Florida EAA Presidents,

 I'm Milford Shirley, president of #193 in Jacksonville, Florida.

 We are starting our fight to win some relief from the ethanol mandate on auto gas that was recently signed into law.  The local chapters will be instrumental to the outcome on this and I am hoping you or someone in your chapter will spearhead the effort in your area.

 Our goal is to have premium auto fuel exempted from ethanol so that pilots who fly with a STC would be able to safely keep fueling their aircraft. As you know, ethanol creates many problems for airplanes and their fuel systems. I have already heard from a pilot who had a fiberglass fuel tank and was waiting for the ceiling to lift to go flying when he noticed a small leak. He watched his tank basically dissolve in front of him. If he had not been delayed that could have happened low and slow over a no option area. ( The plane was a J-3 copy so that was the type of flying he does. )

 The problems with ethanol in aviation are too numerous to try and list here, but I think all EAA chapters would have to agree that this is a dangerous situation that we need to have resolved.

 The fight will more than likely take close to a year and the first thing we need to do is create a ground swell across Florida of people talking about the ethanol problem. If each chapter would start writing letters to the editor of their local newspapers we should be able to get some of them published. If anyone does get one published I would ask them to mail them to me so I can create a file from across Florida. Be sure to include the date and name of the paper.

 It would also be helpful if each chapter drafted a letter similar to a mission statement listing the reasons they oppose ethanol in all auto fuels. If the paper was signed by the chapter's board and again, mailed to me it would be one more weapon when we get a meeting with a law maker. It might help to include that in a letter to the editor, a letter from a group might carry more weight.

 My address is:

Milford Shirley

4001 Pinto Rd

Middleburg, FL 32068

 The plan is to try and get a little publicity and hopefully some sentiment on our side. When the legislature meets early next year we believe that I will be able to get a meeting with some of them to try and show them our paperwork and recruit them to sponsor an amendment for premium auto fuel exemption.

 One other thing we are doing is to use the radio show that I co host to occasionally give all of us a place to talk about the dangers of ethanol. We had one show on June 21st and it worked out very well. If you go to www.flighttimeradio.com you can listen to that show on the archives. We are planning on another ethanol show this Saturday. I would encourage all pilots that are concerned about the ethanol problem to call in. The plan is to have a guest on during the first segment, but we would love to take a bunch of anti ethanol calls the rest of the hour. The show starts at 10am on Saturday and runs for one hour.

 There is also a page on that web site about ethanol.

 Between all the shows, we plan on editing it down and making CDs to give to different law makers who will listen to them while driving and educate them on the dangers we face.

 We have faced down other over bearing laws, ( the Jacksonville anti home building law ) and won. It wasn't easy, but it was satisfying to over come something we felt was wrong. If we work together this can happen and I look forward to talking to all of you.