ALBANY, Ore. – Oregon pilots who attend the Oregon Pilots Association (OPA) Convention, Saturday, August 24 (10 a.m.) will hear first hand about SwiftFuel’s 100SF high-octane unleaded fuel for general aviation. The OPA Convention will be part of the Northwest Art & Air Festival which will be held August 23-25 at the Linn County Expo Center.
“Swift Fuels provides an unleaded avgas without compromised safety,” said Swift Fuels CEO Chris D’Acosta.
Swift Fuel’s 100SF avgas is more energy-dense than leaded avgas, according to Jon Ziulkowski, Vice President of Commercial Operations for Swift Fuels. That means that planes running on 100SF avgas will consume less fuel. “Each gallon will take you up to 15 percent farther,” he said.
Ziulkowski said company representatives have spoken via webinars to individual chapters of the Oregon Pilots Association, but the Art & Air Festival will be their first chance to speak in person to Oregon pilots.
In addition to being lead-free and more energy dense, the new unleaded avgas can be produced either from petroleum, or from bio-fuel components like starches and sugars. Swift Fuels’ majority owner, Rob Broin, has a background in the ethanol and biomass industries, and in addition to their avgas for small planes, the company is experimenting with making renewable jet fuel components.
The Northwest Art & Air festival, where the Swift Fuels presentation takes place, is the Northwest’s premiere aviation festival. Held in Albany from Aug. 23-25, the festival features hot air balloon flights, aviation events, live music and displays by local artists and crafters.
Actually, they promised their investors a $0.72 p gallon. It’s also on their papers submitted to the SEC. Though the PhD who started this was let go due to his knowledge base.
Looks like with all the growing pains of bringing a new unleaded avgas is closer to reality. For those that either don’t understand or choose not to, it unfortunately takes a great amount of time, money, testing and bureaucracy hoop jumping to mange this task with the blessing of the ASTM and others. Those that have other financial fuel interests directly related to mogas, it’s not surprising that out of fear of competition that they perpetuate outdated and no longer relevant statements previously made by Swift, to promote their own agenda. Swift corrected those earlier statements and has said for years, in relation to price, that it should be priced competitively to 100LL. 100+ octane (unleaded) avgas will never be priced to compete with mogas, but it won’t have ethanol to contend with either. The problem for mogas shouldn’t be competition from an unleaded 100+ avgas, but riding ethanol from all auto fuel so GA and FBO’s will see it as a viable option to the more expensive 100+ unleaded avgas. Then you may see more skids with mogas at your GA airports. BTW, Swift Fuel could also be a replacement for ethanol in auto fuel and thus contributing to the success of mogas. With that in mind, does pursuing a negative tone regarding Swift Fuel make sense? I think not.
Fuel on the my flights in my Cessna 182 RG is averages $ 6.45/gal
This transition , if successful, will help General Aviation get back to reasonable levels to BRING our Aviation Fuel that we can afford.
We’ve heard these claims for years. At one time they promised their fuel at $1 per gallon. I will believe they are serious when I see the fuel appear at my local GA airport and it’s comparable in price to mogas, on average $1.40 less than Avgas.