In the May 2022 issue of Aviation Consumer we reported on the recent effort by the general aviation alphabet groups and the FAA to revive the collapsed Piston Aviation Fuel Initiative (PAFI) under the snappy new name EAGLE (Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions). Along with it was a request to Congress to increase its funding from roughly $4 million per year to $13 million per year. The promise, again, is that they’ll “get it right” and eliminate the use of 100LL avgas by December 2030. Meanwhile, while all this money is changing hands, more and more airports will likely ban the sale of 100LL, leaving more and more pilots with fewer places to buy fuel—potentially causing more fuel exhaustion crashes as pilots try to get to an airport that sells the type of fuel their engine must have.
Those of us at Aviation Consumer have been following the search for unleaded avgas for 12 years and are frankly furious that another committee has been formed to solve a problem for which a solution has already been demonstrated—and is ready to go into the tanks of our airplanes today. We’re also against that aviation organizations that we respect, such as AOPA and EAA, are supporting this boondoggle to the detriment of their members. In my view (and plenty of pilots I’ve talked with) the EAGLE project is actively delaying the benefits of unleaded avgas to their members, forcing them to continue paying for unneeded early spark plug replacement and more frequent oil changes caused by leaded avgas.