For years—about 25, to be exact—we have been writing sky-is-falling stories about the looming fuel crisis in general aviation. And while we’ve been patiently waiting for it to happen, it has, in fact, been right under our noses all along. Leaded avgas is simply too cheap and there’s too much of it available to stir even mild market interest in new engine technologies.

This may sound absurd if—as we have—you’ve paid as much as $3.50 a gallon for avgas. (As noted in this month’s editorial, the $5 mark has been passed without much fanfare.) Yet even with the reality of a $200 fill-up for a Cessna 172, there’s not much evidence…