FAA accident data indicates that aircraft flying on autogas have a lower accident and field landing rate than those running on 100LL. This is attributed not to the fuel but to the fact that auto fuel is handled primarily in 6 gallon cans by the pilot and when you put the fuel in you kind of know that you can fly for one hour per can. The point is that any form of fueling performed by the pilot is safer than letting the lineboy do it. Low compression engines need some lead. This is based on a Continental report from the 1940s. What the report said was that the engine needed one tank of leaded fuel once after overhaul of the valves. Thereafter it would run fine on unleaded gas for the rest of its life. I run my engine almost exclusively on unleaded car gas. There are some changes such as never having to clean sparkplugs and never having a bad mag check. It is different to have these nonproblems but you get used to it. 98 cents a gallon has another effect on safety. Fuel is so cheap you tend to fly more which helps greatly in maintaining currency. Auto gas has been suspected in some vapor lock events but I find that before I cured my vaporlock problem it was equally likely to happen whether I fueled with 100LL or cargas or a mixture of the two. Cargas is reported to burn sootier but what you see when you lood into the exhaust pipe of an engine that is burning 100LL is lead oxide which was commonly used as the pigment in white paint until titnium became commonly availible. Car gas lacks the white pigment.
Do these seem like enough reasons to stop polluting the air with lead? Bob Condon
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