See report 'Systemic Investigation into Fuel Contamination'.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommends that the
American Society for Testing and Materials develops and promulgates
definitions for necessary physical and chemical properties of
aviation fuels that are not currently defined, whether these are
expected to be tested as a part of batch specification or not.
The letter contained three proposed recommendations to ASTM.
These recommendations were discussed at the Subcommittee J meeting
on December 6, 2000. Subcommittee J agreed to the following
replies, which use the same numbers as the original ATSB
letter.
ATSB recommended that definitions for necessary, but currently
undefined, physical and chemical properties be developed for
aviation fuels, regardless of whether these properties are to be
included in batch testing. Subcommittee J is currently embarked in
a major effort to define all explicit and implicit properties
required for the satisfactory performance of jet fuels. The work is
directed to allow the evaluation of novel fuels that may differ
from current fuels either by their non-petroleum origin or through
differences in processing. Subcommittee J expects this effort will
aid in the identification of such implicit properties for Avgas,
although a direct read-across is unlikely.
Based on the above response you can see that the ATSB
recommendations are receiving serious consideration in ASTM and I
expect Subcommittee J will keep you advised of progress. In that
connection I would recommend that an ATSB representative become an
official non-voting member of the Subcommittee, so that such an
individual would automatically receive all issued documents.
