Warbird Information Exchange

So anyone got a idea what happens when avgas, and any fuel required by warbird or pistions engines planes is unable to be made/gone gone gone or not replaced?

Will mean grounding of all pistions warbirds and planes.

I cant understand why after nearly 90years companies havent developed fuel for pistions engines that can replace the current fuel types... why is it so hard?

Cant aircraft fly on green fuel or less pollutive types?

We fly TIE fighters!

I prefer the T-16...much better for bullseyeing wamp rats back home...

Zack

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Volunteer Coordinator/Curator - Military Aviation Museum - Virginia Beach, VA
"America's Flying Museum"
http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org

Bah, my ship will use dilithium crystals.

Concerning aviation-oriented green fuels, Exxon is close to marketing an 87 octane version of their soylent-based fuels.

I would imagine that higher octane fuels would be the natural progression.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

But BIG but the problem is this green food fuel is it takes VALUABLE crop food land away from feeding people to merely run fuels....

MEANWHILE the food prices are RISING - happening already in Australia and no doubtly around world.. Crops for us are used for fuel and we are the loosers...

Easy there, Phil. ExxonMobil assures us that Soylent Green-based fuels won't harm the environment or violate current farmland.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Who said anything about using crops for fuel?

Seriously though, the ethanol party could have lasted just a little longer, there was a deal to buy my uncles farm for big money so an ethanol refinery could be built on it. It went away when the ethanol bubble burst.

Coptin, the dilithium crystals are fused. I canna deu ennehthing wi them.
I'm afraid yer jes gonna hof te fire me.

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"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

Joe Strummer, 1999

That's alright chief, just send a red shirt down to the ExxonMobil Soylent generator. We'll have new crystals long before those T.I.E.'s can collect enough ions to do anything more than fart in our general direction.

Just make sure you do it this time, Sulu keeps sending red skirts to the ExxonMobil Soylent generator.

We don't have enough red skirts on this ship as it is.

There are ongoing attempts to develop alternates to 100 Low Lead AvGas. The first attempts will be simply unleaded AvGas which I think is called 94UL. This would be fine for 90% of piston engined aircraft. The remaining 10% include most warbirds, and high compression and turbocharged engines.

Other people are developing acetone based fuels. The research dates back to WW1 and could use biomass material that is not used for food.

My thought is that someone is working to develop an anti knock additive that does not use tetraethyl lead. I heard twenty years ago that you could have an unleaded high octane fuel but did you want to pay $10. gallon?

Leaded avgas was developed in the 1930s for the air racing crowd and didn't really extend to the military until the early 1940s. Leaded avgas is thought to be a big part of the performance of British fighters in the Battle of Britain. I believe that most German fuels throughout WW2 were only about 87 octane and unleaded though I stand by to be corrected.

So maybe the warbird answer is to switch to German types and revive German engines?

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

I'm gonna have to look for my ethanol research. I lost all of it when my old computer crashed, but I might be able to find some of it again.

L-39 or 59 for me thanks

As a geologist and educator, and one particularly interested in energy (am presently teaching a university energy course) let me offer some thoughts on this issue.

Figures are wildly divergent and depend much on political and other points of view, but at the beginning of this century the prognostications of various researchers was that "peak oil" would be reached somewhere from 2006 to 2008. I think that peak was actually surmounted before the summer of 2008, which was when oil prices suddenly climbed, prior to going down again due to the economic recession. If that is correct, then oil supply will from that point decrease even while demand increases. New drilling will not change that, as the new oil reserves will not be enough to replace depleted oil fields, despite wishful thinking by those who do not understand the math.

What this means to WIXers is that gasoline prices will, once this recession starts to end, go up A LOT. We may very well see the price per gallon going up several-fold in the next 5-10 years. The fuel will still be available - barring political crises - but it will be much more expensive. We also may be seeing rationing on its use for less essential purposes.

My guess is that you will be unlikely to see a B-17 flying 15 years from now. Not only will it be very expensive, but too many people may see it as a waste of increasigly valuable resources.

As to alternative liquid fuels such as ethanol, as mentioned in earlier messages, this requires a lot of land area and any increases of ethanol will not be enough to replace decreases in available oil. Also, ethanol will not have the BTU/pound numbers as good old-fashioned fossil fuel, and I doubt that it will be usable in WWII engines. Keep in mind also that ethanol is a supplement to oil - ethanol fuel is 85% oil and 15% ethanol. It is not a total substitute for oil but merely a way to stretch it further.

So the question that started this thread is a very good one. As the oil gets harder to come by, only the very rich will be able to fly a WWII high performance airplane. And not long after that, even the very rich will not be able to do so. I think that period of time is likely less than 25 years from now.

Kevin

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Kevin McCartney

Interesting topic. I think that research may result in a blend of various chemicals that could result in a mix that could be substituted for our current avgas. Remember that once upon a time, nitro-methane was just burned off in stacks as a waste product of refining. Now don't go jumping on me that we'll be burning nitro, just using it as an example. Maybe there are other waste products that can be salvaged.

The ethanol thing always gets my goat as I have driven my truck with my race car trailer more than once to get to a gas station when stranded in the desert. In those days of carbs (remember back then?) just double the size of the jet, dump some methanol in and go, hopefully you can get there before all the rubber bits disolve. What keeps getting left out of the advertising equation is that since alcohol has less BTU's than gas (about half I think) it takes twice the volume of fuel to make the same power. So even at the same price, cost per mile or hour doubles. Not good for anyone but the producers.

So, that said, my money is all in Flux Capacitors!

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."