cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/1604327
In particular, whatever politicans say, the Republican-controlled House has a rider in the FAA authorization bill which requires airports to continue selling leaded fuel for propeller aircraft forever:
The House version of the bill would require airports that receive federal grants to continue selling the same fuels they sold in 2018 in perpetuity.
While the Democratically-controlled Senate requires a phase-out:
The Senate version would require these airports to continue selling the same fuels they sold in 2022, with a sunset date of 2030 or whenever unleaded fuels are “widely available.”
For context, the FAA approved sale of unleaded fuel for all propeller planes last year, and there are local efforts to ban the sale of leaded fuel in locations where the unleaded fuel is now available
Republicans like leaded gas because lead poisoning makes people more likely to vote for them.
Yay, leaded gas. Surely what the world needs most right now.
From the FAA:
There are approximately 167,000 aircraft in the United States and a total of 230,000 worldwide that rely on 100 low lead avgas for safe operation. It is the only remaining transportation fuel in the United States that contains the addition of TEL.
TEL meaning Tetraethyl Lead, it is used as a fuel additive in avgas to increase octane ratings (required for safe operation of engines).
Now, the post says “propeller” aircraft but this isn’t exactly true.
Turbine-driven propeller aircraft (Turboprops) don’t use avgas.
The unleaded fuel they’re talking about is probably G100UL and that’s only been around for like a couple years.
Nobody wants to use leaded fuel (unless someone inhaled too much of the emissions) and it’s on the way out whether our representatives want it to or not.
“required for safe operation” aka we’re a bunch of fuds that refuse to change anything.
They could easily phase it out, but there’s no political will to do so. It would cost money to find a replacement and those poor private plane operators would have to suffer the costs, boo hoo. Anyone living within 1 mile of an airport is being contaminated with lead in the air on a daily basis.
I’d wager that the larger portion of aircraft owned belong to institutions like universities and other sources of flight education as well as companies which own fleets of these things.
Some commercial air travel still occurs using these planes also.
You’d be surprised at the kind of people that own private aircraft, they’re not always the kind of “throw money at my problems” people that’ll just lobby the government (they probably don’t even have the money to do anything), bigger interests would likely focus on switching to a new, proprietary, and expensive fuel as a political issue.
The main issue is that they’re using “safety” as a shield to hide behind actually fixing the problem. Any time someone says something is for “safety” they’re full of shit.
TEL is used in avgas so the engines don’t blow up, it literally is a safety issue.
Where the money comes in is when companies need to ground planes, swap out engines, and move to fuel that hasn’t been around for very long (which was only discovered after a massive R&D campaign).
There’s other ways to increase octane, but the faa hates allowing changes.
Yes but alternatives like mogas may require physical changes to aircraft in order to make planes that can only use avgas compatible with mogas. Mogas is also not strictly a comparable alternative as it also comes with its own downsides.
The thing is, I don’t have any sympathy because they’ve had half a century or more to consider this issue and nobody did anything. If you bought a plane knowing it requires leaded fuel, then it’s your responsibility to fix it or ground it.
The EU would tackle this by telling those aircraft owners to switch to unleaded fuel somehow, e.g. by fixing or replacing the engine, or put it out of business.
The EU uses the same avgas
This is only for small aircraft. Lead made my dad dumb as rocks, but I don’t think small plane pilots are seeing long term effects?
Sure it’s stupid to throw it into the air regardless but I imagine it’s going to be the cost of business unless we eat the rich
It’s the kids who live near the airport who suffer, not the pilots.
Any studies to that effect? Capitalists throwing lead into the air of poor people sounds pretty on-brand
Thanks mate. The war on the 99% wages on :(
Pretty sure this is never going to cross Biden’s desk.
