Is EAA Working on an STC for Ethanol-laced MoGas?

Jay Honeck wrote:
I'm not sure how marketable this would be, due to the large amount of
potential replacement componets. Starting with tank sealant and
continuing on to most of the flexible components through to the carb.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be great to have. I just think
the cost of revamping a fuel system might scare most folks away.

I believe someone here (Jim Weir?) said the total cost of parts to replace
all the rubber in contact with fuel is less than $100.

Maybe the hoses and gaskets would be less than $100, but the rubber
bladders in my SKylane are $1k.

-jav

I thought the idea behind ethanol was not to make more fuel, but to be a
replacement for MTBE to reduce pollution. I seem to remember reading that
it wasn't very effective in that regard, as compared to "normal" gas, but
was done as "pork" to the corn producing states.

To sum up the general political mood, I think the feeling is that it's
better to pay farmers to grow corn for ethanol than it is to pay them for
growing nothing.

It's stupid, but no one can apparently figure out how to wean the farmers
off the government teat without creating a catastrophe.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:ic3hf.352983$084.248638@attbi_s22...
I thought the idea behind ethanol was not to make more fuel, but to be a
replacement for MTBE to reduce pollution. I seem to remember reading
that
it wasn't very effective in that regard, as compared to "normal" gas, but
was done as "pork" to the corn producing states.

To sum up the general political mood, I think the feeling is that it's
better to pay farmers to grow corn for ethanol than it is to pay them for
growing nothing.

It's stupid, but no one can apparently figure out how to wean the farmers
off the government teat without creating a catastrophe.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


The subsidies should be cut off cold turkey. It is stupid to support
archaic industries or habits. The number of people employed in agriculture
has declined 90% already which is what produced our modern economy. Why is
there so much risistance to letting it go down another 20% which is the only
way to make the remaining farmers profitable?

On Ethanol, Brazil produces ethanol and sells it as motor fuel and it isn't
subsidized although cars sold in Brazil are required to be able to run on
pure ethanol or gasoline. They do use sugar cane instead of corn in Brazil,
I'm not sure that this makes a difference. Brazil actually *profitably*
exports ethanol to the US even though the US producers are getting a $0.54
cent subsidy. The subsidies just perpetuate inefficiency.

Mike
MU-2

They wonder why the farmers are complaining when they are getting the
same price for wheat that they were getting back in 1975 and a loaf of
bread is no where near the price they paid for it in 1975.

On 23 Nov 2005 06:49:09 -0800, "Denny" wrote:

At least one airplane is STC'd for E100, and reportedly the LyCon top
ends actually live far longer with this fuel.
************************************************* ***************8

Just an aside::: IC engines live the longest on Propane... Just ask
any factory that converted it's gas powered fork trucks to propane...
So much for the , "ya gotta burn at least 25% 100LL to protect the
valves" crowd...

Yes, BUT ... the valve seats used with propane (and natural) had to be
made (or coated) with "stellite" in the earlier days to ot have wear
problems. I believe that the powdered metal used today in automobile
(and other(?)) valve seats acomplishes the same function.

Another interesting aside is that I installed a 10KW, propane powered,
220V AC generator with automatic transfer switching, because of our
frequent power outages here in the boonies... I can also run the engine
on natural gas with no changes, but the power output drops to 7KW if I
do... No natural gas lines in the middle of nowhere Michigan, so not
an issue for me, but an interesting fact I thought...

I thought I was going to be able to find good information via Google
to support you, but it isn't easy. Natural is mostly methane, and
that is lighter than propane but I cannot find better details ...
DARN.

Jay Honeck wrote:
If there is one thing that EAA could do to truly benefit General
Aviation, it would be to help develop STCs for the use of the
increasingly popular (and, in some states, mandated) ethanol-gasolines.


Does anyone know if this is in the works?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

EAA conducted flight tests in the 1980's in an attempt to certificate
automotive gasoline (ASTM D4814) with 10% ethonal added. Other
universities and airframe manufacturers conducted research with this
fuel, as well. Unfortunately EAA was unable to certificate an aircraft
to a fuel containing 10% ethonal. The aircraft that was tested failed
several of the required tests. In addition the fuel systems in current
aircraft also failed the material compatibility testing.
EAA concluded that the modificiations needed to address the issues we
discovered would be excessively expensive and even after the
modifications were made the aircraft may still fail the requered
certification tests.
To assure you that EAA does not have some kind of biasis against
ethonal fuels the same test concluded that an aircraft with some
modification the aircraft could be certificated to a 100% ethonal fuel.

The chemistry of a 10% ethonal 90% gasoline fuel is a dificult one to
deal with in the environment that aircraft are certificated to operate
in. Particularly when you are dealing with exsisting aircraft that
were not originally designed to operate on these fuels. A newly
designed aircraft could be designed to use such a fuel but there is no
incetive, from the manufacturers standpoint, to design such an aircraft
at this time.
Also the group should know the problems with this fuel are related to
hot temperature operations and material compatibility so one may use
such a fuel once and mistakenly think there are no issues with this
fuel only to find the problems over time or during a hot day on
takeoff.
In flight fire is another very real outcome of the problems with this
fuel. One test showed corrosion in electronic bost pumps that lead to
eletrical arching in the pump itself. This condition discovered during
tests and to EAA's knowldge has not ever occured on an certificated
aircraft but I share this information to let you understand why the
fuel has not been certificated.
The testing EAA has done in this area has lead us the conclusion that
we should consitrate our efforts on in other areas. EAA continues to
work with many on the development of aviation fuels. In addition EAA
continues to be active on the ASTM committee that writes and maintains
both avaition and automotive fuels specificaitons. I currently serve
as the secretary of the avaition gasoline subcommittee.
I hope everyone who reads this understand that it is not practicle to
operate an older aircraft on a autogasline with 10% ethonal at this
time and that EAA does continue to explore ways to make fuel more
afordable, accessable and safe for recreational aviaiton. EAA
understands and has taken more action than any other organization to
make fuel more afordable for recreational aviation. The Autogas STC's
has saved aircraft owners millions of dollars over the years and EAA
will continue to explore ways we can continue these savings.

Earl Lawrence
EAA
V.P. Industry and Regulatory Affairs

snip
The testing EAA has done in this area has lead us the conclusion that
we should consitrate our efforts on in other areas. EAA continues to
work with many on the development of aviation fuels. In addition EAA
continues to be active on the ASTM committee that writes and maintains
both avaition and automotive fuels specificaitons. I currently serve
as the secretary of the avaition gasoline subcommittee.
I hope everyone who reads this understand that it is not practicle to
operate an older aircraft on a autogasline with 10% ethonal at this
time and that EAA does continue to explore ways to make fuel more
afordable, accessable and safe for recreational aviaiton. EAA
understands and has taken more action than any other organization to
make fuel more afordable for recreational aviation. The Autogas STC's
has saved aircraft owners millions of dollars over the years and EAA
will continue to explore ways we can continue these savings.

Earl Lawrence
EAA
V.P. Industry and Regulatory Affairs


Mr. Lawrence,
Thanks for weighing in. Can you provide some links where the results of these tests are archived? I'd like to learn
more about ethanol as a fuel. A previous poster mentioned an exhibition airplane running on ethanol. I also recall
this bird and it seems I saw it fly at Oshkosh, circa 1997. It seems that it was a black fabric biplane with green
trim? I also ran across this: "But MOTHER's researchers weren't the only ones at the 1980 Fly-In who were piloting
vehicles powered by renewable fuel. Paul Poberezny (the EAA's "chief") was there to greet us with his "Pober Pixie"
airplane, which had been converted to ethanol the previous summer. " while doing a Google search. It seems that
corrosion issues can be handled with additives.



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Theoretically, it is trivial to make a gasoline engine run off of
ethanol. For many years Indy 500 racers ALL ran off ethanol. There is a
dragster class that is ethanol based. Older carbureted cars could be
made to work off ethanol with just rejetting the carb. Maybe some of
the dragster folks could help you out. Perhaps there is a link. There
may be some issues with rubber hoses and possibly vapor lock, I don't
really know.

The other issue that ETOH enthusiasts seem to never see is that it
takes more petroleum BTU's to produce a gallon of ethanol than you get
back when when you burn the ethanol in an engine... So it is a
lose-lose situation...

I am not a strong ethanol enthusiast by any means, but this statement
is absolutely false.

Here are a list of studies of the *net* energy value of ethanol,
including the energy costs not just in the manufacture, but also the
transportation, etc. In fact, some studies even figure in the gas
burned in the combine that collects the corn, even the energy used to
make the steel that went into the combine:

Shapouri, et al. (1995) - USDA : +20,346 btu (HHV)
Lorenz and Morris (1995) - Institutde for Local Self Reliance: +30589
btu (HHV)
Agri. and Agri-Food, CAN (1999): +29,826 btu (LHV)
Wang, et al. (1999) - Agorne Lational Labs: +22,500 btu (LHV)
Pimentel (2001), Cornell University: -33,562 btu (LHV)
Shapouri, et al, Update (2002) - USDA: +21,105 btu (HHV)
Kim and Dale (2002) - Michigan State, +23866 to +35463 btu (HHV)
Shapouri, et al. (2004) - USDA: +30,258 (LHV)

(The difference between LHV and HHV has to do with whether the H20
output of combustion is considered as steam or water)

As you can see, only one study, by Pimentel shows a negative net energy
for ethanol. The other are in the 20,000 to 30,000 btue range and the
discrepancies come obviously not from differences in measuring the heat
output in burning ethanol, but in considering the heat input in its
manufacture.

I personally think that E100 and E85 are currently not economic, for
many of the same reasons stated elsewhere in this thread, but it's just
not supportable to say that more petroleum energy is used to make E
than you get out of it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

-- dave j
-- jacobowitz73 --at-- yahoo --dot-- com
-- PP-ASEL + Instr.
-- grad student in energy policy

Doug wrote:

There is a dragster class that is ethanol based.

I thought they were running nitro-methanol.

George Patterson
We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop
playing.