Industry Groups Say Funding Needed for Unleaded Avgas

The EAA is among other industry parties engaged in a request to Congress to increase the level of government support and funding for sustainable, alternative aviation fuels.

 Before Congress finalizes funding allocations for fiscal year 2022, the groups have asked the Appropriations Committee for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies (THUD) in the Senate and House of Representatives to boost funding for the Alternative Fuels for General Aviation program.

The program is hoped to eventually create a functional, safe, certifiable, unleaded aviation fuel for use fleet-wide. The continued presence of leaded gasoline for piston-engined aircraft has been a vulnerable pressure point for local activists looking to shut down general aviation operations within their vicinity. Friction between new homeowners and airports is an increasingly common occurrence, often the result of ever-expanding suburban sprawl abutting vintage airfields originally placed far away from cities. Citing the environmental and health aspects of lead being dropped overhead (often far below the minimum levels to cause harm), activists have seen limited successes in banning AvGas, and by extension, small aircraft from their local aerodrome. 

Projects to create a viable unleaded fuel have too often been funded entirely out of pocket by private entities in the industry, like GAMI’s high-octane avgas replacement. Government support for such initiatives would not only defray the considerable costs of certification, development, and iteration, but would signal to bureaucratic stakeholders that the project has the interest and investment of regulators. As seen in GAMI’s path to bring their G100UL to market, regulators have sometimes added undue burden and delay to the process, something that would likely be reduced with appointed, vested government managers familiar with the project. It remains to be seen whether the industry will get its wish, but the communal interest in healthier air and “greener” transportation could make the apportion a shoe-in.

Signees to the letter to Congress include EAA, GAMA, HAI, NATA, and NBAA, among others. 

FMI: www.eaa.org