It’ll probably take another 10-20 years to outright ban it. Though the EPA might make it illegal to manufacture any engines that use leaded gas far sooner than that.
Now that there is an unleaded alternative, older planes will slowly replace their engines at the next engine rebuild. There is a grave pilot shortage already and the FAA loathes to make GA even more inaccessible than it already is so it’ll be a slow process.
>Will I have to modify my engine or aircraft to use G100UL avgas?
>Other than placards, no modifications are required. A small placard is attached to the engine and "stick-on" placards are applied to refueling ports. In addition, there is a short POH supplement added to the AFMS.
The engine change is shit pushed by the leaded-gas manufacturing lobby.
> There is a grave pilot shortage already and the FAA loathes to make GA even more inaccessible than it already is
Lol, inaccessible? Y'all don't even need airstrips to take on and off, for Part 103 ultralights technically not even a license. Meanwhile, here in Germany, first pay up thousands of euros for the ultralight cert, and you have to use dedicated airstrips instead of your farm's field. Oh and if you want to get beyond ultralight, do everything from scratch for the PPL, no credit/transfers.
There's also distribution problems. Jet fuel aside, most airports only have one tank for servicing avgas. Once they switch over to non-leaded, now they have a customer base that may not be able to buy from them. Those revenues go to fund the airport operation.
There's going to have to be a concerted effort to fix type certificates and fuel distribution all at the same time. A slow effort is going to be more problematic.
Not so fast. G100UL can be approved for all piston engine aircraft. There is not a blanket approval.
You still have to go here (https://stc.g100ul.com/aircraft/) and buy paperwork that makes your individual airframe and engine legal. What the FAA approved was for GAMI to sell that paperwork for all piston aircraft.
I wonder what the Venn diagram of single-engine plane owners and people who don't like being told what to do looks like.
[I am seriously curious; on the one hand, owning and flying a small plane is an expensive, privileged hobby which tends towards the lower-upper-class demographic, but it also requires complying with a shit-ton of government regulation and direction already.]
I'm in the car hobby and considering how many people just think stuff like noise regulation and air quality measures is just nonsense solely on the basis of "I do what I want, bitch", I'm not hopeful.
> older planes will slowly replace their engines at the next engine rebuild
An alternative exists, but the FAA needs to certify it for each aircraft type. The majority of aircraft types are not certified for this. No A&P is going to do this because the plane won't be legal to fly in most cases.
And at the risk of editorializing, I've never seen the FAA do anything with the goal to making GA more accessible, at least not intentionally.
>> An alternative exists, but the FAA needs to certify it for each aircraft type.
They have. It's done. nobody needs to worry about liability for switching. Availability will be a short-term problem, and banning leaded fuel will get it fixed quickly.
Cruise just needs to move to flying airplanes. With all the anti-GA and anti-airport astroturfers there will be no one to fly them for their vacations.
People just can't see the end result of their ideologies.
I've got about 50 or 60 pilots from India and Venezuela doing circles around my local airport who would like to differ. What about using G100UL makes it inaccessible? Worst case scenario, if $1 per gallon makes that much of a difference, you can just drive your car less and ride your bike around the neighborhood to offset the cost of fuel.
Now that there is an unleaded alternative, older planes will slowly replace their engines at the next engine rebuild. There is a grave pilot shortage already and the FAA loathes to make GA even more inaccessible than it already is so it’ll be a slow process.