I dragged a friend to a Phillips 66 talk at the Lycoming pavilion and we found that Phillips 66 had dragged out a team of four experts, including the company’s top “scientist” in this domain, to answer questions from piston peasants.
What did we learn? A preference for straight weight 100W is purely superstitious and, even in a reliably warm climate such as Florida’s, it is smarter to use Phillips XC 20W-50 (bizarrely, the “50” in the multiweight and the “100” refer to the same “SAE 50” spec for viscosity at higher temperatures).
If you have a Lycoming engine, you should definitely use the “Victory” version of Phillips, which is preblended with a Lycoming-recommended anti-wear additive. For Continental owners, the representatives who were present leaned toward either the Victory version or XC plus CamGuard if the plane isn’t flown frequently.
Since every group needs at least one obnoxious person, I asked “You have a huge team of PhD scientists. All that CamGuard has is a snake. Why can’t you put something in the oil that will prevent corrosion for a plane that doesn’t fly regularly?” Unlike America’s Greatest Scientist, the chief scientist at Phillips 66’s oil division did not invoke the 5th Amendment. He answered that corrosion is an almost undefeatable enemy. There is always some water in the oil, even if a plane is based in the Arizona desert and even if the owner puts a Drybot in the filler tube (sadly, suitable only for T hangar royalty; those of us in shared hangars can’t expect the line guys to keep unplugging it and plugging it back in when the aircraft is moved). There is thus no substitute for flying regularly (“at least monthly”, but of course weekly is better).
What about the FAA-industry dream of unleaded gasoline in 1950s engines? So far, there isn’t a great one-fuel-fits-all solution. Patrick Ealy, a master’s student at University of North Dakota, gave a talk about capturing the lead out of the exhaust stream (about 40 minutes in; the first part of the talk is more about how aviation 100LL is falsely accused of being a significant contributor to America’s falling average IQ; he points out that even “unleaded” car gasoline has some naturally occurring lead in it and there are a lot more ground vehicles out there burning dinosaur blood than there are piston aircraft).
Related:
- “Unleaded fuel takes center stage at AirVenture” (AOPA): “the FAA plans to release new versions of the transition plan after each phase. … The first phase includes authorizing fuels and doing comparison testing. … The third and fourth phases focus on the wide-scale transition—first in the Lower 48, with a goal of completing the work by 2030, followed by Alaska two years later.” (for the Cirrus SR20 with IO-360-ES engine… no unleaded fuel is approved by Cirrus, though GAMI G100UL is approved for this engine/airframe by the FAA)
“Lead out, weed in,” I always say.
> 100LL is falsely accused of being a significant contributor to America’s falling average IQ
So is weed. Ha, ha and duh. Both not even statistically significant compared to social media and A.I. use. Still, it is a good goal to remove lead from avgas and social media/A.I. from the Internet.
> Since every group needs at least one obnoxious person
I’ll show myself out, we don’t need two, do we?
Interests change over time. Maybe sell the SR-20 to Scott Manley & get the Corvette instead of trying to preserve it.
Or spend more time flying. Planes are meant to fly, not to be hangar queens.
OAG: Your idea sounds good, but it isn’t practical for the typical piston aircraft owner. Consider someone who owns a Cessna 172 in the Islamic Republic of Michigan (Inshallah Abdul El-Sayed will represent the state next year in the Senate). For concreteness, let’s say beautiful Flint, MI. The average high temp in January is below freezing (maybe Climate Change (TM) will fix). Let’s suppose the plane owner has a family that is willing to sit in the plane for one hour. What is a pleasant January destination that is within a one-hour flight of Flint, MI in a Cessna 172? (If the answer is “I can’t think of one,” then very likely the plane won’t get flown more than once every few weeks in the dead of winter.)
(Of course, the rich people that Abdul El-Sayed proposes to tax heavily don’t have this issue. The will get into a jet that is comfortable for a multi-hour trip. The jet’s ground speed is sufficient to make it from Michigan to Sarasota or Naples, Florida within a reasonable amount of time.)
Alternatively, consider a plane owner in Dearborn, Michigan. On the first day of Dhul-Hijjah, she dons her burqa and gets on a flight from DTW to King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah. After relaxing near Idi Amin’s old house for a few nights, she travels overland to Mina. She completes the Hajj on the 13th day of Dhul-Hijjah, but then travels to her native Lebanon to pay her respects at the tomb of Ibrahim Mohamad Ghazali (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/15/michigan-synagogue-attacker-brother-hezbollah-commander ) before finally returning to Dearborn on the 28th day of Dhul-Hijjah. It takes her a few days to shake off the jet lag and a massive thunderstorm system (caused by Climate Change) rolls in as soon as she is ready to fly. The 172 thus ends up not being flown for 5 weeks.
lol
I think climate change has overshot in the case of Michigan. Queen Whitmer’s Royal Islamic English Outdoor Gardens were too hot to extensively tour this year in early June. Abdul could trade his 172 in on a string of camels or one of those F-650 based SUVs (to clear the piles of tire carcasses on I-94). Similar arguments could be made for Florida in the heat. You could get an A/C out of a Honda Odyssey for your plane, probably a video on Youtube for the conversion. Walaikum assalam!
Hydrogen fuel?
It’s working just as well for aviation as it is for cars!