118
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
118 points (98.4% liked)
United States | News & Politics
7057 readers
340 users here now
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Another issue is that so many small airplanes use engines designed in the 40s and 50s. Sure there have been some updates over the years but the basics havent changed because of the testing requirements from the FAA on new engine designs. Aviation need to become faster at bringing affordable updates to aircraft that dont also limit capability
That definitely made it a lot harder to end the use of lead. Those old engines account for about 1/3 of the small planes in use, and made it a lot harder to develop an unleaded aviation gas suitable for all planes. (There is a widely available one which can be used in the other 2/3 already)