Correct me if I'm wrong though cuz iv always wondered how bad the fumes would be to a community thats near a busy airport.
Iv always hear jokes about how lead is the miracle element....its great for so many things and pushing efficiency in many areas....but the human body just can't stand it at all.
From my perspective, it’s absolutely ludicrous that we still allow lead to be used in any kind of fuel at all.
That’s a voting block which often ends up being appeased in a democracy.
The FAA is the big hurdle. IIRC they recently just approved some fuel as a replacement but I'm not sure if it was a "go start selling it" type of approval or if it's some sort of intermediary approval and there's further ring kissing to be done before people can actually buy it.
The small Aircraft market is tiny and diverse as aircraft last a long time and many past manufacturers have failed. So, there wasn’t a viable alternative for many airplanes owners who couldn’t just swap to some other fuel or certified engine at the time. It’s been 50 years and people are still making the same arguments.
In practice, it's a choice between:
1. Banning or buying out older planes at not-insignificant cost 2. Swapping fuels and doing your best to get people to fix their planes, causing crashes 3. Playing it slow, requiring new planes to be compatible with lead-free fuel, building new lead-free infrastructure, and gradually encouraging people to transition
Currently we're doing 3 until it's determined that 1 is cheap enough to do. That said the FAA could certainly be doing more, but that's much more (IMO) on them not taking the issue seriously than on voters being appeased. Its a national agency, not the local school board.
Instead the people convinced regulators to simply wait until some hypothetical perfect alternative could be made.
The kind of people screeching about the safety of a small user of lead are the same kind of people who will screech about planes falling out of the sky at marginally higher or lower rates. There isn't political will to pay your way out of the problem or screw people over at the barrel of a gun so the end result is you can't have your cake and eat it too. You may as well complain about the laws of physics.
Yet, Private Jets aren’t using leaded fuel. It’s just piston aircraft and thus a fraction of general aviation who benefits by avoiding a transition that could have finished a long time ago.
I don’t care about people using those aircraft, but the public is being harmed at 2 grams / gallon that shit adds up quickly around many small airports.
Small airports that are not busy compared to the large ones above can still see a fair amount of traffic and that is likely to be lead fueled.
Slowly the industry is moving but it requires an STC for both the engine and the airframe. It's an expensive and slow process.
Plus it's only available at like 3 airports right now
Answer: minimal, but measurable, compared to other sources.
So worth getting rid of eventually, but not a major priority.