It has been a busy month for fuel meetings.  Baere staff was not able to attend many of them this time around.  At the beginning of April, the ASTM J0 aviation fuel subcommittee met in Brussels Belgium.  There have been murmurings out of Europe that a new commercial jet fuel specification may be required so that changes to the specifications could be made more quickly than they see ASTM moving.  So the J0 committee convened in Brussels to permit more attendance by non-traditional participants from Europe.  On the Monday of the meetings, there was a Synthetic Aviation Fuels education seminar to explain how the ASTM standards on jet fuel and synthetic components were designed, interrelated, and supported.  Through the rest of the week, the meetings were focused on showing how ASTM standards are used, how they are updated, and how ASTM standards support a general goal of providing jet fuel, including synthetic blending components, for safe commercial aviation.  Baere representatives were unable to attend the meetings, but the general consensus from colleagues who did was that the meeting was successful in presenting the role of ASTM standards in advancing synthetic aviation fuels.​​​​​​​

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ASTM F44 met in Prague Czech Republic in April.  Again, Baere finds it problematic to send representatives to non-US meetings, so no one was able to attend.  One of the topics was the continued efforts to develop an F44 Guidance Material for the design of fuel placards for small aircraft.  For those in the industry, this is an effort to formalize the Gama Spec 3 as an ASTM document.  This is a well represented task force, with members working to use the opportunity to make improvements in the historical placards.  The FAA unleaded aviation gasoline program would like to have a guide available to use as part of the move to an unleaded fuel, so the task force hopes to have a "sufficient" guide to ballot imminently.  The challenge is to not let "perfect" be the enemy of "sufficient"!

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There was also and Ministry of Defence (MOD) fuel meeting in the United Kingdom this month.  Baere is not a participant in the MOD fuels work, so cannot comment on the meeting, but our colleagues who do said it went well.

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We ended the month by attending the Coordinating Research Council (CRC) aviation fuels meetings in Dayton, OH.  This meeting our president did attend.  Ms. Thom is a steering committee member-at-large, as well as a chair of the Aviation Fuel Handbook publications task group.  As always, this was a good meeting, filled with really educational presentations, phenomenal networking, and an opportunity to take the pulse of the industry.  After all the years of working with University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI), this was the first time that anyone at Baere visited the polymer laboratories!  It was lovely to actually meet some of the colleagues with whom we have worked for years, as well as meeting a number of new ones.  The CRC folks arranged for the networking dinner to take place at the Air Force Museum which, while there was no way to go through the entire museum, was a visceral experience to visit with only the 150 of us in the complex.  This meant we were able to stand at an aircraft, alone and silent, and absorb the enormity of display.  Thank you Jan and CRC for a phenomenal dinner!

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What is on the near horizon?  We will be attending the SAE E-38 Aviation Lubricants meeting in Warrendale, PA the first week of June.  One of the agenda items is to try and define the new test requirements for the piston engine oil certifications as a matched data set to the requirements of fuel compatibility with the oil done as part of ASTM D7826 so they are complimentary.

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On a personal note, Ms. Thom's niece is graduating from High School the end of May and she will be in the audience celebrating the younger Kimble's success.  Nice to brag a little!  

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As always, feel free to email or call Baere with your fuel and lubricant related research, testing, and deployment questions.  We look forward to working with you.

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