Wed, Jul 27, 2011
FAA Funding Issue Cancels FAA ARC Update At AirVenture
By John Ylinen
Swift Enterprises provided a forum update Tuesday on their Swift
Fuel project. Jon Ziulkowski and Brian Stirm gave the forum an
update on the problems with the current 100LL fuel and how their
SwiftFuel or 100SF. Ziulkowski said that “their fuel is the
only unleaded fuel ever that exceeds the 100 MOM”. On 1 May
2011, Swift Enterprise received ATSM approval for D7719
specification.
The FAA ARC was formed and held their first meeting in March.
They have meet as full committee 3 times. The ARC was scheduled to
provide an update at AirVenture; but that presentation was
cancelled due to the FAA funding. It is hoped that the presentation
will be rescheduled for the AOPA Summit.
Swift Enterprises also announced that they had secured two Midwest
producers to make a test production run of between 100,000 and
500,000 gallons of test fuel. When asked what the price per gallon
for this test run would be; they declined to provide exact price
per gallon, but said “It would be significantly less than
current 100LL prices.”
When asked when the fuel would be available at the pump, Mr.
Ziulkowski said that he hoped the ARC could complete their project
and hoped for fuel at pump by EOY. He indicated the major issue
that needed to be decided was what process the FAA would use to
allow certified aircraft to use fuel other than 100LL. He hoped
that it would not be individual STC for each aircraft/type but some
fleet wide approval.
Mr. Ziulkowski said that all of their testing has been very
positive and no concerns have surfaced on changing to the swift
fuel in current production and high performance aircraft. The fuel
is showing a MOM of up to 104 and it could be produced higher. It
provides more energy than 100LL and when stored for long periods of
time; the MOM actually goes up unlike 100LL. Swift has not found
any degradation to glass aircraft tanks or any seals. He indicated
that there were not requirements to make any changes to the
aircraft, but that over time, aircraft and engine manufactures
could also change some of their hardware to make the engine and
aircraft perform even better than current 100LL. More power would
mean that most aircraft could have updated POH performance data.
The fuel weighs slightly higher than 100LL, but that their testing
at FBO pumps has shown that much of the current 100LL weights more
than the average 6 lbs per gallon.
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