AOPA Wants Unleaded Fuel Feedback

The new president of AOPA wants everyone using new unleaded fuels to report their experiences through a new survey page on the group's website. Darren Pleasance, who took over from Mark Baker on Jan. 1, said in a statement the association believes in a "burn and learn" philosophy to rapidly gain insight to any issues that may arise from a change in fuel. "We owe it to the entire industry to quickly assess issues as they arise and respond accordingly as we learn," Pleasance said.

GAMI's G100UL is the only high-octane unleaded fuel available for sale. It's available for aircraft with the STC at Reid-Hillview and Watsonville Airports in California and in Tupelo, Mississippi. Shortly after it went on sale in California there were reports that it was damaging paint around fuel leaks on some aircraft. GAMI and the FAA are investigating those reports. Swift's 100R is only being used in Cessna 172s at a California flight school. The STC for that fuel is only available for R- and S-model Skyhawks. Swift's 94UL has been available at dozens of U.S. airports for a decade.

Pleasance said his organization isn't picking winners in the process to replace 100LL with unleaded alternatives but it does want to participate in that process. "As we did with our Beechcraft Baron last year [using G100UL in one tank and 100LL in the other], AOPA will continue to demonstrate new unleaded fuels as they become available, and we’ll provide full transparency on our results," Pleasance said.