4 ms·

Unfortunately lead in fuel is used as an excuse to shut down airports. Lead, noise, "safety..." all the red herrings used by local politicans and the developers

Unfortunately lead in fuel is used as an excuse to shut down airports. Lead, noise, "safety..." all the red herrings used by local politicans and the developers who own them, along with small-time (or big-time) land speculators to call for airport closures. The fact remains that unless piston planes can run on ACTUAL car gas (which means gasohol) in the foreseeable future, GA is probably doomed. Or we can stop putting methanol in gas... which is also an excellent idea.

NonNefarious 4y ago
Meanwhile, Rotax actually does have an engine that'll run on gasohol (10%). And there's this interesting news: https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/11/study-finds-no-elevated-lead-levels-in-reid-hillview-airports-soil/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/11/study-finds-no-elevat...
BenjiWiebe 4y ago
It's ethanol that makes gasohol. And why would GA be doomed if it can't run on automotive gas? It hasn't _been_ running on automotive gas.
- edrxty 4y ago
  The implication is that leaded gas will eventually be outlawed. It's also significantly more expensive and as such is putting pressure on an already expensive market.
- NonNefarious 4y ago
  Yes, and? That's like asking why the gas-fired-appliance industry is doomed if natural gas is outlawed. Piston GA has been running on leaded gas, and the unleaded aviation gas that exists is only certified for something like 35% of the piston fleet. But that's not the only major problem. GA suffers from a shrinking pilot population, with cost being a huge hurdle for both training and operation of planes. Replacing one niche fuel with another isn't going to help. The industry should've tackled this issue decades ago. The writing was on the wall for leaded gas in the '70s. Yes, it is a technical challenge, but after this much time I find it hard to believe it wouldn't have been solved with enough motivation and a regulatory regime that fostered a solution.
wolverine876 4y ago
> Unfortunately lead in fuel is used as an excuse to shut down airports. Lead, noise, "safety..." all the red herrings used by local politicans and the developers who own them, along with small-time (or big-time) land speculators to call for airport closures. What should we presume these are red herrings? Lead and noise aren't problems? Another commenter posted research indicating that the lead is a real problem. Also, what airports have been shut down?
- persona_reuse 4y ago
  https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/reid-hillview-airport-san-jose-lead-levels-closing/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/reid-hillview-airp... - closed for lead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigs_Field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigs_Field - closed for 'safety'. The concern among General Aviation is that there's nobody making new airports. Each loss is something that's almost certainly never coming back.
  - bb611 4y ago
    I'm staring out my window at planes landing at Reid-Hillview right now, it is not closed. RHV is under a federal funding agreement and cannot be closed without FAA agreement for most of the next decade.
- NonNefarious 4y ago
  They are red herrings because the airports in question are invariably LESS noisy and LESS polluting than they were when the fake NIMBYs willingly moved next door to them. This is through decline in the number of operations and the technological advancement of the planes themselves. Compare the noise and pollution of a radial-engined plane to that of a modern fuel-injected plane with electronic ignition. The "safety" hysteria is easily debunked when you compare aviation accidents near a given airport with the automotive accidents on ONE major street nearby. Santa Monica is another example here, with not one neighbor of the airport killed by a plane crash in a century... while car crashes on the street adjacent to the airport kill (on average) a person every year. Yet this airport will likely be shut down and destroyed after an illegal (Brown Act-violating) back-room deal was struck between an outgoing FAA administrator and the SM city council. Another favorite lying tactic is to cite, for example, "11 crashes in the last 12 years at such-and-such and airport," but when you look at the accidents you find that they were nowhere near the airport; they're falsely cited because the plane LEFT from that airport or was headed there. That's like shutting down O'Hare because a plane from there crashed in Iowa. And as noted, iconic Meigs Field, which sat on an island posing zero threat or even annoyance to anyone in Chicago, was destroyed at 3 a.m. by Mayor Daley. This asshole had city fire trucks aim their spotlights at the webcam on the field to hide what he was doing. And what was he doing? Stealing an irreplaceable resource from taxpayers because downstate IL politicians used it... and he didn't like them. But his excuse to the public (three years after 9/11) was that he'd heard that people were worried about a small plane crashing into a building. This is the kind of corrupt trash arrayed against our thousands of public-use airports across the country, just when aviation advancements have picked up speed and the light-aircraft industry has attracted large amounts of investment and attention. Not to mention the rest of the trash: local politicians taking payoffs from developers and pandering to land speculators. Nobody wants lead. But lead is going away. We didn't dismantle the interstate highway system to get rid of it from cars, so we sure as hell shouldn't dismantle our national aviation system to get rid of it from planes.

NonNefarious 4y ago

Meanwhile, Rotax actually does have an engine that'll run on gasohol (10%). And there's this interesting news: https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/11/study-finds-no-elevated-lead-levels-in-reid-hillview-airports-soil/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/06/11/study-finds-no-elevat...

BenjiWiebe 4y ago

It's ethanol that makes gasohol. And why would GA be doomed if it can't run on automotive gas? It hasn't _been_ running on automotive gas.

edrxty 4y ago
The implication is that leaded gas will eventually be outlawed. It's also significantly more expensive and as such is putting pressure on an already expensive market.
NonNefarious 4y ago
Yes, and? That's like asking why the gas-fired-appliance industry is doomed if natural gas is outlawed. Piston GA has been running on leaded gas, and the unleaded aviation gas that exists is only certified for something like 35% of the piston fleet. But that's not the only major problem. GA suffers from a shrinking pilot population, with cost being a huge hurdle for both training and operation of planes. Replacing one niche fuel with another isn't going to help. The industry should've tackled this issue decades ago. The writing was on the wall for leaded gas in the '70s. Yes, it is a technical challenge, but after this much time I find it hard to believe it wouldn't have been solved with enough motivation and a regulatory regime that fostered a solution.

wolverine876 4y ago

> Unfortunately lead in fuel is used as an excuse to shut down airports. Lead, noise, "safety..." all the red herrings used by local politicans and the developers who own them, along with small-time (or big-time) land speculators to call for airport closures. What should we presume these are red herrings? Lead and noise aren't problems? Another commenter posted research indicating that the lead is a real problem. Also, what airports have been shut down?

persona_reuse 4y ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/reid-hillview-airport-san-jose-lead-levels-closing/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/reid-hillview-airp... - closed for lead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigs_Field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigs_Field - closed for 'safety'. The concern among General Aviation is that there's nobody making new airports. Each loss is something that's almost certainly never coming back.
- bb611 4y ago
  I'm staring out my window at planes landing at Reid-Hillview right now, it is not closed. RHV is under a federal funding agreement and cannot be closed without FAA agreement for most of the next decade.
NonNefarious 4y ago
They are red herrings because the airports in question are invariably LESS noisy and LESS polluting than they were when the fake NIMBYs willingly moved next door to them. This is through decline in the number of operations and the technological advancement of the planes themselves. Compare the noise and pollution of a radial-engined plane to that of a modern fuel-injected plane with electronic ignition. The "safety" hysteria is easily debunked when you compare aviation accidents near a given airport with the automotive accidents on ONE major street nearby. Santa Monica is another example here, with not one neighbor of the airport killed by a plane crash in a century... while car crashes on the street adjacent to the airport kill (on average) a person every year. Yet this airport will likely be shut down and destroyed after an illegal (Brown Act-violating) back-room deal was struck between an outgoing FAA administrator and the SM city council. Another favorite lying tactic is to cite, for example, "11 crashes in the last 12 years at such-and-such and airport," but when you look at the accidents you find that they were nowhere near the airport; they're falsely cited because the plane LEFT from that airport or was headed there. That's like shutting down O'Hare because a plane from there crashed in Iowa. And as noted, iconic Meigs Field, which sat on an island posing zero threat or even annoyance to anyone in Chicago, was destroyed at 3 a.m. by Mayor Daley. This asshole had city fire trucks aim their spotlights at the webcam on the field to hide what he was doing. And what was he doing? Stealing an irreplaceable resource from taxpayers because downstate IL politicians used it... and he didn't like them. But his excuse to the public (three years after 9/11) was that he'd heard that people were worried about a small plane crashing into a building. This is the kind of corrupt trash arrayed against our thousands of public-use airports across the country, just when aviation advancements have picked up speed and the light-aircraft industry has attracted large amounts of investment and attention. Not to mention the rest of the trash: local politicians taking payoffs from developers and pandering to land speculators. Nobody wants lead. But lead is going away. We didn't dismantle the interstate highway system to get rid of it from cars, so we sure as hell shouldn't dismantle our national aviation system to get rid of it from planes.