Last week, the FAA issued a report on its plan to replace 100LL with an unleaded alternative. The goal of the new Unleaded Avgas Transition Aviation Rulemaking Committee is to develop a entirely new fuel to replace 100LL. After attending a presentation at Santa Monica’s Museum of Flying this weekend, I’m wondering why.
The presentation was held by Lars Hjelmberg, owner of Hjelmco Oil – a company from Sweden that has been producing unleaded aviation fuels for more than three decades. The most widely distributed version, 91/96 UL, has been available since 1991. Since then, millions of flight hours have been flown in many different types of airplanes using this fuel, according to Hjelmberg. 91/96 UL is available today at more than 70 different airports in Sweden.
