Swift Confident Its 100R Unleaded Will Be The Last Fuel Standing

Swift Fuels is hoping its 100R unleaded fuel will be available to about 75% of the piston fuel fleet by the end of this year and ultimately be the only unleaded high-octane fuel on the market. "We believe the way the market works is [there is] really only room for one unleaded fuel," CEO Chris d'Acosta told a fuel forum hosted by the FAA in its building on the Sun 'n Fun grounds Wednesday. "We think that one unleaded fuel will be 100R. We thought that all along." AVweb obtained a transcript of d'Acosta's presentation and it's copied in full at the end of this story. Swift was apparently the only fuel company invited to make a presentation. There are two others in the running to supply high-octane unleaded, General Aviation Manufacturers Inc. and LyondellBasell.

Swift's fuel currently is approved by STC for the two latest models of Cessna 172s, the R and S versions. Both of those aircraft are already approved to use Swift's 94 UL unleaded avgas and the plan is to expand 100R's STC availability to the 75% of the fleet already able to use 94UL. Then, Swift will replace the 94UL in its network of FBOs and fuel sellers with 100R. "The first thing that's going to happen is 100R's going to step into the footprint of 94, and when we do that, we'll have 75% of the U.S. fleet able to fly on 100R," he said.

Swift is now getting ready to tackle that remaining 25% of the market, aircraft with high-horsepower, often turbocharged engines that use about 75% of the avgas sold in the U.S. Almost all those engines must use 100 octane fuel and Swift is expanding its portfolio with a 150-hour endurance test on a six-cylinder engine. "Now we're moving into the turbocharged world, so we've set up a TSIO550K turbocharged engine," d'Acosta told the forum. According to Continental specs, that model is the only 550, turbocharged or normally aspirated, in that line that can use 94UL. "The turbocharge endurance test is going to open the door to a lot of turbocharged engines becoming approved soon from now, sometime this year," he said. There are also plans to extend the STC approved model list to include piston helicopters. The full transcript of d'Acosta's remarks is below.