While off-highway use, for instance in aircraft, was exempted from these mandates, their presence caused a massive shift in the gasoline supply chain for Florida, making it very difficult to find ethanol-free suppliers. GAfuels reader Drew Hatch of Ft. Walton Beach sent us the news last week that HB 4001 and SB 320 passed in the Florida Legislature and the repeal is expected to receive Governor Rick Scott’s signature soon.

While this is good news for mogas users in Florida, it does nothing to curb the influence of the federal ethanol mandates that are flooding our nation’s supply of gasoline, even though most experts now agree that we have hit the so-called “Blending Wall,” a situation whereby even with every drop of gasoline sold containing 10% ethanol, the federal mandates cannot be met. The resulting impact on the cost for blender credits and the higher price we’ll pay for the fuel was recently described in this Wall Street Journal article.

It appears that a few members of Congress have begun to realize that continued compliance with the EPA’s ever-increasing, unachievable blending quotas can only result in higher costs to consumers, bad news in our continued fragile economy. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of House members led by Bob Goodlatte of Virginia introduced a bill to repeal the current federal ethanol mandates, as reported by Bloomberg News:

“Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, and a bipartisan group of legislators introduced two bills. The first would repeal the U.S. ethanol mandate and the second would revise the definition of renewable fuels to include only advanced biofuels and exclude corn-based ethanol, Goodlatte’s office said. The Renewable Fuels Standard passed in 2007 started out with good intentions and turned out to be a “very dumb” idea, said Representative Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, who said the mandate has raised costs for dairy farmers in his state.”

That many consumers seek an ethanol-free alternative can be seen in the steady rise of sellers, shown best in this chart at Pure-Gas.org.  Having passed through the 6,000 mark last December, we’ll likely see some 7,000 sellers on this list soon, still representing fewer than 10% of the nation’s approximately 110,000 gas stations.

While we are still far from seeing the day when the more affordable option of lead-free, ethanol-free mogas is as common at our airports as in Europe, actions such as those from Representative Gaetz and Congressman Goodlatte do give one hope for optimism.  For those who claim that nothing can be done to change the current ethanol policies in our country, one should follow the lead of these two gentlemen and those who support their legislation.

While business demands prevented me from attending AERO 2013, I was able to get a fairly good summary of fuel and engine related news from friends who were there, and by monitoring reports from two popular German-language magazines, Aerokurier and Fliegermagazin. General Aviation News also provided some good stories on the show in its April 23rd, April 24th and April 25th online editions. GA News blogger and LSA expert Dan Johnson was also there and filed several excellent reports on his blog ByDanJohnson.com.

The following provides GAfuels readers with some of the highlights related to engines and aviation fuel.

Diamond Aircraft displayed a DA50 four-seat single powered by a 450-shp AI450S turboprop engine from Ukrainian Motor Sich-Ivchenko Progress.

Italy’s Tecnam, the world’s largest producer of light aircraft, displayed its all-mogas fleet, which now includes the all-new P48 Astore low-wing two seater, named after the company’s very first ‘Astore’ (Goshawk) from 1948.

Slovenia’s Pipistrel surprised visitors by flying its sleek four-seat Panthera (pictured) with its 210hp, unleaded fuel-burning Lycoming IO-390 engine to Friedrichshafen — across the Alps, and only a few days after its first flight! Pipistrel is sticking to its predictions that the airplane will burn only 7 gph while cruising with four in a luxurious cabin at 170 knots, a tribute to the design’s best-of-class aerodynamics and the latest technology of Lycoming’s new iE2 line of mogas engines.

Company officials said that the Panthera may be eventually available with hybrid or all-electric powerplant options. It was reported too that Pipistrel is working on a drop-in electric powerplant kit for homebuilders. Considering Pipistrel’s long experience with electric propulsion in its Taurus sailplane, such comments are to be taken seriously from this remarkable company located on the southern flanks of the Alps.

France’s SMA, whose SR305-230 Jet-A diesel engine powers the new Cessna 182 JT-A, showed off its latest design, the SR460, a 7.5 liter (460 cu.in.), six-cylinder diesel that will develop between 330-400 hp.

At the other end of the power spectrum, Germany’s FlyEco announced that its three-cylinder, 80-hp aircraft direct-injection SMART Diesel, derived from the powerplant of the Mercedes SmartCar, has been certified by EASA. With fuel consumption of under two gallons per hour and weight under that of a 100-hp Rotax 912, the engine has very low specific fuel consumption, making it ideal for light aircraft. The company also offers a 102-hp SMART Brabus engine based on the Mercedes gasoline powerplant for the SmartCar.

EcoFly is the creation of Otto Funk, founder of FK Lightplanes, one of Germany’s leading manufacturers of light aircraft. I had the pleasure of visiting with Mr. Funk a few years ago during an early phase of this work and was impressed by the innovation of this modest man, one of the most important figures in post-World War II sport aviation in Europe.

As in 2012, one needs to travel to Germany to learn about Continental’s lead-free engine efforts. As reported by AVweb, Continental Motor’s CEO Rhett Ross revealed that the company has retreated from its earlier support for 94UL as a lead-free alternative to avgas, and that it received certification for its four-cylinder, 200-250 hp Jet-A burning, turbocharged TD300 diesel engine last December.

The same AVweb summary of AERO included some remarks from Lycoming’s Michael Kraft, commenting on the company’s expanded line of mogas-burning engines yet his reluctance to endorse it as a fuel, despite author Paul Bertorelli’s comments on the fuel’s widespread availability: “In Europe, many airports have three fuels available — autogas, 100LL and Jet A — and a handful are distributing French refiner Total’s 91UL. But that fuel isn’t widely deployed enough to have gained other than toehold market status.”

This latter point on 91UL — which my German flying friends call “expensive, perfumed mogas” — is underscored by reports from AERO 2012 and 2013, there has been very little interest in the fuel in the past year since it was first announced by AirTotal, a company that already delivers avgas and mogas to airports across Europe.

In summary, the continued trend for mogas and Jet-A becoming the two most likely candidates to replace 100LL was as obvious at AERO 2013 as it was last year. Equally encouraging is the expansion of diesel engine power ranges both upwards and downwards, and the emergence of more practical electric powerplants.

AERO 2014 will be held April 9-12. It’s on my calendar — I look forward already to all the “Neuheiten” on display, as well as a cool “Bier und eine Bretzel” to end each day.

When we might see lower fuel prices at our airports is anyone’s guess, however the clear trend towards the country becoming a net energy exporter is an amazing reversal of the situation faced a decade ago and a clear testament to the benefits of advanced oil field technology.

Low unemployment rates, as described in this recent LA Times article,  and brisk activity at general aviation airports in the leading shale oil fields are two of the most positive consequences.

Airports themselves stand to reap direct royalties when they are found to be located above shale fields, as is the case for the Pittsburgh International Airport.  As described in an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, officials from Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County have just signed an agreement with Consol Energy that could be worth $500 million over the next 20 years.

“The industry is clearly at the blend wall,” Stephen Brown, vice president of government affairs for refiner Tesoro said. “Everyone I’m talking to is hitting the blend wall this year — some sooner than others — but we’re all hitting it this year.”

When Congress signed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) into law in 2007, conditions were far different, as the article further describes:

When the volumetric blending levels were set for the RFS in 2007, lawmakers, as well as industry representatives, didn’t expect the level of ethanol produced to exceed 10% of the national gasoline supply until much later this decade. But steadily declining gasoline demand coupled with increased fuel efficiency mean that benchmark, called the “blend wall,” will hit this year and, for some refiners, may have already been reached.

Unfortunately, neither Congress nor the EPA has reacted to the changing reality of fuel use in our country, nor to the fact that, as a result of fracking, the United States has nearly achieved the original goal of EISA 2007, energy independence, as this recent article in Forbes describes.

It’s “business as usual” in Washington, which seems to be making a science these days out of driving our nation over a cliff.  At a time when we should be seeing a gradual decrease of the price for all fuels including mogas, avgas and Jet-A as a result of increased supply, misguided policies such as EISA 2007 serve to increase the costs of energy and decrease our options. Sadly, unless someone dies, policies such as these get scant attention in Washington D.C., a city that increasingly appears to be out-of-touch with the realities faced by pilots and taxpayers in general.

“For the year ending 2012, I burned a total of 1,052 gallons of mogas in my Cessna 150. (Yeah, I know…what can I say, I love to recreational aviate.) It was on a rare occasion that I used 100LL. I would say I used 100LL just a handful of times where mogas was unavailable. Other than that, for the most part it was straight mogas. I built a new engine in January 2012 and I must say my ship has been running flawlessly. I have been operating in all temperature ranges here in the Midwest with mogas. At least what the Midwest will throw at you anyway.”

“So lets put things into perspective: In my local area throughout 2012, it appeared 100LL averaged between $1-$2 higher per gallon than mogas. So let’s look at some figures…

1052 gallons @

$2/gal less than 100LL: Annual savings of $2,104

$1.50/gal less than 100LL: Annual savings of $1,578

Now even if mogas was only $1/gal less than 100LL (which was rare), the savings still would have been over $1,000! Now from a recreational aviator’s point of view and when you are not getting paid to fly, this is a significant chunk of change!

Hmm…now what to do with those extra bucks? Aircraft or pilot supplies, cover the expense of an annual, take a vacation, engine rebuild fund? Better yet, MORE mogas for the plane…yep, that’s the ticket!”

Mark confirms what common sense tell us — if you want to sell more of something, lower its cost.  If pilots are to fly more, the cost of flying has to be reduced. Using mogas whenever possible provides the vast majority of piston-engine pilots with this possibility.  Thanks Prigs!

Contrary to claims from Michael France, director of regulatory affairs for the corporate FBO lobby NATA, that “fuel suppliers believe the market does not support the costs associated with making mogas or any other fuel available alongside 100LL avgas,” the cost of adding a second fuel option for piston planes was not a factor at Swainsboro, an airport where fewer than a dozen aircraft are currently based.

Robert Barker, manager of the airport’s FBO, AirStar Flight Support, explains the reason for the change: “We had watched our fuel sales decrease as fuel prices went up. We were approached by several local pilots about adding mogas as an alternative. I researched the fuel and decided to add it to see what kind of response we get from the aviation community. We look forward to having it available and welcome new customers to stop in and visit.”

SBO now offers all three aviation fuels, mogas, avgas and Jet-A from self-service fuel systems. The current price of mogas there is $4.25, sure to result in area pilots flying more and the airport becoming a popular place to top-off during cross-country flights in the Southeast.

You’ll find East Georgia Regional included on GAfuel blogger Dean Billing’s list and map of airports offering mogas.

According to his comments that appeared this week in  an article in CapitalSoup.com, “HB4001 has officially cleared the House Energy and Utilities Subcommittee and is one step closer to relieving consumers of Florida’s oppressive ethanol mandate. The next stop for HB4001 will be the House Regulatory Affairs Committee. I look forward to working with the committee members and to sharing with them the overwhelming evidence provided by business owners and constituents throughout the state.”

A related article from The Florida Current provides some background on the existing laws concerning ethanol in Florida.

As your bloggers have frequently noted, removal of such mandates will still not guarantee that consumers will find an ethanol-free option at gasoline stations. Oil companies are required, under the RFS2 ethanol blending mandates resulting from the EISA 2007 Act passed by Congress, to blend ever-increasing volumes of ethanol annually into our nation’s gasoline supply, whether consumers want the fuel or not.  As described in this article from the NY Times, this has led to the absurd situation for the past several years of gas companies paying fines for not meeting the quotas for cellulosic ethanol (produced from sources other than foods such as corn or sugar cane) since the production of it falls far short of the mandates. These costs inevitably must be passed on to consumers.

Worse yet, as this USNews article reports,  the EPA recently announced its latest ethanol quotas, raising them yet again, despite stagnation in overall gasoline sales and no substantial increase in the supply of cellulosic ethanol. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

We encourage our readers to contact their state representatives, as Drew Hatch has done, to educate them on the need to ban the use of ethanol in premium fuel.  This would preserve an ethanol-free option for consumers who need it, for instance pilots, while not infringing on the federal ethanol mandates which, given current consumption trends, must be modified or repealed altogether.

After all, the primary purpose for EISA 2007, the Energy Independence and Security Act, has already been achieved through the dramatic increase in oil and gas reserves in the U.S. in recent years thanks to fracking and directional drilling.

Taj Mahal-like, LEED-certififed terminals bristling with solar panels at rural airstrips where more coyotes walk the ramp than pilots. Board rooms in those terminals with polished oak tables and deep leather seats that would be considered opulent for most private businesses. Gleaming aircraft refuelers manned by a full staff of line personnel in starched logo shirts who spend more time drinking coffee than servicing the handful of aircraft that happen by on a day with good weather. Whether the funding for all these things comes from the federal Airport Improvement Program (AIP), state or local sources, they all have two things in common — they are paid by the sole provider of public funding, taxpayers, and the consequences for their approval are not born by the people who approved them.

As Carabini points out: “When people are responsible for their own actions, they have a vested interest in making ‘right’ decisions, since they bear the primary cost of their mistakes.”

The problem with public funding is that multiple layers of ‘insulation’ are placed between the people spending tax dollars and the people paying those dollars. Here’s how the process generally works: Pilot/taxpayers make requests to the airport management for new facilities or services. The airport’s owner, typically a town or county, has its own set of priorities, which may or may not correspond to those of pilots, for instance when they are related to economic development. Enter the airport consultant — the firm that specializes in converting wish lists into concrete proposals and carrying out the work when funding is approved. Like any good middle-man, the airport consultant makes his money on the fees assessed for his services, which naturally leads to gilded projects requiring large numbers of billable hours.

Next comes the Kabuki dance — posturing between the airport consultants and the government’s gate-keepers, the people in a state’s division of aviation who dole out the funding. That consultants are very good at this dance can be seen at any given annual conference for a state airport association. The largest sponsors and exhibitors are invariably the consultants. It also comes as no surprise that there exists a revolving door between the bureaucrats who control who-gets-what and the management of leading consulting firms.

As a supplier of turnkey fuel systems to GA airports, I see countless examples of misguided funding that comes as a result of Carabini’s ‘Hazard of Equalizing Consequences’. Here are a few recent cases:

• Hyde County Airport (7W6) – Installed a small avgas system in a very remote region of eastern North Carolina at the cost of $175,000 (funded by the federal AIP program), more than double the usual cost for a system of this size.
• Columbus Municipal Airport (KBAK) – Paid an airport consultant $30,000 to study the cost-effectiveness of self-service fueling at this airport, despite the fact that nearly all airports within a 25 mile radius already offered self-service. When the study concluded that it made sense at KBAK, the consultant was awarded another $5,000 to plan a fuel system that is budgeted to cost a half million dollars, five times the amount that would suffice for a very nice combined avgas/Jet-A system.
• Van Zandt County Regional Airport (76F) – The airport consultant hired by the county created a specification for a fuel system that far exceeds state code and the needs of this small rural airport but also includes some features that are not consistent with best practices in the aviation fueling industry. The result will be a far more expensive system than needed.
• Halifax-Northampton Regional Airport (KIXA) – Halifax County, NC closed a perfectly good airport (KRZZ) in favor of a completely new, federally-funded airport with an opulent terminal to serve a handful of aircraft based there. The entire project was related to a well-publicized attempt by local economic developers to establish — with massive taxpayer subsidies — a mini-Branson centered around the since-failed Randy Parton Theatre.

Had any of these projects been privately-funded by an individual or group expecting a return on their investment, there would be severe consequences for the vast sums of money that have been wasted. On the contrary, in nearly all cases, taxpayer-funded airports are proud of their accomplishments spending someone else’s money. The airport consultants and construction companies involved are equally pleased.

And who could blame them really, since there are no consequences for irresponsible spending of taxpayer dollars? As Carabini explains, “When the State diminishes the effect of feedback of our mistakes, it also weakens the lessons we will learn from those mistakes.”

Until layers of government and middle-men are removed from the process and those who spend our money are held responsible, public funding of our airports will result in the highest possible costs.  Do you see such waste at your state’s public airports?

To see examples how two private G.A. airports are able to satisfy the needs of their customers without taxpayer funding, look at Gilliam-McConnell (5NC3) in Carthage, NC or Austin Executive (KEDC) in Austin, Texas.

Worse yet, according to an online article in Specialty Chemical News, the company had actually planned to stop making TEL in December of last year: “Originally the company, which is US-owned and does most of its manufacturing at Ellesemere Port, UK, intended to case production and sales of TEL at the end of 2012. However, it has now set a new deadline of the end of this year and recently told shareholders it would seek to ‘maximize the cash flow’ from sales.”

Eventually word must have gotten back to Innospec that some people were near apoplectic over the news, despite the fact that your bloggers have been warning about the inevitable end of TEL production since our earliest articles, for instance “How you can prepare for the end of 100LL” from May 17, 2010.

Innospec issued a quick statement to its customers by mid-week, with the following:

“To allay concerns which continue to circulate in the General Aviation (GA) sector regarding the availability of TEL-B for 100LL Avgas, Innospec are once again issuing this Information Update to reiterate our continued, long-term commitment to manufacture and supply TEL-B for use in aviation gasoline.”

The statement does mention the ultimate end of TEL production in its final sentence: “We reiterate that we have no current plans to cease the manufacture or supply of TEL-B and, whilst there is continued demand for 100LL avgas, we will continue to support the industry during the phase out of the product.”

It is hard to criticize the company’s intention now to “maximize the cash flow” since, with their monopoly on TEL production, we have zero alternatives — other than mogas — at this time. As our predictions for aviation fuel in 2013 described, it is not only Innospec we need to worry about, but the avgas producers who use TEL.  In a market that has been declining by 3% annually for many years, and given the fact that TEL will indeed one day disappear, how many producers of leaded avgas will we have by the end of 2013?

The answer is suggested in a comment made by General Aviation News blogger Ben Visser in October 2012 in his article “Why does 100LL cost so much?”. Mr. Visser spent most of his 33 year career at Shell as an aviation fuels and lubricants expert.  The final sentences in his article should give us all good reason to be concerned over the future of avgas production: “About 20 years ago when it was necessary to upgrade our lead injection system, I worked on a study to accurately assess these costs and add it to the cost of 100LL. The result? We stopped producing 100LL.”  It’s true — according to Visser,  Shell Aviation, one of the largest suppliers of avgas in the U.S., stopped making 100LL two decades ago and has purchased it from unbranded refiners since.

There have been some rumors that there exists a Chinese producer of TEL and that we have nothing to fear should Innospec end production. The company I represent, U-Fuel, is deeply involved in the fuel equipment business in China and is assisting the Chinese government in establishing General Aviation facilities.  From what I understand, the small amount of avgas that is used in China is all imported. The primary fuels there are mogas and Jet-A.

While Innospec’s reassuring statement does indeed allay some concerns, it is a clear shot across the bow for all those who think that having all our eggs in one basket is a safe position for General Aviation.  Can we afford to wait for the next shot?