Wait, wasn’t leaded gas banned in the 70s?
Are you telling me all these aircraft that fly over my house are filling the air with lead?
How much environmental lead contamination are we talking here?
Are you telling me all these aircraft that fly over my house are filling the air with lead?
How much environmental lead contamination are we talking here?
This was true up until last year, when G100UL was approved as a drop-in replacement for 100LL. It does require a STC and the associated paperwork, but this is apparently pro forma and quite cheap, and doesn't require any modification to the aircraft apart from some placards. The problem, of course, is that G100UL isn't really available anywhere yet, while 100LL is still ubiquitous.
Until recently this was true. But since September 2022, G100UL is legal and certified for "every spark ignition piston engine and every airframe using a spark ignition piston engine in the FAA’s Type Certificate database.”
Not a rhetorical question, I am genuinely curious.
New designs must work with leaded fuel since that is the fuel which is available - until avgas contains no lead this will continue to be the case.
Side note, most new planes are sold without an ecu.
While I'm rambling, the dual spark in a GA engine is really interesting.
Jets (and turbo-props) run on kerosene basically.
The lead is an additive that acts as a lubricant and older engines aren't certified to run without it.
> wherein it served as an effective antiknock agent and reduced exhaust valve and valve seat wear.
That's going to be bigger twins and prop planes like the Pilatus
I should've known intuitively that a turboprop isn't a jet engine because the thrust comes from the prop not the exhaust.
This is why the FAA wasn't in a huge hurry but at the same time they were WAY too slow. It should have been a crash priority honestly.
Increased lead in crops grown within a few miles of airports has been noticed.[1].
As had reduced IQ's in children living near airports. [2]
[1]: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/344932499.pdf
[2]: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2353962-children-living...
Imagine if 100 years from now, Brazil is an up and coming economic powerhouse, and economists figure out that they are doing so well because their strategists, businesspeople, scientists and engineers are all smarter because their food contains less lead than ours does. We'd quickly start outlawing high lead food, which in turn might make big swathes of our cropland unusable for food.
https://qz.com/africa/2053227/leaded-gasoline-is-now-banned-...
Luckily lead is very heavy and chemically active which makes it much easier to remove from soils than some of the nastier contaminants. You can essentially break it down with sulphur amendments to acidify the soil and then let the plants do the rest of the work. Eventually dilution does the rest of the work until it reaches background levels.
Wrong on all accounts. There are orders of magnitude less engine models used in air than cars. Profit margin for airplane companies are higher than cars (though volume is much lower). cars use the same model worldwide and pass certification all at once, planes sell in one country and customers are mostly responsible for 'acclimatization' or whatever they call it in your parts, but it usually is about lights color and placements or some nonsense.
the one thing that made planes be so slow, is that people who own planes have much more voice over legislation than people who own cars. Nothing else. That's why the whole industry used tax payer money to certify one special new gas type that will work on all existing engines (again, possible because much less variety, making it easier technically). You breathed lead for 60 years of legal lethargy just so a few people didn't have to spend a few pennies on their plane maintenance.
I thanks the FAA and other's countries flight authorities for the fact that I don't need to have an anxiety crisis every time a plane passes overhead.
Oh, and unlike with a car or truck, engine failure in a light plane, especially during takeoff, is VERY likely to result in death or serious injury.
Well, what are the safety implications of atomizing lead? This argument seems short-sighted.
There was a carve out because plane engines are expensive and old (the most common engine today is a 50 year old model). Presumably it was expected that carve out would just be temporary while we worked on finding an off ramp to unleaded avgas. Nobody wanted the FAA to just ignore the problem for decades.
It's notable, and is being banned for it. But when it's gone, it won't make any significant difference.
But this only affects avgas, which is high-octane gasoline for propeller-driven aircraft. Jet-A1, which is light diesel fuel or kerosene-like for jets doesn't contain lead.
https://qz.com/2158594/do-you-live-near-enough-to-a-small-ai...
This could be an incredibly useful tool if it worked (and wasn't limited to just a few years worth of data).
but nothing works
Not much. Flying is a pretty niche hobby (and as others have pointed out, commercial jets don't use leaded fuel).
Don't know about the US, but we had leaded petrol (gas) for cars much later here in the UK, ~2000 at least. I remember my mum's Austin Metro (which was from the early 90s/late 80s) ran on it, and we only replaced that car once I was in high school (and that was in 2001)
In this case, it has been a decades long process. But it's done now and the replacement fuel is available. Time to mandate the change.
That's why unleaded fuel came about.