The effects of Ethanol on...

Ken you are assuming that you are going to get this mixture cheaper. In
fact it might even be more expensive than straight av gas. The difference
would be is that it would be available. The avgas you currently burn may
not be either by regulation or supply.

Aviation is shrinking so fast that there will come a time when the oil
companies are no longer making enough of it to justify its continued
production. It may not be far off.

The big difference between cars and airplanes when dealing with these types
of issues is the lifespan of the product. How many people junk a 10 year
old airplane? Lots of junk 10 year old cars. We want an airplane to last
for 50 not 10 years. Even a slight problems become major with time. An
auto is just not intended to be in service that long (though some are as the
collector car business is doing well) .
"Ken Chaddock" wrote in message
news:Op45g.2173$cZ3.1590@clgrps13...
I think Scott's attitude is more realistic than Denny's. Alcohol based
fuels, be it 100% alcohol or a mix of alcohol and gasoline, are on the
way. Simply from the cost perspective, I don't know about you guys, but
I've had to cut back on flying time because of the outrageous cost of
avgas and would be quite happy if I could get a safe, effective alcohol
based fuel at half (or less) the cost!
As to production, demand will drive production and we'll have as much as
we can use when we demand it. They're doing it in Brazil, so effectively
that Brazil is now self sufficient in fuel supply (and they don't have
much indigenous oil production) and have tapped only a small portion of
their production potential...I'm pretty sure we could do the same in North
America.
GM is already building hybrid alcohol/gasoline engines so many of the
"problems" noted have probably already been solved and the remainder won't
be far behind...so get ready for it, it's on the way and rather sooner
than later I (hope) think...

...Ken

Scott wrote:
Hopefully, there are not too many knee-jerk reactions to ethanol and some
good solid info comes forth. It MUST be able to be used (probably with
some modifications). Back in the 90s there was a group with Van's RV
series airplanes that flew at Oshkosh with 100% ethanol, if I recall.
Brazil has been using high concentrations of ethanol for many years. I am
very interested in learning what can be done to make a safe transition to
ethanol based fuels...because I think it will be coming soon enough...

Scott


Denny wrote:

Ethanol is acidic and corrosive... It is death to aircraft rubber fuel
tanks, many kinds of rubber seals, corrodes many metals, and is a bad
idea all around... They can't make ethanol fast enough so they will
resort to methanol, which is even more nasty...

But, don't let me stand in your way of knowledge... Do a search on
ethanol + corrosion and find out what I don't know...
cheers ... denny