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The competition to fuel the future of general aviation may be decided more by the referees than the players on the field.
On Oct. 30, 2024, General Aviation Modifications Inc. (GAMI) began selling its G100UL unleaded aviation fuel (avgas) product at Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose, California. It was one of two unleaded avgas producers to roll out a product within the space of a week — the other being Swift Fuels on Nov. 6 in San Carlos, California — marking the first time that Federal Aviation Administration-approved, unleaded high-octane aviation fuels (100 grade or higher) have been available to purchase at any airports in the United States.
The FAA in 2022 approved all spark-ignition, piston-engine airplanes to use GAMI’s fuel as part of a Congressionally-mandated phase out of leaded avgas by 2030. Typically, any fuel used in aircraft — whether avgas, jet fuel or even auto gas — complies with an industry consensus specification: a document that spells out its required properties and attributes, agreed to by many different industry stakeholders. However, Oklahoma-based GAMI instead uses a privately-developed specification, which has received sign-off from the FAA but not necessarily from aircraft makers, engine manufacturers and fuel distributors.
Related: Unpacking general aviation’s complex path to a fully unleaded future
GAMI has consistently argued that its standard achieves the same level of quality assurance for its product as an industry consensus specification. However, some in the general aviation industry dispute this, and manufacturers including Cirrus Aircraft, Lycoming and Continental Aerospace Technologies (CAT) have said they don’t know yet if GAMI’s fuel is safe to be used in their aircraft and engines.
Now, new reporting from The Air Current details how this debate has made its way to the FAA, which is facing a dilemma over its role in approving these fuels and their specifications — central to an ongoing lawsuit in California and something that may very well be determined by a single comma in the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act.
Historically, the agency has elected not to weigh in on the relative merits of each of these specifications, in line with longstanding federal policy and its role to only approve specific engines and airframes to use a fuel. However, amid widespread pilot confusion and lawsuits from states and municipalities seeking to stop the sale of 100 octane leaded avgas (100LL) entirely, the FAA is under more pressure to endorse industry consensus standards as the preferred product specification.
The agency is in a bind, as any action by the FAA could be seen as interfering with the commercial levers of the unleaded fuel industry. With the future of general aviation’s lifeblood on the line, TAC breaks down the complexity of the standards debate and how it is upending aviation’s unleaded fuel roll-out as the industry marches towards its rapidly approaching 2030 deadline.
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