It’s finally over.
> After more than three decades of research and development, general aviation finally has an approved unleaded 100-octane fuel.
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/gami-awarded-long-awaite...
> After more than three decades of research and development, general aviation finally has an approved unleaded 100-octane fuel.
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/gami-awarded-long-awaite...
AvGas (which uses TEL) is used by general aviation exclusively.
which is the one used for commercial aviation.
Then there is the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about, the military which is using the 'JP-X' variants all over the world,
some of them even for their cars and trucks, because, hey, it's just better Diesel, why would we stock different fuels if we don't have to?
What a logistic nightmare!1!!
It's just something I won't do.
The categories (for non-military use) are generally Scheduled or Air Transport (any time you buy tickets for a flight, that's the category, you don't know or care who is flying, you paid for the journey between a specific origin and destination at a specific time; a FedEx plane is also Transport), then Commercial (not Transport but somebody is getting paid to fly aircraft, maybe it's crop spraying, TV news copter, police, or just another TV priest being flown around in his private jet), and only if nobody was getting paid is it General Aviation.
If your cosmetic dentist can afford a brand new Vision Jet so that he can live 100 miles away and fly in to do $5000 appointments without sitting in traffic, that's General Aviation. The authorities don't care that he's getting paid to be a dentist, he's not getting paid to fly his plane.
If your airline uses a relatively tiny PA-42 to get customers to an obscure but important airstrip with maybe 3-4 passengers per day that's still Air Transport.
On the other hand if some oil sheik owns their own A320 with their own custom decor and has a team of pilots to fly it wherever they want, that's still only Commercial, not Air Transport because nobody is buying tickets, it just goes wherever he wants.
Don’t confuse the commercial certificate[“license”](which is required to be paid for flying) with commercial operations (typically holding out to the public for air transport).
But it isn't. Those planes aren't aren't fuelled by AvGas. Their engines use JetA (basically kerosene) because they've got a turbine inside like those turbofan engines which look so visibly different, however their turbine powers the propeller rather than a set of fans to drive more air through the engine and produce thrust that way.
And by people who don't want to ever have to clean or rebuild a carburetor in their small motors. It's been an exceptional motor-life-extender to my chainsaws specifically.
If not, it could be some lower octane unleaded formulation. There are a couple of standards for these, but they have never caught on.
There’s been a lot of interest in it, especially in light of the recent discussions to close RHV in San Jose. I know one of the flight schools here just switched all their aircraft over to UL94.
Higher performance aircraft will need UL100, which is still not available, but is expected soon. There’s been significant progress in getting it approved over the last year.
Swift Fuels sells the supplemental type certificate aircraft owners need to use UL94. They are offering a free upgrade to the UL100 STC once it’s offered, so aircraft owners don’t have to pay twice to start using UL94 today.
The standard story seems to be that 20% of the planes burn 80% of the fuel, and need all the octane in 100LL. And GA is such a small market that airfields can't justify having multiple fuel grades available, so 100LL everywhere it is.
But yes, nice to hear that UL94 is nonetheless available in some places.