4 ms·

Wow, hearing that rich people are still allowed to dump lead into the atmosphere above our heads just ruined my morning. What things of non-entertainment value

by drewm1980 6y ago

Wow, hearing that rich people are still allowed to dump lead into the atmosphere above our heads just ruined my morning. What things of non-entertainment value would we loose if we just banned leaded fuel overnight? Are crop dusters burning lead while spraying pesticides over our food crops?

tjohns 6y ago
You don't need to be rich to fly. You can buy a older used aircraft for the cost of a nice car. Sometimes cheaper. (Note: Not the Cirrus they're talking about upthread.) They're working on replacing leaded fuel. The challenge is mostly regulatory, since they won't certify any of the replacements until they're sure it's 100% safe. It's still a work in progress. As for what you'd lose: Search and rescue, medical transport (both commercial and volunteer), transport of blood samples for lab testing, high resolution aerial photography on your smartphone, powerline inspection to prevent forest fires, crop dusting. I could go on...
- NikkiA 6y ago
  Search and rescue is almost soley helicopter traffic, and very rarely requires leaded fuel (a turbine doesn't need leaded, it can run on it, but it'll run just fine on unleaded too). The number of places still using non-turbine helicopters for anything other than training and very light sightseeing is very small, probably close to 0% worldwide. Same is true of Medical Transport except possibly for Australia where light aircraft are used more frequently than turbine helicopters. Same for powerline inspection, although there could be a couple of companies using Robinsons somewhere I guess.
  - dreamcompiler 6y ago
    Search and rescue in the USA is mostly done by the Civil Air Patrol, which almost solely uses fixed-wing aircraft.
tr352 6y ago
Doing so would bankrupt pretty much the entire general aviation industry. Also, training new pilots would become impossible.
p_l 6y ago
A lot of "low altitude only" pilots try to fly on MOGAS (car fuel, unleaded) when possible due to high cost of AVGAS 100LL (the most common aviation fuel, 100 octane low lead). The problem comes with flying in lower atmospheric pressure (high or hot environment) because the replacement chemical used in place of the lead-based additives makes fuel much quicker to evaporate. BTW, the really rich don't use AVGAS 100LL except maybe for hobby flying - kerosene-based JET A-1 is used in all turbine engines, as well as the rare diesel.
dreamcompiler 6y ago
The amount of lead pollution produced by GA is a tiny fraction of the amount that used to be produced by cars, but still I think it's time for it to go away.

tjohns 6y ago

You don't need to be rich to fly. You can buy a older used aircraft for the cost of a nice car. Sometimes cheaper. (Note: Not the Cirrus they're talking about upthread.) They're working on replacing leaded fuel. The challenge is mostly regulatory, since they won't certify any of the replacements until they're sure it's 100% safe. It's still a work in progress. As for what you'd lose: Search and rescue, medical transport (both commercial and volunteer), transport of blood samples for lab testing, high resolution aerial photography on your smartphone, powerline inspection to prevent forest fires, crop dusting. I could go on...

NikkiA 6y ago
Search and rescue is almost soley helicopter traffic, and very rarely requires leaded fuel (a turbine doesn't need leaded, it can run on it, but it'll run just fine on unleaded too). The number of places still using non-turbine helicopters for anything other than training and very light sightseeing is very small, probably close to 0% worldwide. Same is true of Medical Transport except possibly for Australia where light aircraft are used more frequently than turbine helicopters. Same for powerline inspection, although there could be a couple of companies using Robinsons somewhere I guess.
- dreamcompiler 6y ago
  Search and rescue in the USA is mostly done by the Civil Air Patrol, which almost solely uses fixed-wing aircraft.

tr352 6y ago

Doing so would bankrupt pretty much the entire general aviation industry. Also, training new pilots would become impossible.

p_l 6y ago

A lot of "low altitude only" pilots try to fly on MOGAS (car fuel, unleaded) when possible due to high cost of AVGAS 100LL (the most common aviation fuel, 100 octane low lead). The problem comes with flying in lower atmospheric pressure (high or hot environment) because the replacement chemical used in place of the lead-based additives makes fuel much quicker to evaporate. BTW, the really rich don't use AVGAS 100LL except maybe for hobby flying - kerosene-based JET A-1 is used in all turbine engines, as well as the rare diesel.

dreamcompiler 6y ago

The amount of lead pollution produced by GA is a tiny fraction of the amount that used to be produced by cars, but still I think it's time for it to go away.