Big airlines and small plane enthusiasts share a need for aviation fuels and lubricants. These are a major part of maintaining aircraft and keeping planes flying. Learn some of the benefits of buying aviation lubricants in bulk.
Types of Aviation Lubricants
Even small aircraft have multiple parts that require lubrication. From gears to bearings to the engine itself, lubrication is necessary to reduce friction. The amount of friction moving parts generate depends on many variable factors, such as temperature, load, speed, surface finish, type of movement, and the viscosity of the lubricant in use.
Types of movement that create friction include parts sliding, rolling over, or wiping against each other. This friction causes damage and excess wear to aircraft parts.
Oils and aviation greases act as cushioning between moving engine parts, like crankshafts and connecting rods, landing gear wheel bearings, and numerous other parts. They reduce friction from bearing races (rolling friction), and from gear teeth as they connect, push, and release each other in their circular motion.
According to an article in Experimental Aircraft, there are three major types of aviation lubricants used in aircraft. These include boundary lubrication, hydrodynamic lubrication, and elastohydrodynamic lubrication.
Boundary Lubrication
Friction occurs at engine startup, when metal surfaces can contact each other directly. The right type of boundary lubricant contains additives that form a protective film between engine surfaces by reacting with those surfaces to create a chemical boundary or barrier. The lubricant then wears away instead of the surface. The lubricant effect isn’t determined by the speed of motion in boundary lubrication, but rather by the chemical film forms due to temperature and pressure within the system.
Hydrodynamic Lubrication
This type of lubrication creates complete separation between surfaces, interposing a film that keeps parts apart. The lubricant experiences friction, but the parts do not. Hydrodynamic lubrication works best under relatively lower pressure.
Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication
This type of lubrication works with surfaces that don’t necessarily conform as tightly to each other as higher conforming surfaces, but ones that experience high pressure. Examples would be wheel bearings and gear drives. Under high pressure, elastohydrodynamic lubricants increase in viscosity, creating a nearly solid film that keeps surfaces from rubbing against each other.
Whichever type of aviation lubricant you need, you should consider the benefits of buying in bulk. Talk to your supplier about options for bulk purchase.
Cost Savings
Bulk purchases save you money. Suppliers will often offer discounts when you buy in bulk, because it eases delivery and minimizes the number of stops individual trucks must make.
Fewer deliveries mean lower shipping costs, both for you and your supplier. As a result, you both save, and it’s a win-win proposition.
Hedge Against Price Fluctuations
When you buy aviation lubricants in bulk, you’re hedging your bets against future price increases. Oil markets are volatile, and locking in a reasonable price on a quantity of lubricants that will last for a month or more gives your aviation business greater predictability and allows you to spread costs out over time.
Big buyers of aviation fuels and lubricants can use sophisticated financial instruments like calls, which are option contracts that carry the right to buy products in the future at a price fixed on the date of the call purchase, before the call expires. Calls are bets that prices will rise.
Of course, prices can drop precipitously too, based on global events, supply, demand, and a decline in the rate of inflation. Put options are the right to sell a quantity of commodity in the future at a price fixed at the time of the put purchase. Puts are used as a hedge against calls when the price declines below the call price instead of going up.
Security in Case of Supply Chain Disruption
Supply chain headaches don’t seem to be going away. When product is available in bulk, it may be wise to make a bulk purchase to protect a business against future shortages. Aircraft can’t fly without proper maintenance, which includes regular lubrication. To keep planes in the air when supplies are uncertain, purchasing lubricants in bulk makes sense. Talk with your supplier about options for bulk delivery by tanker truck, large barrels, cases of cans or jugs, or other choices for build delivery.
Types of Bulk Delivery
Lubricants may be delivered by the truckload, either in tanker trucks or barrels. Smaller packages of lubricant products can be delivered palleted for storage in a warehouse approved for storing such products.
Bulk delivery by tanker truck obviously requires an appropriate storage facility at your site for the truck to offload its cargo. If you’re thinking of upgrading your storage capacity, consult an expert storage equipment supplier to help you select the tanks appropriate for your operation.
Planes Need Many Different Types of Lubricants
Aircraft lubrication goes far beyond engine oils for piston or turbine engines. Your aircraft may also require instrument oils, greases for airframe equipment, corrosion preventative products, turbine oils, or gear oils.
Always consult the maintenance manual for your particular aircraft, as well as the specifications of the lubricants you’re preparing to order to ensure you’ll be using recommended and compatible products.
Experience Counts
Some lubrication tasks should only be performed by qualified mechanics, as they require disassembly of critical engine or other parts. Review the Federal Aviation Regulations list of maintenance tasks you can do yourself, and the ones that must be performed under the supervision of an airframe and powerplant (A&P) or another certified mechanic.
Quality lubricants are also essential. Before selecting a supplier, find out how they maintain the integrity of the products they offer. Ask for details about storage, shelf life, and transport to ensure you get what you order, and that the product is uncontaminated when it arrives.
Santie Oil has been supplying quality oils and greases since 1948. We pride ourselves on superior customer service, and we want to ensure you are fully satisfied with each delivery and every product we supply. Our experience and industry knowledge makes us the go-to distributor for well-known brands. We stock many specialty items you might not find elsewhere, such as semi-synthetics, high-performance synthetics, high-temp greases, heavy-duty oils, and food-grade machinery lubricants. Contact us today for all your bulk aviation lubricant needs.
