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How do you word/edit a fuel placard if either 100LL or 91 autofuel can be used? As in, with ethanol?
100LL is preferred, and I intend to use that whenever available, but I'd like to be covered for those instances when caught in a pinch. It's for an AeroVee engine which I assembled myself to handle either fuel.
I'm looking for specific FAA legal words. Is it:
"100LL *OR* 91 octane auto gasoline",
"100LL/91 octane auto gasoline",
...or something different?
Thanks!
I think Aircraft Spruce sells a decal for this. You might check there. I seem to remember seeing one on their website.
I would argue that as NOT one of the markings required (like the "E" word, the pax warning, the N-number), that no words at all are required for E-AB. But here's what I used:
http://tinyurl.com/fuel-label
I labeled the minimum required octane
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l4...7build1089.jpg
your experimental aircraft is not built under FAR 23 or 25, so those FAR parts are advisory, not regulatory for your purposes. no reason i know of that you can't use them for a source of "legal words" on your fuel placards.Quote:
Originally Posted by CarlOrton
23.1557 Miscellaneous markings and placards.
(c)Fuel, oil, and coolant filler openings.
(1) Fuel filler openings must be marked at or near the filler cover with
(i) For reciprocating engine-powered airplanes—
(A) The word “Avgas”; and
(B) The minimum fuel grade.
25.1557 Miscellaneous markings and placards.
(b) Powerplant fluid filler openings. The following apply:
(1) Fuel filler openings must be marked at or near the filler cover with—
(i) The word “fuel”;
(ii) For reciprocating engine powered airplanes, the minimum fuel grade;
hmm. don't agree. now what? well, as the aircraft manufacturer, why don't you make your own placards incorporating the requirements of both? what minimum fuel grade are you going to put on the placard? did i hear you say "100LL or 91 autofuel"? might want to reconsider. 91 autofuel is 91 what? RON, MON, or AKI? i'm betting you mean AKI. and 100LL is 100 what? MON. which is usually about 8 to 10 points lower than the RON. wait, don't go make up those placards yet. is 100 the lowest MON your engine needs? probably not, if it will take 91 autofuel. 91/96 avgas used to be available, and who knows, might be again if 100 LL isn't. or some other avgas less than 100. so why not placard for the minimum octane now and not have to re-do it later? and as to the 91 autofuel, don't you really mean premium? if you placard for 91 AKI, you may not be able to find autogas in some parts of the country that meets the AKI - but will work perfectly well in your application. when i lived in Clovis NM i found that the only premium available was 90 AKI. the Shell Answer Man (yes, Virginia, he really answers the phone) explained to me that the required AKI rating decreases 1 point for about 2500' of elevation in the lower atmosphere. thus with the lowest terrain for miles around being over 4000' msl, the highest AKI producers shipped to that area was 90. as to supercharged or turbocharged engines, he said new car engines with those features also have protection against overboost on lower AKI fuels. no i did not ask him to explain how.
so. consider placards that say "FUEL - minimum grade - premium autogas (with/without ethanol) or avgas 90 MON and any mixture thereof". no AKI specified, and whatever minimum MON your engine REALLY needs. that has all the "legal words" (fuel - avgas - minimum grade) from the regs. regs that don't apply to experimentals anyway. you might want to read up on the caution points about gasohol in aircraft.
YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY. i am neither a petrochemical engineer nor an aviation lawyer, just a reader who asks questions of petrochemical engineers and lawyers, and my distilled advice was free.
Back when I had my T-Craft I was tempted to make a label specifying (according to the Type Certificate) "73 Octane minimum". Those old Continentals sure weren't picky...
One thing to keep in mind is that (hard as it might be to believe) you're probably not going to be the only owner the airplane will have. Ten, fifteen years down the pike, some new owner may be staring at the fuel cap and wondering, "What am I supposed to put in there?" Cdrmuetzel has the right of it; volunteer compliance with the marking requirements of Parts 23 and 25 would be a good way to go.
I bought my Fly Baby sixteen years ago, and there were no such markings. Over the years, the various A&Ps who have done the condition inspections have gradually forced me into the straight and narrow as far as aircraft markings..."Paint that new gas cap red" "Add a label as to fuel type" "You need a label showing which way the fuel valve is 'on'" "Add a protective cover for the 'arm' switch of the .50 cals" (well, OK, not the last one).
Properly marking things will probably give you better karma with the DAR, when the time comes. They'll appreciate that you're taking a professional approach to finishing the airplane.
Ron Wanttaja
That's an interesting requirement Ron. I guess your A&P's are from the stone age?Quote:
Originally Posted by rwanttaja
Well, yes. He used to tell me stories about maintaining Constellations for Northwest Airlines. He did my condition inspection every year for free; I thought it was worth two bucks worth of paint to keep him happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by martymayes
Don't know where the tradition came from. I suspect it was to prevent inadvertent switching of the oil and gas caps (oil caps were supposed to be painted yellow).
Ron Wanttaja
Or the electron age. Using the color coding from Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook - General, chapter 7, figure 7-13, to mark the tank cap. Some folks like to see the whole tank painted the appropriate color-code. Your mileage may vary.Quote:
Originally Posted by martymayes
Just to be clear....Ch. 7 of the AMT Handbook is referencing identification of aircraft fluid lines. Extending that practice to filler caps is quite a leap.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdrmuetzel@juno.com
What if it's a wet wing airplane? Or a Cherokee? Or a fiber/matrix composite?Quote:
Some folks like to see the whole tank painted the appropriate color-code. Your mileage may vary.
There is nothing to prohibit a fuel cap from being red, or orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet so if you want your cap any of those colors, go for it. Expressing personal preference can be a good thing.
An old guy once told me that 80 octane airplanes had red caps because..........the fuel was red.Quote:
Originally Posted by rwanttaja
Can't vouch for the accuracy but I thought it sounded interesting.
Some of the old military stuff used to indicate the preferred and alternate fuel next to the cap. Great if you don't mind having all that writing there....
and some AMT's think they're Superman. it's merely a single bound.Quote:
Originally Posted by martymayes
"There is nothing to prohibit a fuel cap from being red, or orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet so if you want your cap any of those colors, go for it. Expressing personal preference can be a good thing"
yeah, even the caps on red portable fuel cans are black! and just because the transmission dipsticks on my cars are yellow didn't prevent the manufacturers from using yellow on the windshield washer reservoirs. nobody would ever mix up those two things. go for it, be creative!
or listen to the experienced pros you trust with your life. do what aviation's general practice has been for decades. your mileage may vary.
Gee, Ron, I guess I'm a dinosaur as well, as I assumed that the oil cap was supposed to be painted yellow and the gas cap red (for Mogas).
yeah? Apparently some didn't get the memo!!Quote:
Originally Posted by cdrmuetzel@juno.com
Attachment 1444
Being the aviation general practice for decades, one would think finding a published reference for such practice wouldn't be overly difficult. It would certainly make for a more convincing argument than jerry can and automobile analogies.Quote:
and just because the transmission dipsticks on my cars are yellow didn't prevent the manufacturers from using yellow on the windshield washer reservoirs. nobody would ever mix up those two things. go for it, be creative!
or listen to the experienced pros you trust with your life. do what aviation's general practice has been for decades. your mileage may vary.
Ah yes one of my pet peeves,forming the experimentals to the certified standards,then holding them to the same standards. Good thing innovators didn't do the same. :rollseyes:
Attachment 1445Quote:
Originally Posted by Racegunz
Not entirely serious, long story, but still a pet peeve, it is experimental, but if you sell it, it should be placarded similar to a certified rig. I bought one with 3 different fuel capacities logged in different places I went with the lowest until I could drain and check useable. Still it wasn't a certified plane and I think the legal limit is limiting enough. Off soap box.....
Care to share, either on the thread, in PM or maybe over lunch sometime?Quote:
Not entirely serious, long story
I can't say I disagree, but then again, any aircraft I design is built to at least the Part 23, 25 et cetera. It's just that I like to have a "yardstick" and I figure those regulations are the minimum standards by which other aircraft are "yardsticked" by. I don't see any reason to drop below it.Quote:
but still a pet peeve, it is experimental, but if you sell it, it should be placarded similar to a certified rig.
good, i made my point. for a while i thought i was being too obscure.Attachment 1449Quote:
Originally Posted by martymayes
There is no 91 "octane" auto gasoline. There is 91 AKI auto gasoline and higher in some areas of the country, 89 AKI auto gasoline or 87 AKI auto gasoline. In the Rockies there is even some 85 AKI auto gasoline. All auto gasoline, regardless of the AKI rating is made to ASTM D4814. Auto gasoline is not rated in octane like avgas. AKI stands for Anti Knock Index and is the average of a MON rating and a RON rating for the gasoline. That is why you see a label on every auto gas pump that says AKI = (MON + RON) / 2. The MON and RON ratings in this case are determined by very specific tests as outlined by ASTM and may have no relationship to the two MON numbers used for avgas. RON is never used in avgas ratings.Quote:
Originally Posted by CarlOrton
All avgas ratings are actually two MON octane numbers, for rich setting and lean setting, which as of late have been truncated to the lower "rich" MON octane rating. 100 LL is actually 100/130 avgas with 2 grams of TEL / gallon instead of 4+ grams of TEL / gallon for the older version, which is still sold as 100/130 avgas in a few locations in the world. All avgas, regardless of the amount of TEL and octane rating is made to ASTM D910. To add to the confusion there is also an 82 UL avgas specification which also includes 87UL (ASTM D6227), a 91 UL avgas specification (ASTM D7547) and a 94 UL avgas specification (ASTM D7592), none of which are produced commercially in the US.
So if you are going to put a placard on your gas tank, you need list the quantity that the tank will hold and all of the various fuels that you as the designer have determined will work properly in your homebuilt. If you are talking about auto gas, it needs to say 87 AKI min or 89 AKI min or 91 AKI min auto gasoline, or gasoline made to ASTM D4814, but not octane. If your engine will tolerate 100 LL and run OK on 91 AKI auto gas, you might want to include 94 UL avgas on the label, as it will probably become available in the future, especially when TEL disappears. 94 UL avgas is essentially 100 LL without TEL. (91 UL avgas is really a specification for DOD drones using the Rotax 914 engine and will probably never be found on a commercial field, even if the drones are operating there.) If you have determined that your airplane will run on swamp gas, you need to list that too.
The lack of desire to put a cluttered placard on my aircraft is why I'm glad my placards will simply read (depending upon the design):
"JET-A or JET-A1 only _______ gallons"
or
"100LL only _____ gallons" (or whatever equivalent is developed to replace it as a proper aviation fuel)
i couldn't find a reference for that requirement. only the minimum fuel, not a requirement to list ALL the fuels. which is how we ended up with aircraft certificated for 80/87 using 100LL without fresh certification testing. where did you come up with that one?Quote:
Originally Posted by flyunleaded
maybe not, but i can get 91 AKI unleaded fuel at over a hundred marinas and nearby gas stations across Florida. 87 AKI at hundreds more. they taught the principle backwards in econ 101. it should be, demand = supply.Quote:
Originally Posted by flyunleaded
FAA AC 20-116
FAA AC 91-33A
Too bad I can't come up with one that will run on methane there seems to be an endless supply.:rollseyes:
A label that reads, 80/87 Min, implies any avgas made to ASTM D910 with an equal or higher octane rating is permissible, unless the manufacturers know of some reason that 100 LL wouldn't work in an engine TC'd for 80/87, which they should have, because 100 LL with four times more TEL than 80/87 causes many problems in the old low compression engines. I would maintain 100 LL should never have been approved in those engines. However 80/87 Min avgas does not imply 87 AKI mogas which is made to ASTM D4814 and has no TEL, nor does it imply 94UL avgas which is made to ASTM D7592 because it doesn't have any TEL in it either. If you as the manufacturer determine that those fuels will work in your homebuilt you must specify them. If you as the builder design a cool replica with an old round engine of very low compression that was certified on 80/87 avgas, you might not be able to specify 87 AKI mogas, because your old round engine may require TEL for the valve seats.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdrmuetzel@juno.com
As I explained in my previous entry 91 AKI mogas does not equal 91 UL avgas. One is Anti Knock Index which has a single MON rating corresponding to one test specified by ASTM that is probably around 88-89 MON and 91 UL has a minimum 91 MON at a different test specified by ASTM, but the MON is not lower than 91. You don't know what the MON is for mogas, it could be 87 or lower, as long as the RON is 95 or higher.Quote:
maybe not, but i can get 91 AKI unleaded fuel at over a hundred marinas and nearby gas stations across Florida. 87 AKI at hundreds more. they taught the principle backwards in econ 101. it should be, demand = supply.
oh. learning is a wonderful thing, it helps me not appear so stupid and inflexible. these also helped me:Quote:
Originally Posted by flyunleaded
http://www.lycoming.com/support/tips...els/index.html
http://www.lycoming.com/support/publ...fs/SI1070Q.pdf