In commenting on the FAA’s unexpected release of a new Airport Compliance Manual on Sept. 30, the EAA cited three major weaknesses of the document. The first dealt with the absence of any mention of autogas as a legal and important aviation fuel:
“Autofuel was not recognized as an authorized aviation fuel, nor does it suggest that airports take actions to install self-service, ethanol-free premium grade autogas pumps to support the 100,000+ aircraft that use autogas as their primary, FAA-approved aviation fuel.”
Your bloggers applaud the EAA’s thorough review and for bringing the subject of autogas availability to the attention of the FAA and the aviation community in general. Ethanol-free premium autogas remains the single most viable alternative today to 100LL for 80% of the existing piston-engine fleet of aircraft, yet it is rarely found at public airports and its general availability is now in danger due to ethanol-production mandates for vehicle fuels.
The GAfuels Blog is written by three private pilots concerned about the future availability of fuels for piston-engine aircraft. They are:
- Dean Billing (Sisters, Ore.) – an expert on autogas and ethanol
- Kent Misegades (Cary, N.C.) – an aerospace engineer and aviation journalist
- Todd Petersen (Minden, Neb.) – former aerial applicator and owner of more than 150 Mogas STCs for aircraft
For a list of airports that have ethanol-free fuel and those no longer pumping it, compiled by the author’s, follow this link.