UNLEADED AVGAS: EAGLE’S DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
The State of California is now fully aware that there is a viable, FAA-approved unleaded avgas—G100UL—and, from what I’ve learned from multiple sources, is demanding that it be sold at all California airports by the end of this year. That’s great news to pilots and especially to FBOs in California that are subject to a lawsuit requiring that they sell the lowest lead commercially available avgas or be subject to sanctions. They now have a way to avoid potentially millions in court-ordered sanctions if they keep selling 100LL.
One would think that the folks at EAGLE (Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Emissions by 2030) would be delirious with success and hanging “Mission Accomplished” banners on tankers hauling unleaded avgas across the nation. Sadly, perhaps EAGLE recognizes that if it declares victory and admits it did what it was supposed to do—get a 100 percent drop-in unleaded avgas to general aviation pilots—before 2030, it’s out of business and will miss out in millions in federal money. Accordingly, EAGLE, through its members, initially stalled, offering vague excuses about additional testing for G100UL (to “build confidence”) even though it went through 12 years of testing by the FAA and further testing by the two largest OEM airframe producers who reported no issues in their flight testing. Then EAGLE members started an active disinformation campaign against G100UL, asserting that because it was FAA-approved and had an FAA spec, that it was not satisfactory unless it also had an ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) approval and spec. Some EAGLE members made false statements that FBOs would only be protected from liability in a lawsuit regarding avgas if the avgas had an ASTM spec. I learned that one went so far as to falsely state that it’s illegal to sell an avgas that doesn’t have an ASTM spec.