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Comment by mips_avatar | Hacker News Reader

I live by lake union in Seattle, and I love watching the seaplanes taking off and landing. It's high time that there's a lead-free option. Seattle doesn't need that kind of lead in its air.

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As someone who flies GA aircraft out of Boeing field (KBFI) I also welcome this change. I don't want more leaded fuel on my hands. The lead can be absorbed by skin.

Every time I hang out in Georgetown and a plane flies overhead I have this same thought.

(ish)

Have you seen this Veritasium video about the man who came up with adding tetraethyllead to gasonline and it's negative impact on humanity?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA

Given how dangerous lead is in even the tiniest quantities it is really surprising that there has not been more pressure to change that.

Don't have time for the video, but if that was Thomas Midgley, he was quite the one-man environmental catastrophe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

It is indeed. The video (which I just happened upon yesterday) does a great job of describing his impact on humanity and it was interesting to learn that prop planes were still allowed to use leaded gasoline--I had no idea. Ironic he died by strangulating himself in one of his own inventions.

I used to live near there too. I was today years old when I learned those planes still use leaded fuel. Oof. Glad that's getting rectified.... finally.

The piston engines still use "low lead" fuel. The turboprops run on jet fuel.

Some piston engines use jet fuel too (Diamond planes in particular). Some use automotive gas.

Piston engines that run on jet fuel are diesels. Nothing wrong with that and diesels are very efficient. But diesel GA engines have a long history of problems. Diamond is rare in seeming to have overcome those problems.

I spoke with a coordinator at Kenmore Air about a private charter a few months back. Over 90% of their flights are on their higher capacity DHC-3 de Havilland Otters so that they can fill seats more efficiently. The Beaver runs on leaded gas, but the Otters do not.

The otters are all turbine now, which runs essentially pure kerosene.

The rotary engine tech in a DHC beaver is barely changed from WW2 era rotary piston engines... Assuming we're not talking about the more modern turbine beavers and otters.

The turbine ones already run on Jet-A

Rotary or radial?

Radial.

My brain was clearly not working right when I wrote that, though the mental image of a Mazda RX-7 engine strapped to the front of a beaver is certainly amusing.

Wonder if anybody ever tried that. Somebody must have, decided the gallons per hour was ridiculously high, and abandoned the idea.

In a similar way, there are kit planes which use EJ and EA series Subaru engines. These tend to be a bit more fuel efficient than Mazda rotaries though.

They're used in drones

https://www.aieuk.com/wankel-rotary-uav-engines/

There have been many attempts with the 13B. One I saw it all worked, except the exhaust system. Builder went through everything, built 3 or 4 of them. The last was made out of titanium welded by guys who worked for a defense contractor.

Failed in flight like the rest of them. He ended up with a lycoming.

In the early days of aviation there were actually rotary engines that were like radials, but where the entire engine rotated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine

Given that the DHC-2 Beaver was introduced in 1948, that’s not too surprising.

And I think that Kenmore Air is the main operator out of Lake Union, and they're mostly or all turbine.

I live near the south end of Lake Washington near Renton Airport and always cringe when those small piston engined planes take off over the lake and homes. I would be afraid of growing a garden in the homes around the airport. I see people fishing in the lake next to signs warning about the risk of eating too much fish from the lake. It is high time we got rid of this last remnant of leaded gas.

I haven’t looked but wonder if there is a measurement available and how bad it is comparatively.

Lived there for a while as well. Didn’t think about that…

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