The Long, Twisted And Slightly Ridiculous Story of Avgas Part 1
AVweb3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2022–2026
explainer · general · 2022–2026 on HN
AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains why general aviation has failed to replace leaded avgas, blaming industry inertia, bureaucratic delay and an exemption that removes the incentive. This is part one of two.
HN recommends the series as an insightful, humorous account of why unleaded aviation fuel is so hard to approve.
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4 comments from Hacker News
We're working on it, slowly but surely. This has been a known problem for a long time, at least since 2009 if not earlier. GAMI's G100UL was approved as a 100LL replacement in 2022, but there is still some controversy. Avweb has done a good series of videos on this. There were some real engineering concerns and some typical aviation conservative decision making. But really, it's a tragedy of the FAA fumbling the ball for decades at this point. ▶ this video link link link link
The uphill battle of unleaded avgas leaves both the main players in the industry and the regulators themselves looking bad—but in a banal kinda way. I enjoy AVWeb on YT for AV news (really, I just enjoy the humor/personality of Paul Bertorelli lol), here are a few insightful videos that summarize the story: The Long, Twisted And Slightly Ridiculous Story of Avgas Part 1 (14:22) ▶ this video Part 2 (15:15) link and G100UL Approved Now What? (When the FAA approved the first unleaded 100-octane avgas a year ago) link
Impressive work by GAMI who are working on it since decades. AVWeb made 2 videos on the subject of leaded avgas and on how hard it is to get it approved. In addition, the FAA launched several failed attempts with the industry at large. * ▶ this video The Long, Twisted And Slightly Ridiculous Story of Avgas Part 1 * link The Long, Twisted And Slightly Ridiculous Story of Avgas Part 2 When reading the announcement, it looks like some municipalities in California started banning the sale of leaded avgas and I suspect that helped to push the FAA to finally move in approving G1000UL. Not surprisingly, they will start providing it to the California market before the other states. In the announcement on avweb.com ( link ), they also credit Mark Baker from the AOAP to encourage the FAA to complete the project.
Mostly because the use of lead in fuels is something to avoid at all costs. I know a lot of GA people were VERY happy to hear that they approved G100UL. Leaded fuels aren't just toxic, but they also cause issues with airplanes such as lead fouling. AVWeb did a couple videos on the subject here: ▶ this video link