Ethanol Powered Aircraft
Jay Honeck wrote:
For those who think ethanol is a fuel that can't be made to work in
aircraft, I present the following:
I still would not feel safe with ethanol. Materials compatibility aside
(and that is a big issue all by itself), ethanol is hydrophilic. It
attracts and absorbs water, increasing the chance of fuel
contamination. Airplane fuel tends to be stored a lot longer than
automobile fuel anyway. I know that ethanol advocates claim that
ethanol has a storage life equivalent to that of gasoline, but ethanol
advocates claim a lot of other things, too. So far, no hard data on
storage life, but anecdotal evidence indicates that ethanol has a much
shorter storage life than claimed. You can bet that if it really was as
good as gasoline that the ethanol advocates would have published hard
data showing it a long time ago.
In a car, the worst ethanol can do is ruin your engine. In an airplane
it could kill you.
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