Unleaded Fuel

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Wednesday, April 20, 2022 at 07:00 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Many single-engine piston aircraft (over 65% of the fleet) can utilize cheaper, unleaded mogas with an easily obtainable STC, leading to significant cost savings on fuel and reduced engine maintenance.
Vigilant monitoring of carbon monoxide (CO) levels in aircraft is crucial, with any persistent reading of 10 PPM requiring investigation and an emergency landing advised if levels reach 35 PPM.
Pilots express confusion regarding cold temperature altimeter corrections for instrument approaches and seek clearer guidance on implementation, especially for aircraft equipped with integrated flight decks like the G1000.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Thank you for Jeb Burnside’s “Follow the Money” commentary in the April 2022 issue. I’d like to highlight another aspect of the leaded-avgas issue that aviation’s “alphabet soup” hasn’t called much attention to.

According to the EAA’s own hardcopy STC materials (but not emphasized on the EAA or AOPA web sites), “more than 65 percent of the privately owned, single-engine, piston fleet of aircraft in the United States still utilize 80 octane rated gasoline.”