study" either.
they were calling out bad science, not propping up the use of lead in fuels. the difference does matter. Lying to push an agenda is never ok. We can support replacing leaded fuels while simultaneously calling out lies at the same time. the world is not black and white.
@@bryanspayde8688 Car gas (MOGAS) holds up fine if it doesn't have ethanol. And if you let it or any fuel in your tanks for extended periods of time, use Stabil. Unfortunately, you can't get unleaded non-ethanol fuel at hardly any airports. Lead shortens the time between oil changes for my plane by 50%. I hope lead is banned forever. Planes that need it can get a lead additive....problem solved.
@@jimmypitbull3959 mo gas. Can have more corrosive additives in it than ethanol fuel ! Eats fuel cells in wings ! There’s no standard to mo gas it’s a hodgepodge! Of chemical s ! That’s why many manufactures across the board says use mo gas at your own risk !
