Fuel cost going up?

[Larrynoel]

Fuel cost going up?   What is the future for our little birds?  Is there anything in the works for the m20 Mooney, like diesel engines that would have enough power our airplanes without sacrificing payload?  Maybe a turbo prop conversion, That would be great!!!  Anyone heard anything?

[scottfromiowa]

AOPA says that 100 Low Lead will continue to be available until a fuel alternative no lead replacement is viable.  Aviation fuel will continue to go up based on world events just like all gas/oil products.  Conversion price of diesel or turbine for a Mooney is not on any radar for years and wouldn't be economical unless gas goes over $10/gallon and even then?  Our little birds will be extinct if it comes to converting to diesel or nothing IMO.

[Bob]

The bigger problem will not be with us that have fuel sipping machines.  Think about the gas sucking birds.  Even worse, think about the cost of Private training with a fuel increase with a total of $15,000-$20,000 or more.  We will hang on, for a while, while the GA system around us falls apart.  Lets hope fuel does not get too high!

[sleepingsquirrel]

Diesel will vaporize in a regular carburator if it is preheated properly. People were doing this during WWII for their automobiles because gasoline was rationed .

[sleepingsquirrel]

When I can no longer afford the price of av gas. I won't be able to afford electric or diesel conversion. So I can make the Mooney EXPERIMENTAL .  Then experiment with, out of the box ,supply chain available fuel sources. When none of that works I can just sit inside and make engine noises and dream about flying. That is if I don't blow myself up with some WWII water injection anti-det system, N2O injection or an experiment with preheating diesel fuel gone awry .

Then 95NL will come along,electronic ignition. By then I will be too old to care about flying. My Mooney will 100 years old . I will be 108.

 

[Urs_Wildermuth]

$ 10 per gallon? Hate to break it to you but in Europe, that has been a reality for yeras.

Car unleaded normal fuel at the gas station as we speak is $ 7.73 per gallon, AVGAS here at LSZH is $ 10.70 per gallon.

Politicians everywhere are trying to amass more taxes to finance their ever climbing cost and I have heard of targets of $50 /gallon for automotive fuel in order to "convert citizens to more ecological means of transport..." I reckon ,what these people have in mind is something like this :

http://www.denniscox.com/BeijingBicycles.jpg

[jelswick]

I think that's what our current administration has in mind Urs.  Very sad.

[takair]

Depressing.  Was looking for a bigger plane, but given the cost of fuel I'm on a diet so I better fit my Mooney.  At least in the big scheme of things, the Mooney is one of the most economical planes out there.  If only Mooney could bring back the 200hp airframes, slightly widened to compete with the newer planes.

[scottfromiowa]

"Reality does bite".  He campaigned on $5-6 dollar gas.  No surprise to me.  Hey, if I can get 3 months vacation, 35 hour work week and the alps sign my up...what, it's not possible to put them in Iowa?  On second thought I'll just visit the EU and keep my Republic the way it is...was,  thank you.

[skyking]

I hate to tell you guys this but the price of avgas is artifically LOW! ( i am in the oil and gas business.)

It costs a fortune to process 100LL as you need to clean the entire plant out after running a batch of avgas due to the lead involved.

Refineries actually lose money on avgas but  are mandated to provide it until a new fuel is available.

[Sven]

Santa Rosa is the home of the CAFE foundation which is the center of the universe for electrically powered aircraft. I am volunteering at their annual week-long event this July where 14 teams will be competing for the Green Flight Challenge prize. I will be in close proximity to all the teams. I will let you all know if there is any hope for converting our Mooneys to electric propulsion (in our lifetime). At our last meeting we were told that some aircraft can achieve over 1.5 hours of flight. They said this amounts to an equivalent of 40¢ a gallon. PG&E, our local utility, is bringing in high power wiring to install the world's first electric aircraft recharging stations.

http://cafefoundation.org/v2/main_home.php

http://cafefoundation.org/v2/gfc_main.php

 

[Urs_Wildermuth]

Russ,

the main problem is not the price of gas itself, but the taxes governments put on top. Right here, for each gallon of avgas I pay around $ 3.30 petrol tax. Same for cars.

It's a snake which bites it's own tail. Because fuel is so expensive, there are less airplanes and therefore less consumption. Even if it is as you say, this could only be corrected with more consumption which would make it worthwile to fly again. If we were exempt from fuel tax on avgas for certain types of flying it would make one hell of a difference. In the old days, we were exempt if we were flying abroad, these days, private GA only is not, commercial still is. They did kill this in order to kill GA here, so far people pay but fly less and less.

Ronald Reagan was a politician who realized that taxing people to death is not the answer for a healty economy. Not many have been of the same opinion since....

[Larrynoel]

If the price of fuel goes way up then dose that make the value of our fast fuel efficient machines go up as well? 

[skyking]

Urs: Could not agree with you more. If we had enough planes out there it would be a lot easier to keep at least one refinery operating full time to produce just avgas. The second issue is the lead. Most goverments want to see the lead gone.

As far as the taxes are concerned we have the same issue here in Canada. When i was in Saudi we paid 5 cents per gallon of gas because they look after their own first then sell on the open market.

If we did the same we should only be paying about .50 cents a litre here. Not over a buck.

[scottfromiowa]

I would have to say that I want an electric plane EVEN LESS than I want an (existing federal subsidized) electric car.  We have hundreds of years (world wide) of fossil fuels available for consumption.  I look forward to voting in 2012 to again express how I feel about fossil fuel and consumption in the US and reversing the current political atomosphere regarding use of our available resources.

[DaV8or]

Quote: scottfromiowa

I would have to say that I want an electric plane EVEN LESS than I want an (existing federal subsidized) electric car.

[scottfromiowa]

If I'm going to dream...it will be about having a newer Mooney or about having a fusion powered plane, or about having so many new nuke plants that I can afford to fly because my/our/the worlds electricity is 1/10th what the current cost is...The reality is we have government/business/world policies artificially inflating the cost of oil to the detriment of mankind.  We are being made to "feel the pain" at the pump/to our wallets/to our way of life...to force us to change to embrace electric/Wind/Solar technology that IS NOT CURRENTLY VIABLE...when we have oil/gas/coal/nuclear that is.

Poll says more Americans want "Bigger/More" to be done by their Government.  We are F#@$&D!  IMO...

 

MOOOoooo say the masses.  Give me more Government.....

[Steve Dawson]

Untill there is a viable electric motor that can run constant for a 6 hour term, have easily rechargable/replacable batteries at most airports,  keep battery/motor weight at or below comparitable fuel burning engines I don't think we'll have anything in the near future.

I'm thinking the viable alternative close at hand would be a turbine or diesel. Delta Hawk or Austro are already available in similar sizes and weights with TBO's currently at 2000 hours and with their fuel consumption at 70% of gasoline engines they would more than pay for the overhaul. Thats if the overhaul stays at 2000 hours. The way diesels wear they may last considerably longer.

A turbine engine (say Walter/GE) would save weight and provide longer TBO's with less maintenace. I'm not sure what fuel consumption would be and I don't know what the retrofit costs are but they are available.

[flight2000]

Quote: Fastbyk

A turbine engine (say Walter/GE) would save weight and provide longer TBO's with less maintenace. I'm not sure what fuel consumption would be and I don't know what the retrofit costs are but they are available.

[scottfromiowa]

Hey Squirrel, I mean Silver Fox, the TA-152 and D Model FW-190 worked pretty well as injected...experiment with these.  The tech is over 60 years old...but it works/worked...of course finding the airframe may be a bit of a problem, but hey if your going to experiment...and dream you might as well go all in!

[sleepingsquirrel]

The way I see it the 0-360 only requires 91 octane . It just hasn't been blessed in the Mooney airframe. Mogas is the first backup. I suppose when 100LL is outlawed only outlaws will be able to fly!

BEWARE of going electric, the Government will require you to pump electricity back into  the grid when you are tied down.

[tony]

Quote: skyking

It costs a fortune to process 100LL as you need to clean the entire plant out after running a batch of avgas due to the lead involved.

 

 

So when the new no lead alternative becomes available it should be cheaper than 100LL?

[skyking]

It is looking that way. At least from a production standpoint. But if the cost of a barrel of oil keeps going up then all bets are off no matter what happens.

[skyking]

The costs associated with handling lead and disposing of it costs a fortune! and i am not joking.

It is almost impossible to get anybody to take by products etc. and that was a pretty good revenue stream for us once upon a time.

[eldeano]

I am not an oil expert, but I am an investor, and the only reason the oil prices are going up is due to speculative buying, pure and simple. Investors are are speculating that the turmoil in the middle east will cut supplies.  This has traditionally not been the case. A few years ago when oil prices were breaking records per barrel, it was an orchestrated effort between Goldman Sachs and Merrell Lynch to get people to believe there would be this great shortage due to the expanding economies of India and China.  This of course never materialized and demand went down by about 20% in the US and the prices fell sharply.  

The typical scenario is investors run the price up to $100 + per barrel, then demands start to drop, supply doesn't, investors get nervous, price comes down.

Also we have only issued one permit to begin drilling in the Gulf where about a third of our oil traditionally comes from.  This is a catch 22 for the administration as I understand it, because the industry has failed to show that they have a failsafe cut off valve for deep drill wells.  At the same time it is getting a lot of pressure to get this oil flowing again.  

Also the general consensus is that in the next 15 years we will solve our energy storage issues(batteries), and petroleum will start to take a significant hit, as electric energy can be produced locally in any number of ways.

80 percent of the wealth of our country is now controlled by a little over 1% of the population. They control a lot of power to sway markets through hedge funds. They make their money through volatility, not steady growth. Honestly so do I. But this is not the best thing for all of the 401k fund gen pop people out there.  It is the era of deregulation and bubbles.

I'm hoping that the old adage buy on the rumor sell on the news holds up!