Based on the G100UL fuel leak thread what's your position?

[MikeOH]

58 minutes ago, IvanP said:

Can you please post the link? 

You have to have an account at the court and pay...so, I sprung for the $13.50:

 

60320017_05_30_2025_General_Order_v4.pdf

[MikeOH]

Cliff Notes summary:

 

[toto]

3 hours ago, MikeOH said:

Cliff Notes summary:

 

Ouch

[MikeOH]

7 minutes ago, toto said:

Ouch

Yeah, I'm guessing CEH and George Braly have had better days

[gabez]

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/another-reason-not-to-run-g100ul….151426/

[gabez]

https://sccgov.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOp ... nline=True

https://sccgov-org.zoom.us/j/88064280493

don't miss out on it

[Paul Thomas]

52 minutes ago, gabez said:

https://sccgov.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOp ... nline=True

https://sccgov-org.zoom.us/j/88064280493

don't miss out on it

I can't make it but I do hope that a video of the meeting is shared.

[MikeOH]

1 hour ago, gabez said:

https://sccgov.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOp ... nline=True

https://sccgov-org.zoom.us/j/88064280493

don't miss out on it

This could be interesting...I'd bet the Agenda for this meeting was set well before the Court's ruling on May 30th!  Wonder if Braly and Luvara will actually show up?

[varlajo]

29 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

This could be interesting...I'd bet the Agenda for this meeting was set well before the Court's ruling on May 30th!  Wonder if Braly and Luvara will actually show up?

Well, George Braly's presentation is queued 

[varlajo]

1 hour ago, MikeOH said:

This could be interesting...I'd bet the Agenda for this meeting was set well before the Court's ruling on May 30th!  Wonder if Braly and Luvara will actually show up?

No public discussion after George or Michael's presentations, but they accept questions via email after the meeting. George Braly is there in person (not surprisingly). 
bnc@cob.sccgov.org

Edited June 4 by varlajo

[MikeOH]

8 minutes ago, varlajo said:

No public discussion after George or Michael's presentations, but they accept questions via email after the meeting. George Braly is there in person (not surprisingly). 
bnc@cob.sccgov.org

So far, all he’s been doing is relating his CV (didn’t hear him mention that he’s a lawyer)

[varlajo]

9 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

So far, all he’s been doing is relating his CV (didn’t hear him mention that he’s a lawyer)

Exactly

Holy crap. This fuel has been on sale for half a year in at least two major GA airports and has only seen ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY users?? 

Edited June 4 by varlajo

[MikeOH]

Kind of disappointing that the Commissioners didn't discuss after the presentations; basically kicked the can down the road to the next meeting as to what to pass on as a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors.

Also, my impression was that most of these AIRPORT Commissioners did NOT have an aviation/technical background (the one guy didn't even know the phonetic alphabet).  Consequently, both presentations, which were of a reasonably technical nature, probably went over the heads of the Commissioners

[varlajo]

14 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Consequently, both presentations, which were of a reasonably technical nature, probably went over the heads of the Commissioners

Not difficult to notice that one presenter dropped a lot of names and appealed to his own expertise, and the other showed quite a lot of damaged machinery and actual experimental data. 

[Marc_B]

TLDR:  Per Braly, no fuel is perfect and all the issues seen with G100UL have been seen with 100LL.  He reports 120-130 aircraft using G100UL and reports <10 with issues.  He encourages replacing 100LL with G100UL to end lead use and not jeopardize FAA government grant assurances.

Per Luvara, of the limited aircraft using the fuel there have been at least 25 aircraft with issues; previous compatibility issues noted in his videos; no compatibility testing data published from GAMI to review; states Mr. Braly misrepresents aromatic content of 100LL and the mean aromatic content in 100LL is nationally 7.25%.  Showed data regarding elastomer and o-ring swell; raised questions about materials compatibility with fabric aircraft, fuel lube, and sealant.

My impression from the peanut gallery:  I feel that Mr. Braly's presentation was more in line with advertising rather than data delivery, and I don't think he adequately explained the issues seen in the aircraft of note.  Rather the explanation given was that "all the issues seen already occur with 100LL."  I also find it interesting that his suggestion was that airports can eliminate leaded fuel legally if they offer G100UL in its place without jeopardizing government grants.  Mr. Braly's presentation also wasn't up to date and had multiple typos.  ("G00UL" I guess is the new G1000UL.).  I also find it interesting that national 100LL aromatic content is MUCH lower than the 29% that is frequently quoted by Mr. Braly.

This appeared to be an information session only; no questions were fielded from anyone either presenting or commenting.

Mr. Braly's and Mr. Luvara's presentations were then followed by a presentation on lead data in the area and showed interesting view of if aviation lead is actually driving any increase in lead exposure to the region.  I've included several of the slides from this presentation.  Certainly interesting to see some of the data surrounding RHV lead levels.  I'm not going to summarize this, but it was interesting presentation.

[MikeOH]

3 minutes ago, varlajo said:

Not difficult to notice that one presenter dropped a lot of names and appealed to his own expertise, and the other showed quite a lot of damaged machinery and actual experimental data. 

Good point! Hopefully, the Commissioners noticed that, as well.

My concern is that this issue is much less about finding a safe alternative to lead than about providing an excuse to move the airport towards closure by any available means. I.e., the Commissioners are only going to 'pass along' data to the Board of Supervisors that is supportive of that goal.  Next months meeting could be interesting...

[varlajo]

Just now, MikeOH said:

Good point! Hopefully, the Commissioners noticed that, as well.

My concern is that this issue is much less about finding a safe alternative to lead than about providing an excuse to move the airport towards closure by any available means. I.e., the Commissioners are only going to 'pass along' data to the Board of Supervisors that is supportive of that goal.  Next months meeting could be interesting...

One of the Commissioners requested info on G100UL alternatives. KRHV supervisor did talk about Swift 100R and the VP Racing Fuels developments, but unfortunately omitted that 100R has been in 172R fuel tanks for >8 months now at KSQL. 

[gabez]

11 hours ago, varlajo said:

Exactly

Holy crap. This fuel has been on sale for half a year in at least two major GA airports and has only seen ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY users?? 

it's potentially less than that. Braly never answered the question "are those STCs or tailed numbers that purchased the fuel?"

[Paul Thomas]

The problem with decisions that are made from presentation like these, especially when the decisions makers are not there is how they are summarized. Both fuel create issues for airplanes, one doesn't have lead... let's go the the unleaded version to protect the children.

Facts get distorted so quickly. If the issue at hand for the meeting was which fuel should be kept there, the recent rulings are pretty good. 100LL must be served and G100UL is not commercially available in large part because manufacturers have not been able to determine that it's safe and the whole fleet is not able to use it.

[mluvara]

The County's agenda and docket for the meeting is available here: Airport Commission Agenda

There is a link at the top to what the County says is 'video', unfortunately it is only audio. I emailed the County today to confirm and they only provide audio from the meeting, even though it was live streamed. So, one has to scroll through the speaker's slides and try to correlate them with the audio.

I have highlighted some of the items of interest in the attached image to help illustrate, but are also including links here to some of documents that you may download and view. There are some documents submitted by the presenters and public included in items 4 (a through l). As noted, in between our talks, both in person and online comments were allowed.

Michael

4i. George's Slides
4i. My (Michael's) slides

6a. Airport Commission Presentation-2025-06-03 (McHenry and Rice)

 

Edited June 5 by mluvara

[MikeOH]

@mluvara

I watched the live stream and wanted to thank you for your efforts and presentation!

I did note that Braly brought up some Congressional rule/law that he claimed absolved the County of any Federal Grant Assurance violations for failing to offer 100LL.  That was a huge surprise to me as I had thought there had been a recent ruling just the opposite.

Do you have any knowledge, or comments, as to the veracity of Braly's claim?

[mluvara]

11 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

@mluvara

I watched the live stream and wanted to thank you for your efforts and presentation!

I did note that Braly brought up some Congressional rule/law that he claimed absolved the County of any Federal Grant Assurance violations for failing to offer 100LL.  That was a huge surprise to me as I had thought there had been a recent ruling just the opposite.

Do you have any knowledge, or comments, as to the veracity of Braly's claim?

Thanks!

I would recommend reading the recent Part 16 Director's Determination against Santa Clara County, as I think it spoke clearly on this topic. I'm not sure I agree with his assertion that he presented. 

Michael

 

Edited June 5 by mluvara

[IvanP]

The FAA disagreed, in no uncertain terms, with the county's position that they did not violate the federal grant assurances.

https://download.aopa.org/advocacy/2025/P16_FAADocket_16-22-08_AOPAvCountyofSantaClaraCA_DD_032425Signed.pdf?_gl=1*j6ou8v*_gcl_au*NDcxNDI4NjI4LjE3NDkxNTQ0MDg.*_ga*MjEzNzI4NjExNi4xNzQ5MTU0NDEx*_ga_B4TCX358SE*czE3NDkxNTQ0MTAkbzEkZzAkdDE3NDkxNTQ0MTUkajU1JGwwJGgw*_ga_SM42H3BVW5*czE3NDkxNTQ0MTEkbzEkZzAkdDE3NDkxNTQ0MTUkajU2JGwwJGgw 

Edited June 5 by IvanP

[MikeOH]

Here's the Cliff Notes section of the ruling below.

The date of the ruling was March 24, 2025 with a requirement for the County to supply a plan for how they were going to become compliant with the Grant Assurance requirements within 30 days.

The County also had the right to appeal within 30 days. I've no idea where that stands...my complete guess is the County is going to spend the taxpayers' money to appeal.

Anyone know what has actually happened?

 

[mluvara]

8 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Here's the Cliff Notes section of the ruling below.

The date of the ruling was March 24, 2025 with a requirement for the County to supply a plan for how they were going to become compliant with the Grant Assurance requirements within 30 days.

The County also had the right to appeal within 30 days. I've no idea where that stands...my complete guess is the County is going to spend the taxpayers' money to appeal.

Anyone know what has actually happened?

 

The County asked for an extension to respond (which they have done every time they are supposed to respond), filed an appeal at the 11th hour and also filed a corrective action plan. We’ll see what comes of it.