The Long, Twisted And Slightly Ridiculous Story of Avgas Part 1 

Completely agree. The less waste of time, the better. Memes, antics, "infotainment", trashy B-roll, etc...complete waste of time. Content is king.

Very much agreed!

old guys? dude... He aint that old.

There are young "no nonsense" RU-vidrs, too. I think wheat you're after is the "no nonsense" and I 100% agree.

Paul's also funnier than most, he has the bone-dry sardonic sense of humor down to a tee. he reminds me of aviation's Paul Harrell. i've known a couple old aerospace engineers that both Pauls remind me of. pretty much max level experience and expertise with a lot of wisdom and a very goofy and sarcastic sense of humor.

Not so fast. Lycoming has not approved Swift UL94 for my engine type, plus a bunch of others. Yes, I agree, it is a great solution for some engines out there. But, until Lycoming gives the approval of such alternate fuels, I'm stuck with 100LL. And, yes, I know it "may or can work," but I don't want to face the repercussion of being a glider if things don't pan out.

@@paulbrunner1818 i dont want to get rid of 100LL. I just wish all airports carried ul94 for those of us who invested in the STC to run it.

Modifications to make an engine run on ul94 are a lot simpler that everybody is being lead to believe. Many just need an intercooler upgrade and in the worse case water injection.

@@ericfisher2053 "being lead to believe" I see what you did there

@@ericfisher2053 you make that sound so easy. That's tens of thousands of dollars of modifications, and that's if some company already has an STC for your particular plane/engine combo. Also, if Swift UL94 is just 100LL sans plomb, why does it cost MORE than 100LL? I understand that the distribution network is smaller, and if you're not buying direct, then you're subsidizing the airport's investment in carrying another fuel, but we're talking over a dollar a gallon, and it was closer to two dollars per gallon before the current petrol pricing madness. Considering there's literally one company in the world that still makes the tetra-ethyl lead for 100LL, I would think it would be much more economical to produce UL94. I'm fine with having options, and when an unleaded fuel is available at a comparable price to 100LL, I'll bite. Until then, it's a no from me. I'll say $0.50/gal premium, and I'd really rather it be closer to $0.20. That's as much of a premium as I'm willing to pay. I get my blood lead levels checked routinely and the doc hasn't noted anything alarming, and most of the lead I'm exposed to probably comes from my other hobby of reloading and competitive shooting.

Here in Australia avgas is $2.80 to $3.00 a litre there is 4.6 litres to the US gallon

@@spannaspinna That’s more the Imperial gallon. Old enough to have purchased gasoline by that unit in Canada. U.S. gallon is closely equivalent to 3.8 liters.

LL is stupid as fuck and no engines need it anymore. Unless you're flying a 1920's plane haha

I wish I had half of your unfortunate circumstance.

@@9HighFlyer9 One thing you learn to never do is calculate your real cost per hour of flight. If you add in your work to the calculations, generally people go straight to the nearest loony bin and turn themselves in. My wife said that either the airplanes went or she went. That was my first wife. (and second).

@@jwills8606 Your a very smart man. Those airplanes don't talk back do they?

@@jwills8606 Same for me with the motorcycle ultimatum. Bye!

Well you can take comfort in them having a far better chance than the Det Lions!

The truth hurts😅😅 I've been riding that Cowboys rollercoaster my whole life

The Make it political guy is here. We can all go home. Shut it down. #Gross

@@JustPlaneSilly Everything's political now dude. Let's go Brandon! MAGA now more than ever!

@@JustPlaneSilly do you ever fly to west Texas? I know there is zero scenery here but have wondered if you're ever in my neck of the woods

Can we keep the wheel?

@@Milkmans_Son Luckily that was invented slightly longer ago than the 20th century.

Lead's main job is to increase octane to prevent detonation which is destructive to engines, but it also protects the valve seats by providing a thin sacrificial metallic layer between the valve and the seat to prevent high temperature microwelding that erodes soft seats. Higher octane fuel lowers combustion temps and that helps preserve soft seats too, but not completely, so hardened valve seats fixes that issue. But contrary to popular belief lead actually adds no lubrication value. ok? So high compression engines that don't already have hardened valve seats will most likely eventually need them to be installed to be able to use a high octane unleaded fuel that then will only need to prevent detonation. That is the key here I believe.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Mvse4Xhzwuk.html

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Mvse4Xhzwuk.html

Electric trainers are the ultimate future

@@NicholasLittlejohn The downside of that is it doesn't teach new pilots engine or prop management. Electric plane doesn't require messing with mixture or messing with a constant speed prop, it basically reduces engine management to watching battery percentage and temperature and making sure you don't over torque the shaft

Do people actually argue that it's not harmful? I've never run into that before. Despite, almost entirely for amusement, hanging out in flat earther, chemtrail and other conspiracy corners of the internet.

@@9HighFlyer9 yes. Older engines didnt not have hardened valve seats. Lead cushions them. If you ran unleaded in such an engine you would destroy the valve seats. Which is also one of the reasons avgas still has lead.

@@9HighFlyer9 I don't hear that argument much any more. This was back in the 90s. As pointed out by Demonslayer below, the concern over engine wear was legitimate albeit minimal given the already growing number of unleaded vehicles at the time. The *conspiracy theory* was that it was done intentionally to cause wear and thereby make everyone buy new vehicles blah blah blah. My dad asserted this in no uncertain terms (which is why I remember it so well) and, I'd not be surprised if he still rolls out this narrative today. He also asserted that there was no safety issues with lead in gas as it was all a liberal hoax in service to the conspiracy theory.

@@Demonslayer20111 old polluting engines deserve to be broken

@@DaveHojo lack of knowledge and science understanding

exactly, i love him

Darn, now I wanna hear Paul talk about rutabagas and the Honduras...

I have always said this. Once these ancient peices of junk are allowed to not only be used but be in continual production, there will be no incentive to change.

@@TRPGpilot I agree. I think current engines should be grandfathered in until they reach their end of life to prevent economic harm to current owners, but I think the production of new engines needing 100LL should have been stopped decades ago.

the faa said it was coming in 2002, you've had 18 years.

@@jmwintenn The FAA said what was coming? And nobody believes or trusts the FAA anyway. Just look at NextGen…

It would be even simpler if the switch was made to turbo diesels. Then small planes could fill up with kerosene just like jets. There was even a diesel Cessna for a few years called the Redhawk.

Smash the engines and melt them down. Problem solved.

HA!

Mogas essentially pays for overhauls

Mogas essentially pays for overhauls

I’m a 20 year old line service tech, and I breathe this stuff in every time I fuel an airplane. Probably slowly killing myself at this point

Even worse, the inventor himself knew it was bad, and still pushed it out of the lab into the world. He knew it.

@@flibbettyjibbetts6766 damn. Hope you're well. The shift to mogas seems to be well underway.

I believe that Kettering also invented the first military drone, the Kettering Bug, used in WWI.

US lawyers will prevent that from happening. The Lycosaurs deliberately don't see any development, because any failure of a new design will be used by lawyers to extract gazilions in compensations.

@@erik_dk842 that's it in the proverbial nutshell... attorneys...

The Citation Needed episode covering Thomas Midgley was terrifyingly hilarious.

Would help people with heartburn

Cost

HUGELY more expensive up front. Turboprops are reliable as is, but it doesn't make them economical.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on climate and energy policy as in my experience those pushing "green" policy have not even a primary school understanding of the subjects outside UN corporate narratives. Saying things like "put a diesel into something" leaves the door wide open as to your understanding of complex systems. The addition of a liquid cooling system in diesel fit outs is an increased weight and decrease in safety. And just because a fuel has "Bio" in the name does not mean its environmental impact is friendly or sustainable. They certainly aren't profitable or the world would've gone away from oil a long time ago. Something not mentioned in this presentation was the lubricating properties of lead in fuel which has a significant influence on design tolerance and material choice for components like valves, valve guides and valve seats. Engines with overheated exhaust valve components run out of compression quite quickly. Engines without compression lose power. Aeroplanes without power fall out of the sky. Now if you work within the field you claim to you should be well aware, unless ignorant beyond any acceptable metric, that the lead in the atmosphere from small aircraft and carbon dioxide from transport is well down the list of atmospheric pollutants and basically insignificant compared to chemicals released by governments.

@@jdoe9518 You're correct that diesel comes with tradeoffs, but that's true of literally ANY alternate scheme. You're also correct that "Bio" doesn't mean environmentally friendly, per se. That said, closing the carbon loop and not using lead are attractive qualities to me, and just because something isn't the #1 offender (is "well down the list" as you say), it doesn't necessarily follow that it's therefore pointless to address anyway. A thing need not be as bad as possible before we decide we want to do something about it.

@@cavalierqoon carbon dioxide... 0.4% of the atmosphere. One of three essential components for ALL plant life on this CARBON based earth. You are aware of what photosynthesis is? And that it produces OXYGEN as byproduct? So currently people such as yourself are reducing carbon emissions and nitrogen (78% of the atmosphere) fertiliser production. Now I'm no PhD but it appears your policies are trying to significantly reduce plant based food production and the ability to create "bio" fuels.

@@jdoe9518 Your concerns would be warranted if 1) Carbon was a limiting reagent for life - it is not (water is, in most places), and/or 2) the world was suffering from land shortages for agriculture - again, it is not (the appearance of shortage created by deforestation, etc. is due to poor planning and market failures rather than an actual meaningful shortage). Moreover, biofuels are most efficiently produced using things like sewage, which I strongly caution you AGAINST using as a source of food. You do you, though.

@@cavalierqoon To be clear you don't believe carbon is a reagent for life? On this carbon based earth with plants that require carbon dioxide for photosynthesis? Good news! If tractors, farm equipment and trucks run on sewage so can the aircraft you'll never own. Unaware of sewage fuelled power stations but I'll keep an eye out for them. The world is better place with people like you being involved in policy making. If you could stop breathing out carbon dioxide you'd being the world a solid😉

Lobbyists like AOPA don't care

@@NicholasLittlejohn All that lead emitted by those relatively few small planes with small engines pales in comparison to all the lead that's still on steel skeletons of older high-rise buildings and bridges (as anti-corrosion paint), old church roofs (watch that white plume of pure lead (II) oxide rising above burning Notre Dame cathedral in Paris), or the lead that hunters and "target/ bottle shooters" pump every year into the environment... Heck, forget it - think of all those lead acid car batteries that don't get recycled - granted, "nearly 100%" of them DO GET recycled, but that 1 or 2% that does not... _in October 2020, ..., the EPA posted the statement that "In 2018, the estimated amount of recycled battery lead was about 99 percent ..."_ ... which sounds kinda great, until you realise that the TOTAL amount of those batteries produced was in the order of... _ The Battery Council figures indicate that around 15.5 billion pounds of battery lead was consumed in the USA in [2014-2018] period, with a net amount of approximately 2 billion pounds battery scrap lead being exported. Of the 13.6 billion pounds remaining after exports, 13.5 billion pounds were recycled ..._ ...and that leaves us with 0.1 billion pounds, or 50,000 short tonnes (US, approx 45.4 metric tonnes or 45,359 kg) of lead "unaccounted for" - in USA ALONE, in four years period ONLY. Makes you think, eh? (Quotes from Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling#Lead.E2.80.93acid_batteries.) In other words, "you're barking under wrong tree, my dear Watson..." ;-)

MON numbers are lower than RON for the same grade fuel

@@yamezzcuross4353 thanks! So to what grade is a 87 octane fuel equal to?

@@mitsos306ify I think 91

@@yamezzcuross4353 it is still low. I live in Europe and the lowest grade you can find is 95. I use 100 octane "shell racing" to my car, but most people use 98. This changed though the last year since fuel prices skyrocketed and now the 95 is the most popular!

@@mitsos306ify, Shell 100 [RON] in Europe is 88 MON and 94 AKI (used for road gasoline in US+Canada). AvGas is 99.5 min MON, big difference.

Mufflers lower power output slightly. Unnecessary part to have on a plane that will just need to get fixed in the future. Never would want to fly a Cessna 150 with a muffler.

I hope you got an STC for that modification.

@@Demonslayer20111 Never bothered.

@@v.e.7236 Pay off the ia doing your annuals?

@@Demonslayer20111 It's been over twenty years since I owned and flew that plane. I'm no longer flight certified due to a spinal chord injury and age.

so that WAS Fulton NY. I work literally down Rt 57 from it and have caught whiffs passing by. Its been burning since when, Spring?

You're right. I flew Cubs out of College Park, circa 72-74.

I like that smell so much I pipe it into the bedroom of my kid.

@@kimchipig - Dad?

Lead lowered IQ for a generation

@@NicholasLittlejohn There's a statistically significant drop in violent crime that coincided with the maturity of children born after the lead ban. QED

" if dont have the water you dont have absorbtion" You realize that air itself contains water, right? And the amount of water air contains varies greatly. Ethanol, and other alcohols, will suck water right out of the air. So, to keep ethanol from absorbing water you'd have to ensure it never came in contact with air.

@@stefanl5183 Of course, but even in the most humid climates the actual mass of water compared to the mass of fuel is miniscule. People do tests by dumping in massive amounts and showing what happens. If this is what is going on inside your fuel tank you have much bigger problems. Say 90 F, 50% humidty which is Lousianna is the summer it is 0.01 lbs of water per poud of air. Air's denisty is is about 0.08lbs/cubic foot, so to get 1 lb of air would take about 125 cubic feet, which in a very humid hot atmosphere would have 0.01 lbs of water which would be 0.0012 gallons of water. Look at the average fuel system and you can see how blown out of proportion all this is.

Um.....I have never seen any research report that suggested MTBE was more dangerous than lead. Unsafe? Sure. But lead is extraordinarily dangerous, especially to children.

@@paulmaxwell8851 There is no doubt that lead is nasty for humans and was replaced mostly by MTBE as an oxygenate and oxtane enhancer. While MTBE can be toxic to humans not nearly as much as lead, the issue is that MTBE is very toxic to the enviroment, especially drinking water where a small amount can render large quantities of water non drinkable. Ethanol was introduce by law as a substtitute and we can argue forever about it's pro's/con's and whether it is a lower cost alternative, etc. Reality is it is here to stay and the oil companies dont like it, as it impacts their supply process and they dont make it and have spent literally billions on marketing quite successfully convincing the public that it is the enemy. The aftermarket has also reaped an enormous windfall in selling snake oil solutions that in reality dont really exist, not to mention the mechanical repair businessess who blame everything soup to nuts on it.

@@stefanl5183 we call that moisture

Jesus, that's like Mexico today

We're headed back to those bad old days thanks to the current SCOTUS. Get your inhaler ready!

If it floats flys or fuçks rent it!

@@thetoecutter13 can it do all three?

@@NicholasLittlejohn If she's really talented she might be able to.