A gnawing question that keeps many in GA up at night is whether there will be fuel in the future for their airplanes. As ANN has reported, there are several companies working on the problem (see previous articles on GAMI and Swift Fuels).Unfortunately it is not just those who fly high compression engines that need to be concerned. Auto gas is a solution for many low compression engines but only as long as it has the proper octane and NO ethanol. It is going to be challenging, but not impossible… (www.aero-news.net) More...
What they do not tell you is that this problem is easy to fix..now if I can get my brain in gear I can tell you exactly what you do to get the fuel spec up. The reason why they do not tell is because they don't trust you. Give me a few minutes..it is the next hydrocarbon up from benzine and can I hell remember the name.
They are already using toluene as an additive,and that is what gives avgas its distinctive smell that I love so much. There is a link to the Phillips 66 specs. on avgas. http://w3apps.phillips66.com/netmsds/results.aspx?qfield_type=1&qfield_value=001769&language=American%20English . There is already 1-10% toluene added. It is also interesting to note that they only need 0.13% lead to get the needed boost in octane, so I'm guessing they have already maxed out the amount of toluene they can add.
