22 ms·

FAA, do your damn job

307 points by sklargh 5y ago

protonbob 5y ago
The FFA also tells me that because I took an low dose antidepressant in my teens for anxiety, I can't get a private pilot's license without either lying or paying tens of thousands of dollars in fees to prove that I am not suicidal. So not the most up to date organization.
- cjrp 5y ago
  Now imagine what effect that has on commercial pilots who are already working, and want to seek medical help for mental health issues. Risk losing your medical, and your job, or just carry on as if everything's fine?
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    Meanwhile Andreas lubitz was known to have depression and be suicidal but was given the greenlight to continue flying.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The special issuance process for medical after the use of anti-depressants is not as bad as described for cases where a medical should reasonably be (specially-)issued. If you're interested in flying, I'd look more closely into the SI process. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/app_process/exam_tech/item47/amd/antidepressants/ https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av...
  - fmakunbound 5y ago
    I'm in the same boat as the GP. Talked to a few AMEs about my options back in 2019. SI involves thousands of dollars per year and and only applies to a few relatively old SSRI drugs. Ideally they want you to discontinue your psychiatric drug treatment – great job, FAA. There's also the BasicMed rules. You can fly with BasicMed instead of 3rd class, but you need to have had a 3rd class to get the BasicMed, so I suggested to the AME that I could drop the drugs for 2 months, get the 3rd class, and then immediately apply for the BasicMed and hop back on whatever I was taking in the first place. One guy refused to talk to me after that.
    - p_l 5y ago
      Wait, you can fly with 3rd class? If the classes are the same as in europe... I had to take 2nd class for gliders (1st class is required for ATPL/CPL only, I believe)
      - AYBABTME 5y ago
        3rd class or BadicMed for private pilot, 2nd class for Commercial, 1st for Airline.
    - Blackthorn 5y ago
      > so I suggested to the AME that I could drop the drugs for 2 months, get the 3rd class, and then immediately apply for the BasicMed and hop back on whatever I was taking in the first place. One guy refused to talk to me after that. Unfortunately, despite what their flowcharts say, it actually doesn't work like that if you've been taking the prescription for any length of time. They don't actually follow their little flowchart. You will need the full special issuance. What you described you can get away with ONLY IF you've never applied before and they have no record of you ever being on the medication. That AME likely did you a huge favor by not talking to you after that.
    - zzless 5y ago
      Technically, `hopping back on' you would still be violating the law because the Basic Med allows you to self-certify but the rules are the same. On the other hand you can pay for SI once and then switch to Basic Med (since the rules are that you had a valid 3rd class medical before switching to Basic Med). There are many AMEs around, talk to another one but do not reveal your plans after you get the medical.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        The basic interaction model with government should be “answer their legitimate questions truthfully, but do not volunteer extraneous information.”
  - Blackthorn 5y ago
    I'm going through the process right now. It is every bit as bad as described.
- edrxty 5y ago
  They do this to everyone with ADHD as well. They don't understand the condition and have a lot of weird 1950s assumptions. You can't be medicated and fly and if you're diagnosed but unmedicated you need to go through extremely expensive testing. As a result everyone just hides it.
  - prionassembly 5y ago
    Yet the (military) Air Force uses modafinil?
    - xmodem 5y ago
      Presumably to promote wakefulness, not for its benefits for ADHD.
      - edrxty 5y ago
        The point being the medication has no effect on ones ability to safely operate an aircraft. The issue is, yes, there are ADHD cases that are debilitating but they typically don't even make it out of training. If you're managing the condition through therapy and potentially medication there isn't an issue but the FAA fails to recognize that neurodivergence isn't binary. A significant chunk of the pilot population has ADHD, it's common enough to basically be a meme in the community because the career/hobby is especially appealing to those that have it.
    - p_l 5y ago
      When military considered it fine to give amphetamines to pilots, it also considered it fine to run soldiers through still hot ground zero of nuclear explosion (so hot the boots would melt), or purposefully release radionuclides over american cities to research the effects. Military isn't necessarily a good benchmark for sane ideas.
    - _moof 5y ago
      And before they switched to modafinil, they gave pilots (wait for it...) amphetamines. It's total nonsense and the entire aeromedical division should be razed and rebuilt from the ground up.
- 535188B17C93743 5y ago
  I've got my PPL and refuse to go to see a psychiatrist or anyone who might diagnose me simply for the fact that if I'm told I'm "depressed" and might have to medicated for it, I could ironically lose the one hobby in the world that makes me happiest.
  - btgeekboy 5y ago
    Same. I'd love a therapist and sleep study. But alas.
- bumby 5y ago
  I don't think it's a matter of being "up to date" but rather about being risk adverse. There's much more downside for a false negative (approving someone who is suicidal) than false positive (disapproving someone who isn't). So they will err on having more false positives. Bureaucracies tend toward being risk adverse, and it can lead to bad incentives that create inefficiency and lack of innovation. As the saying goes, "nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM."
  - protonbob 5y ago
    I would say the risks of having a driver’s license and driving into people is pretty similar to the risk of flying a small plane to the general public but the red tape is not there.
    - bumby 5y ago
      Fair point, but I think the risk of not giving people drivers licenses is quite a bit greater. Not too many people fly their Cessna's to work. But prohibiting people from driving would have a major impact on the economy. There's also a larger political risk since the share of people who would be unhappy with such a policy would be orders of magnitude larger.
sklargh 5y ago
Probably some missing nuance. That said, it seems pretty indefensible that it’s taken the FAA more than a decade to reach a decision on an unleaded avgas alternative.
- rbinv 5y ago
  Nuance like what? He's spot on imo.
- bombcar 5y ago
  The nuance is it's lose-lose for the FAA bureaucrats if they approve an unleaded gas and something later happens. There is NO risk to the bureaucrats if they keep stalling on unleaded and let everyone run 100LL for all eternity.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > There is NO risk to the bureaucrats if they keep stalling on unleaded and let everyone run 100LL for all eternity This is oversimplifying. Yes, there is a bureaucratic bias towards inaction. But stonewalling is an action. The GAO audit the author posits could very well endgame key decision makers' careers.
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      Nobody in government gets fired for inaction...
      - bombcar 5y ago
        Politicians can, but it is VERY rare, and NEVER over something that affects a very small portion of the population.
    - EricE 5y ago
      If you have an example of anyone getting a career ended because of a GAO audit, I'd love to see it!
burlesona 5y ago
This is the kind of crap that makes me think the US is in real trouble. It’s like “quagmire” has replaced “competency” across all our institutions, and there’s no escape.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  There needs to be some kind of "pay for delay" scheme. If a federal agency takes 2 years to make a decision because they're really worried about getting sued for making the wrong decision, they should have to pay for the fact the decision took so long. That way they can trade off speed of decisions vs quality of decisions.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - shortstuffsushi 5y ago
    The problem with "pay for delay" for government agencies is that it is passed on to the taxpayers. The FAA won't go out of business or face any "bailouts" as such, it will simply result in a higher cost to taxpayers. ETA: Additionally, I don't believe any members of the FAA are elected, although possibly some are appointed by elected officials? Point being - taxpayers pay more, taxpayers get angry, taxpayers can't vote people causing them out of office for their inaction, FAA continues to do nothing
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - lmeyerov 5y ago
      These programs are ultimately run by people.. So you can force them out (hard), or second-best, give their fiefdom to others and mar their record to prevent them for future big projects.
      - shortstuffsushi 5y ago
jaywalk 5y ago
I absolutely love Paul Bertorelli's communication style. It comes across perfectly in his writing and in his YouTube videos. Little things like: > To keep you from opening a vein, I have blurred the chronology a little. Might not sit well with some people, but says so much in just a few words.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Might not sit well with some people, but says so much in just a few words It also makes it useless for someone curious about bringing this to a legislator's or senior administration official's attention.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    Eh, I disagree. If someone is going to disregard the issue because of some slightly colorful language in an opinion piece, they never really cared in the first place.
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Weird how "tone" never seems to be a concern for the gun lobby or "pro life" crowd (where tone includes arson/bombing/sniper attacks)
- kayfox 5y ago
  I was mentally imagining him talking with his hands through the entire article.
- Stevvo 5y ago
  A lot of Paul's work is safety related; in that context I find morbid humor quite appropriate. You're less likely to forget the lesson about flying over water with that hard-hitting gag about unintentionally becoming a U-Boat commander.
teekert 5y ago
So, those chemtrail guys were right when they said: "The government helps spread substances that make us more stupid"?!
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Kinda; chemtrails are far fetched conspiracy theories, the real ignorance and mind control or whatever is happening right under their noses.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Chemtrails are absolutely a conspiracy theory. However, they are not far-fetched given how many programs the US government has run that affected the health of its own citizens and members of the armed forces.
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      Still dumbfounded Richard Helms died a free man
- daniel-cussen 5y ago
  Well fluorine for sure.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  The real question is, what happens to the frogs!
Workaccount2 5y ago
What is the biggest drawback of G100UL? Usually when something is this hung up, its because the two sides disagree on the magnitude of a specific or small set of problems. I can't help but feel that this article is leaving out a key detail.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  Cost, the article says approx 50-85c more per gallon.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Which is peanuts compared to the economic cost of distributing lead into everyone's lungs and waterways... But somehow it's the 85 cents a gallon everyone's worried about, not the tens of billions of dollars...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - stefan_ 5y ago
    As the comments note, however, unleaded gas will not cause lead deposits in the engine and can therefore reduce maintenance required and extend maintenance intervals.
    - robonerd 5y ago
      This is unlikely to be a major factor for aircraft engines, which need to be serviced regularly anyway (long before lead deposits would force it.)
    - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
      In my experience, "lead deposits" are basically an issue caused by running excessively rich mixture, usually on the ground, and show up as spark plug fouling with engine roughness and reduced RPMs. The fix is just to vaporize the deposits by running the engine at leaner and at a high power setting. I understand that you can also end up with exhaust valve deposits, but that's not something I've seen personally. Aviation engines (especially those used for training, which is a large proportion of the piston fleet) have incredibly short inspection intervals in any case.
inglor_cz 5y ago
Bureaucracies have huge incentive to keep any status quo as it is. Any change is potentially risky. This is something we can possibly solve by not punishing state servants as harshly if they make a decision and something goes wrong. "Something went wrong" is a bad metric for firing people. There should be a pattern of bad behavior before something like that is done.
- paganel 5y ago
  > This is something we can possibly solve by not punishing state servants as harshly if they make a decision and something goes wrong The way things are going over here in the EU the reverse is true, as in state servants are incentivised to not walk even a millimetre outside of the chosen, legal path for fear of prison time. Now, one would think that the "legal path" is a very large and broad one, but the truth is that it is all in the eye of the beholder, that assessment all depends on who holds the reins of power and if that state servant is on the "good" side (with "us") or on the "bad" side (with "them"). At least that's how things happen in the Eastern part of the EU. More exactly, and as a hypothetical example: one cannot just choose the best tool for the job (or the best services for the job) as a result of a public procurement process because it all depends on the offered price. Doesn't matter if the the opportunity cost savings generating by choosing the slightly more expansive tool/service are an order of magnitude larger compared to said price difference (i.e. between the cheaper but worst model, compared to the more expansive but better model) a state servant in my country can get actual prison time for choosing the more expensive (but better) tool/service. So what happens for state servants that do actually want to get something done while avoiding prison time is to precisely "manicure" the technical requirements that are part of the public procurement process so that the better but the more expensive product wins. It's borderline illegal (and some other public public servants are using this same tactic for really nefarious reasons) but that's how things are.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    That last part is why you will find products and packages that have weird features that don't really seem to be necessary or in align with the rest of the system. Because you can require that weird feature and then get the "more expensive" product.
fit2rule 5y ago
stackedinserter 5y ago
FAA's job is to freeze progress for as long as possible.
- aurizon 5y ago
  Are they not also lobbied by various players to badger Space-x?
Enginerrrd 5y ago
So, I get the frustration with bureaucracy. I'm an environmental engineer and I deal with analogies to this a lot. But to be honest, this seems like a non-issue to me either way. Like, sure, lead is bad, but one should take into account mass and concentrations before reaching for the ban hammer. There are so few aircraft running leaded gas I can't imagine that environmental lead concentrations, could ever be at the right order of magnitude to be a problem for anyone(except probably AT airfields near fueling stations and maintenance areas). These aren't typically areas where children get exposed.
- Pasorrijer 5y ago
  I think you're greatly underestimating the number of GA / Piston aircraft flying. At my school, we have ~10 aircraft flying every day, 8-12 hours a day depending on the weather. Most of these flights happen over prime, in production farmland, or on the edges of the nearby town which has 8 schools at a minimum. Now we're one of probably 5 aviation schools within a 50 mile radius, all of whom are operating at similar or greater profiles. I'm sure the individual impact is small, but for every jumbo jet there's something like 3-5 piston aircraft in operation.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    There are 220,000 GA planes in the US. The number of jetliners isn't clear, but it's something like 45k flights in the US a day (some of those are doubled up). https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ But the key number is there 25,506,000 GENERAL AVIATION FLIGHT HOURS PER YEAR, which is almost exactly the amount of 100LL used a year (technically some GA flights are jet).
    - robonerd 5y ago
      These GA statistics seem to include Aerial Work, so it includes a considerable number of turbine powered aircraft (most helicopters for instance.) This Excel(!) document breaks GA hours down between types of aircraft: https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/general_aviation/CY2020/media/2020GASurvey_Chapter_2_Tables_508_Compliant_03DEC2021V1.xlsx https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/g... From that document, here are the estimated total hours flown by type of general aviation aircraft: Fixed wing piston: 12.9 million Fixed wing turbine (turboprop + turbojet): 5.6 million Helicopter (turbine): 1.8 million Helicopter (pison): 0.6 million Aside, if you compare Chart4 and Chart5 in that document, you can see that although piston aircraft are far more numerous, on average they spend a lot more time on the ground than turbine powered aircraft.
EricE 5y ago
You can encourage GAO to investigate: https://www.gao.gov/about/what-gao-does/fraud https://www.gao.gov/about/what-gao-does/fraud Remember to keep it polite, brief and to the point. This isn't the time for a three page discourse filled with emoji and slang - keep it professional and to a five sentence paragraph. Ditto for your congress critter. Unlike with GAO, paper letters carry the most weight here, followed by phone calls. Forget email or other electronic forms - the traditional methods will get the most traction! Indeed phone calls seem to carry the most weight - I have gotten follow up every time I have phoned in to bring something up; not so much with other methods.
dpifke 5y ago
Part of the irony here is the FAA enforces strict deadlines upon those it regulates, but seems to ignore deadlines set for itself or by Congress. My medical certificate is due for renewal in August. I have no ability to tell the FAA, "sorry, it's been delayed, I'll have an update for you in a few months." Edit to add: Lest this come off as generic complaining, here's an example of people dying because the FAA failed to do in a timely manner what Congress repeatedly told them to do: Ten years ago, Section 203 of the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 mandated that the FAA create an electronic pilot records database (PRD), which was intended to improve the timeliness and efficiency of the PRIA records retrieval process by providing hiring operators and DAs with direct access to pilots’ FAA, NDR, and former employer records in a single database. By 2016, the FAA had not yet implemented the PRD, and Congress imposed an April 30, 2017, deadline, which the FAA also missed. Although the FAA has begun phasing in the use of the PRD, the PRD is not yet fully functional; it contains only pilots’ FAA records and is available to hiring operators for use on a voluntary basis. On March 30, 2020, the FAA published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that outlined PRD functions. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR2002.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/... [PDF] (page 49)
- mbustamanter 5y ago
  I was an amaetur pilot for some time, enough time to conclude from experience and talking to colleagues in the realm of aviation that regulatory institutions across the world enforce the strict (and reasonably so) rules on pilots and smaller companies, while turning a blind eye to big airlines, manufacturers and succumbing to political incentives.
  - throw1234651234 5y ago
    I would be interested to know why you quit. I took some classes, but never got the license - it seems very high risk to fly once every few months in terms of skill degradation from disuse, and I never got any real excitement out of just going up to fly a rented Cessna when it's $150+ an hour, so I don't see myself just doing for that. Actually "flying cross-country" also seems impractical without skill upkeep. Seems like the stereotype "it's for rich bored people" is mainly true unless it's a primary hobby or people are going for airline pilot in the long run. P.S. Another random thought, but I feel like I would need to just spend 2 days straight landing and taking off to get comfortable with it. Like take-off, get some altitude, transition to slow flight, practice approach pattern, fully land, turn around, take off again. Seems like the classes spend a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really happen that much (stalls), stuff that isn't critical (ideal 180 turns within x time), etc.
FL410 5y ago
This is such a mess, and it highlights how ineffective the FAA has gotten. I don't want to hear them act like this is an "abundance of caution" when this very same organization pushed the 737 MAX right through. Maybe the problem is that George hasn't greased enough palms? Pilots WANT unleaded. It's better for the engines, but more importantly, it nullifies concerns from the general public about lead emissions causing health concerns. Which isn't to say those concerns are even scientifically valid, but given the option most pilots would gladly pay a bit more to be good neighbors. It's just beyond frustrating to watch.
- SomeHacker44 5y ago
  I disagree that unleaded is better for engines. These engines were designed for leaded gas; the lead serves a necessary lubricating function. That doesn't mean there will not be an alternative, or even a possible modification to the engines. What little lead fouling I have seen has been on plugs from running too rich a mix, and that can usually be "burned off" easily, or cleaned manually.
  - buildsjets 5y ago
    Lead used to serve a necessary lubricating function way back in the 1930s-1940s before the invention of Stellite valve seats, and other hardened alloys for valves. Any aircraft engine that has been either built or overhauled in your or my lifespan already has hardened valve seats installed, or it is a fairly minor procedure to replace them as a part of a top-end overhaul, which often does not even require the engine to be removed. A far worse problem than lead fouling, which just electrically shorts a spark plug and results in power loss and annoying vibration, is lead deposit preignition, where hot bits of lead oxide deposits adhered to the piston act as preignition site triggers, resulting in detonation. Despite the violent sounding name, it will typically go unnoticed by the pilot unless they have automated cylinder head temperature monitoring and alerting, which the majority of piston powered aircraft do not have. At cruise power it can destroy an engine within a minute or so. https://resources.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/articles_eaa/EAA_2010-09_destructive-detonation.pdf https://resources.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/artic...
  - 5y ago
chrisbrandow 5y ago
Continuing to emit lead is completely outrageous. I was completely unaware it was happening. I would urge anyone on this thread who is mad and to write a letter to the address at the bottom of the post. It will be a heck of a lot more effective than just commenting here even if it feels like a mere drop in the bucket.
- jacknews 5y ago
  Exactly, I thought lead in fuel was banned a long time ago. This really shouldn't be determined by amateur pilots preference, or even the FAA, it is up to the rest of us who are having lead rained down on us, to demand change.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Every single pilot flying for the airlines who didn't come via the military learned to fly in piston-engined airplanes. (Where would airline pilots get to the 1500 hours required since the Colgan 3407 crash?) Without a workable substitute for 100LL, banning it is not practical.
    - alan-hn 5y ago
      Why is lead a requirement for piston-engine aircraft? Land vehicles seem to be doing just fine without leaded fuel
      - FL410 5y ago
        Because airplanes still use engine designs from 70 years ago. Your next question is: why? Same reason it takes 12 years to get a replacement fuel approved.
      - bombcar 5y ago
        Piston-based aircraft are built to survive numerous failures that wouldn't be a major issue for a land-based vehicle (or a boat) - both of those just kind of sit there when the power generator fails. A plane turns into a glider at that time. Off the top of my head, they mainly use magnetos instead other forms of ignition, have dual mag setups so that one can fail and the engine will still run. And lead-based fuel lubrication is simpler than other forms. Some work is being done on diesel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine#Modern_developments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine#Modern_... - and jets of course run off of kerosene basically. And a brand-new plane is really hard to build out cost-wise, much of the aviation fleet is very, very old.
giantg2 5y ago
The GAO is probably one of the best parts of the government, yet it's effective is limited. I'd like to say this type of stupidity in the government surprises me. But let's face it, even investigations into real scandals (that result in deaths no less) go nowhere (looking at you ATF Fast and Furious). Agencies constantly ignore and misapply laws/regulations as long as it benefits their goals or political agenda.
Symmetry 5y ago
Mancur Olson[1] strikes again. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_sclerosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_sclerosis
Havoc 5y ago
Between this and the Boeing self-certification fiasco it sure seems like the FAA has lost its way rather thoroughly
cmurf 5y ago
The FAA is among many federal agencies that are the result of delegated authority from Congress. They have been (so far) unsuccessfully argued to be unconstitutional, the argument is that the constitution doesn't give Congress the power to delegate their authority. These agencies are quasi-legislative, they make their own regulations both applied internally but on the public; for the FAA these are the Federal Aviation Regulations or FARs. They are quasi-judicial, they have their own enforcement. Pilots, manufacturers, flight schools - anyone and anything regulated by the FAA caught violating FARs are subject to enforcement action by the FAA, they don't go before a judge or a jury. And they are also quasi-executive, because they enforce their own regulations. If you've heard of separation of powers, three branches of government, this regulatory arrangement is the exact opposite. While you get all kinds of specialization within these different departments, they're also sufficiently divorced from accountability that they aren't really accountable, except by budgeting. Congress can and frequently does just decide to defund specific projects within departments. Quite a lot of this bureaucracy is by design though, Congress is highly incentivized to spend more time campaigning/taking legalized bribes, and less time making laws and keeping track of where all the money is spent, and if it's spent effectively and per the law - hence another department that specializes in that so Congress doesn't do it unless there's a TV reason (raise money) to do it. That'd be the GAO. So it all comes back to money and not civic duty. But this kind of government is exactly what we get in a culture that values entertainment over facts, spectator sports over citizenry, the incivility of outrage politics over civility, illiberalism over liberalism. And the impatience of people over due process does incentivize the desire for personalities who can break through the log jam, maybe even violate the law, and force bureaucrats to do their job - autocracy all very appealing to the weak minded, and there's a lot of that. If the society were more on the same page than not, we'd stand a better chance of amending the constitution and get money out of politics. But we're not, so oh well.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Sir this is a Wendy's
stevespang 5y ago
flareback 5y ago
Devils Advocate: They need to evaluate very carefully the switch. If an engine was designed to run on 100LL then there's a switch to G100UL then care must be taken to ensure it won't mess up the engine. We're not talking about a land based engine (like a car) where if the engine stops you just coast over to the side of the road and call a tow truck. You're talking about an emergency landing which means possible damage to people and property other than the pilot and plane. Many of the general aviation planes out there were built in the 60's and 70's so the FAA needs to be sure it won't cause problems.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  You clearly didn't read the article. > To scrub the playhead forward, last summer at Oshkosh, to great fanfare, the STC approving G100UL was announced. It applied to a limited number of engines and GAMI was tasked with additional testing and data work to expand the engine list. This it did. The Wichita Aircraft Certification Office duly sent a letter to FAA HQ reporting that GAMI met all the test requirements—best-run program they had ever seen, or words to that effect—and was entitled to an STC-AML with every single spark ignition engine in the FAA database approved to use G100UL. > The document rests on the desk of the executive director of the Aircraft Certification Service otherwise known as AIR-1. It’s awaiting the signature of AIR-1, who is Earl Lawrence. No date certain has been given, but in yet another last-minute delay, the FAA is now subjecting the STC to a Technical Advisory Board, a bureaucratic fence line that sprang out of the 737 MAX fiasco. The legislation that enabled TABs specifically applies to transport aircraft weighing 150,000 pounds or more, Braly says, and it hasn’t been explained how it can be applied to light aircraft. >At a press conference, Lawrence said he thought PAFI had been “a great success.” I simply cannot agree. I don’t know how anyone in the industry could think this. PAFI was supposed to yield an unleaded drop-in replacement for 100LL. It did not. It was an abject failure and now, even though the FAA has an STC in hand awaiting approval for a fuel that has been proven, ad nauseum, to work in all engines, it wants more money for more testing. While the PAFI program—that was Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative—supposedly produced data, accessing it is all but impossible.
- djrogers 5y ago
  > Devils Advocate: They need to evaluate very carefully the switch So instead of 10 or 20 years of testing and 'carefully evaluating, how many would you think sufficient? Is it 50 years? Or is 100 years about right?
hokumguru 5y ago
Reading this in Paul’s voice makes this all the better. Check out their YouTube channel for more of his wit and sarcasm.
cjrp 5y ago
There's already an STC (Supplemental Type Certificate; permission from the authorities to modify or operate an aeroplane in a way that is different from when it was manufactured) which allows the use of regular gas (literally, from a gas station) in many different planes - https://www.autofuelstc.com/ https://www.autofuelstc.com/.
dark-star 5y ago
I have read the first few paragraphs and I still have no clue what this is about. It is full of buzzwords that I am not sure if they're names of a company, a product or a shortening of two or more regular English words into a new one. What are GAMI, avgas, G100UL, etc? I assume it's all familiar terms for people in the US aviation industry but I would have welcomed a short introductory paragraph or two on what this whole article is actually about
- sokoloff 5y ago
  GAMI = General Aviation Modifications, Inc., a company with experience in developing and selling modifications to general aviation aircraft. (They are best known for custom-tuned fuel injectors, but have several other products and the principals of GAMI also overlap with Tornado Alley Turbos [another modification company].) Avgas - Aviation gasoline - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas G100UL - The unleaded fuel proposed by GAMI as a drop-in replacement for 100LL avgas.
- JaceLightning 5y ago
  Gasoline. Airplanes use avgas. Most of them use 100LL which is the octane rating of 100 (same as cars you see 85, 90, 95, etc. on the pumps) followed by LL which stands for "Low Lead" UL stands for unleaded. Basically the guy invented unleaded gasoline that works with airplane engines and is the same octane rating.
- bluejellybean 5y ago
  GAMI is a firm that develops avgas[0]. Avgas is a shorthand for aviation gas, or fuel. G100UL is an unleaded avgas that acts as drop-in replacement for 100LL(100 Low Lead), used heavily in general aviation, think little Cessna. And yeah, the terms are all pretty standard for anyone who has flown before. Analogous to saying DFS instead of depth first search for anyone in computer science land. Hope it helps! [0]https://gami.com/g100ul/news.php https://gami.com/g100ul/news.php
- deleted 5y ago
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- 5y ago
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
There's nobody holding them accountable for not getting stuff done, so why would they get stuff done? From the perspective of bureaucrats, nobody ever got demoted for following established protocol and when the established protocol is delay any deny... It boggles the mind that people think that the FAA, CDC, EPA, and their other "favorite" agencies are somehow immune from the misaligned incentives, bureaucratic dysfunction and "not technically corruption" that characterize the agencies they don't like.
bell-cot 5y ago
A Modest Proposal (aka nice-sounding fantasy): Congress identifies a country with a competent, responsible aviation regulation agency which has either "gotten the lead out", or is energetically moving down that road. It starts drafting laws to replace the FAA with a new "Contracted Regulatory Services" division of that other country's agency...with an explicit "the FAA will be eliminated" endgame. Whether that threat stimulates timely and competent action at the FAA, or not...
jquery 5y ago
I’m not surprised at the extreme red tape here. I’m more shocked to learn leaded gas is still a thing. And kinda furious about it.
phendrenad2 5y ago
For context, the FAA is the Federal Aviation Administration. Avgas is aviation fuel. Wichita is a town in Kansas. BP is British Petroleum. The rest of this rant/post is a mystery soup of acronyms and references to events we're supposed to have already known about before reading it.
- bell-cot 5y ago
  A site billing itself "World's Premier Independent Aviation News..." might assume that their target audience is more familiar with those things than the average HN reader is?
ekanes 5y ago
Related: Is the FAA able to stop the terrible practice of airlines having to fly EMPTY flights in and out of airports to maintain their berthing rights? So frustrating to emit so much pollution needlessly.
natch 5y ago
I don’t see why they only poll pilots about this. All people are affected by lead.
elromulous 5y ago
Re other comments. I'm just going to put this [1] here for easy access. Write to your congress person! It's by far the most effective way to support these kinds of cases and motivate change. [1] https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...
goodluckchuck 5y ago
There's really no surprise that the FAA hasn't fixed this. You see, as the article explains, the FAA regulates airlines and airlines use leaded gas. Inhalation of lead causes decreased IQ and diminished intellectual capacity. Since FAA regulators have to spend substantial time around airplanes and leaded gas, they have become a bunch of bumbling idiots. It's a Greek tragedy really.
- p_l 5y ago
  Barely any airline uses leaded gas anymore, exception being small and/or specialised outfits like those that fly WW2-vintage DC-3s in Alaska and so on. Airlines have long enough flights and can pack them enough that the overhaul economies of turbine engines work in their favour (they work very not in favour of private aviation). What overhaul differences? Piston engines are overhauled per amount of hours worked, period. Turbine engines have overhaul times specified both in hours worked, and cycles, and you have to overhaul when you reach either of those limits, whichever comes first. A cycle is engine-start to engine-stop. In private aviation you're going to shut down the engine often, so you can quickly rack up cycles that end with you having to send your engine for expensive overhaul.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
The thing that's most remarkable about this is that, to my knowledge, the FAA has approved multiple (at least five!) different jet fuel substitutes over the recent years, including those based on chemical transformation of sugars, other biomass, recycled cooking oil etc.
- p_l 5y ago
  The only reason you can't run a plane jet engine on random crap you pulled from fat trap diluted with some solvent is that a lot of the parts are designed to be lubricated with kerosene, so essentially fuel is also piped for lubrication in many places. The actual burning part tends to work so long as you can 1) push the fuel through the atomizer efficiently enough 2) it will burn "well enough" at the pressure provided (you don't want unburnt fuel fouling up turbine). I believe some turbine engines have been demonstrated to operate with coal dust mixed with ethanol, and similarly with wood dust - engines that normally operate on diesel.
deleted 5y ago
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willmadden 5y ago
Which brings us to the unasked question, "what's in it for them?".

307 points by sklargh 5y ago

The FFA also tells me that because I took an low dose antidepressant in my teens for anxiety, I can't get a private pilot's license without either lying or paying tens of thousands of dollars in fees to prove that I am not suicidal. So not the most up to date organization.

cjrp 5y ago
Now imagine what effect that has on commercial pilots who are already working, and want to seek medical help for mental health issues. Risk losing your medical, and your job, or just carry on as if everything's fine?
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Meanwhile Andreas lubitz was known to have depression and be suicidal but was given the greenlight to continue flying.
sokoloff 5y ago
The special issuance process for medical after the use of anti-depressants is not as bad as described for cases where a medical should reasonably be (specially-)issued. If you're interested in flying, I'd look more closely into the SI process. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/app_process/exam_tech/item47/amd/antidepressants/ https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av...
- fmakunbound 5y ago
  I'm in the same boat as the GP. Talked to a few AMEs about my options back in 2019. SI involves thousands of dollars per year and and only applies to a few relatively old SSRI drugs. Ideally they want you to discontinue your psychiatric drug treatment – great job, FAA. There's also the BasicMed rules. You can fly with BasicMed instead of 3rd class, but you need to have had a 3rd class to get the BasicMed, so I suggested to the AME that I could drop the drugs for 2 months, get the 3rd class, and then immediately apply for the BasicMed and hop back on whatever I was taking in the first place. One guy refused to talk to me after that.
  - p_l 5y ago
    Wait, you can fly with 3rd class? If the classes are the same as in europe... I had to take 2nd class for gliders (1st class is required for ATPL/CPL only, I believe)
    - AYBABTME 5y ago
      3rd class or BadicMed for private pilot, 2nd class for Commercial, 1st for Airline.
  - Blackthorn 5y ago
    > so I suggested to the AME that I could drop the drugs for 2 months, get the 3rd class, and then immediately apply for the BasicMed and hop back on whatever I was taking in the first place. One guy refused to talk to me after that. Unfortunately, despite what their flowcharts say, it actually doesn't work like that if you've been taking the prescription for any length of time. They don't actually follow their little flowchart. You will need the full special issuance. What you described you can get away with ONLY IF you've never applied before and they have no record of you ever being on the medication. That AME likely did you a huge favor by not talking to you after that.
  - zzless 5y ago
    Technically, `hopping back on' you would still be violating the law because the Basic Med allows you to self-certify but the rules are the same. On the other hand you can pay for SI once and then switch to Basic Med (since the rules are that you had a valid 3rd class medical before switching to Basic Med). There are many AMEs around, talk to another one but do not reveal your plans after you get the medical.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      The basic interaction model with government should be “answer their legitimate questions truthfully, but do not volunteer extraneous information.”
- Blackthorn 5y ago
  I'm going through the process right now. It is every bit as bad as described.
edrxty 5y ago
They do this to everyone with ADHD as well. They don't understand the condition and have a lot of weird 1950s assumptions. You can't be medicated and fly and if you're diagnosed but unmedicated you need to go through extremely expensive testing. As a result everyone just hides it.
- prionassembly 5y ago
  Yet the (military) Air Force uses modafinil?
  - xmodem 5y ago
    Presumably to promote wakefulness, not for its benefits for ADHD.
    - edrxty 5y ago
      The point being the medication has no effect on ones ability to safely operate an aircraft. The issue is, yes, there are ADHD cases that are debilitating but they typically don't even make it out of training. If you're managing the condition through therapy and potentially medication there isn't an issue but the FAA fails to recognize that neurodivergence isn't binary. A significant chunk of the pilot population has ADHD, it's common enough to basically be a meme in the community because the career/hobby is especially appealing to those that have it.
  - p_l 5y ago
    When military considered it fine to give amphetamines to pilots, it also considered it fine to run soldiers through still hot ground zero of nuclear explosion (so hot the boots would melt), or purposefully release radionuclides over american cities to research the effects. Military isn't necessarily a good benchmark for sane ideas.
  - _moof 5y ago
    And before they switched to modafinil, they gave pilots (wait for it...) amphetamines. It's total nonsense and the entire aeromedical division should be razed and rebuilt from the ground up.
535188B17C93743 5y ago
I've got my PPL and refuse to go to see a psychiatrist or anyone who might diagnose me simply for the fact that if I'm told I'm "depressed" and might have to medicated for it, I could ironically lose the one hobby in the world that makes me happiest.
- btgeekboy 5y ago
  Same. I'd love a therapist and sleep study. But alas.
bumby 5y ago
I don't think it's a matter of being "up to date" but rather about being risk adverse. There's much more downside for a false negative (approving someone who is suicidal) than false positive (disapproving someone who isn't). So they will err on having more false positives. Bureaucracies tend toward being risk adverse, and it can lead to bad incentives that create inefficiency and lack of innovation. As the saying goes, "nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM."
- protonbob 5y ago
  I would say the risks of having a driver’s license and driving into people is pretty similar to the risk of flying a small plane to the general public but the red tape is not there.
  - bumby 5y ago
    Fair point, but I think the risk of not giving people drivers licenses is quite a bit greater. Not too many people fly their Cessna's to work. But prohibiting people from driving would have a major impact on the economy. There's also a larger political risk since the share of people who would be unhappy with such a policy would be orders of magnitude larger.

sklargh 5y ago

Probably some missing nuance. That said, it seems pretty indefensible that it’s taken the FAA more than a decade to reach a decision on an unleaded avgas alternative.

rbinv 5y ago
Nuance like what? He's spot on imo.
bombcar 5y ago
The nuance is it's lose-lose for the FAA bureaucrats if they approve an unleaded gas and something later happens. There is NO risk to the bureaucrats if they keep stalling on unleaded and let everyone run 100LL for all eternity.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > There is NO risk to the bureaucrats if they keep stalling on unleaded and let everyone run 100LL for all eternity This is oversimplifying. Yes, there is a bureaucratic bias towards inaction. But stonewalling is an action. The GAO audit the author posits could very well endgame key decision makers' careers.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Nobody in government gets fired for inaction...
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Politicians can, but it is VERY rare, and NEVER over something that affects a very small portion of the population.
  - EricE 5y ago
    If you have an example of anyone getting a career ended because of a GAO audit, I'd love to see it!

burlesona 5y ago

This is the kind of crap that makes me think the US is in real trouble. It’s like “quagmire” has replaced “competency” across all our institutions, and there’s no escape.

londons_explore 5y ago
There needs to be some kind of "pay for delay" scheme. If a federal agency takes 2 years to make a decision because they're really worried about getting sued for making the wrong decision, they should have to pay for the fact the decision took so long. That way they can trade off speed of decisions vs quality of decisions.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- shortstuffsushi 5y ago
  The problem with "pay for delay" for government agencies is that it is passed on to the taxpayers. The FAA won't go out of business or face any "bailouts" as such, it will simply result in a higher cost to taxpayers. ETA: Additionally, I don't believe any members of the FAA are elected, although possibly some are appointed by elected officials? Point being - taxpayers pay more, taxpayers get angry, taxpayers can't vote people causing them out of office for their inaction, FAA continues to do nothing
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lmeyerov 5y ago
    These programs are ultimately run by people.. So you can force them out (hard), or second-best, give their fiefdom to others and mar their record to prevent them for future big projects.
    - shortstuffsushi 5y ago

jaywalk 5y ago

I absolutely love Paul Bertorelli's communication style. It comes across perfectly in his writing and in his YouTube videos. Little things like: > To keep you from opening a vein, I have blurred the chronology a little. Might not sit well with some people, but says so much in just a few words.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Might not sit well with some people, but says so much in just a few words It also makes it useless for someone curious about bringing this to a legislator's or senior administration official's attention.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  Eh, I disagree. If someone is going to disregard the issue because of some slightly colorful language in an opinion piece, they never really cared in the first place.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Weird how "tone" never seems to be a concern for the gun lobby or "pro life" crowd (where tone includes arson/bombing/sniper attacks)
kayfox 5y ago
I was mentally imagining him talking with his hands through the entire article.
Stevvo 5y ago
A lot of Paul's work is safety related; in that context I find morbid humor quite appropriate. You're less likely to forget the lesson about flying over water with that hard-hitting gag about unintentionally becoming a U-Boat commander.

teekert 5y ago

So, those chemtrail guys were right when they said: "The government helps spread substances that make us more stupid"?!

Terry_Roll 5y ago
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Kinda; chemtrails are far fetched conspiracy theories, the real ignorance and mind control or whatever is happening right under their noses.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Chemtrails are absolutely a conspiracy theory. However, they are not far-fetched given how many programs the US government has run that affected the health of its own citizens and members of the armed forces.
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    Still dumbfounded Richard Helms died a free man
daniel-cussen 5y ago
Well fluorine for sure.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
The real question is, what happens to the frogs!

Workaccount2 5y ago

What is the biggest drawback of G100UL? Usually when something is this hung up, its because the two sides disagree on the magnitude of a specific or small set of problems. I can't help but feel that this article is leaving out a key detail.

jpgvm 5y ago
Cost, the article says approx 50-85c more per gallon.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Which is peanuts compared to the economic cost of distributing lead into everyone's lungs and waterways... But somehow it's the 85 cents a gallon everyone's worried about, not the tens of billions of dollars...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- stefan_ 5y ago
  As the comments note, however, unleaded gas will not cause lead deposits in the engine and can therefore reduce maintenance required and extend maintenance intervals.
  - robonerd 5y ago
    This is unlikely to be a major factor for aircraft engines, which need to be serviced regularly anyway (long before lead deposits would force it.)
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    In my experience, "lead deposits" are basically an issue caused by running excessively rich mixture, usually on the ground, and show up as spark plug fouling with engine roughness and reduced RPMs. The fix is just to vaporize the deposits by running the engine at leaner and at a high power setting. I understand that you can also end up with exhaust valve deposits, but that's not something I've seen personally. Aviation engines (especially those used for training, which is a large proportion of the piston fleet) have incredibly short inspection intervals in any case.

inglor_cz 5y ago

Bureaucracies have huge incentive to keep any status quo as it is. Any change is potentially risky. This is something we can possibly solve by not punishing state servants as harshly if they make a decision and something goes wrong. "Something went wrong" is a bad metric for firing people. There should be a pattern of bad behavior before something like that is done.

paganel 5y ago
> This is something we can possibly solve by not punishing state servants as harshly if they make a decision and something goes wrong The way things are going over here in the EU the reverse is true, as in state servants are incentivised to not walk even a millimetre outside of the chosen, legal path for fear of prison time. Now, one would think that the "legal path" is a very large and broad one, but the truth is that it is all in the eye of the beholder, that assessment all depends on who holds the reins of power and if that state servant is on the "good" side (with "us") or on the "bad" side (with "them"). At least that's how things happen in the Eastern part of the EU. More exactly, and as a hypothetical example: one cannot just choose the best tool for the job (or the best services for the job) as a result of a public procurement process because it all depends on the offered price. Doesn't matter if the the opportunity cost savings generating by choosing the slightly more expansive tool/service are an order of magnitude larger compared to said price difference (i.e. between the cheaper but worst model, compared to the more expansive but better model) a state servant in my country can get actual prison time for choosing the more expensive (but better) tool/service. So what happens for state servants that do actually want to get something done while avoiding prison time is to precisely "manicure" the technical requirements that are part of the public procurement process so that the better but the more expensive product wins. It's borderline illegal (and some other public public servants are using this same tactic for really nefarious reasons) but that's how things are.
- bombcar 5y ago
  That last part is why you will find products and packages that have weird features that don't really seem to be necessary or in align with the rest of the system. Because you can require that weird feature and then get the "more expensive" product.

fit2rule 5y ago

stackedinserter 5y ago

FAA's job is to freeze progress for as long as possible.

aurizon 5y ago
Are they not also lobbied by various players to badger Space-x?

Enginerrrd 5y ago

So, I get the frustration with bureaucracy. I'm an environmental engineer and I deal with analogies to this a lot. But to be honest, this seems like a non-issue to me either way. Like, sure, lead is bad, but one should take into account mass and concentrations before reaching for the ban hammer. There are so few aircraft running leaded gas I can't imagine that environmental lead concentrations, could ever be at the right order of magnitude to be a problem for anyone(except probably AT airfields near fueling stations and maintenance areas). These aren't typically areas where children get exposed.

Pasorrijer 5y ago
I think you're greatly underestimating the number of GA / Piston aircraft flying. At my school, we have ~10 aircraft flying every day, 8-12 hours a day depending on the weather. Most of these flights happen over prime, in production farmland, or on the edges of the nearby town which has 8 schools at a minimum. Now we're one of probably 5 aviation schools within a 50 mile radius, all of whom are operating at similar or greater profiles. I'm sure the individual impact is small, but for every jumbo jet there's something like 3-5 piston aircraft in operation.
- bombcar 5y ago
  There are 220,000 GA planes in the US. The number of jetliners isn't clear, but it's something like 45k flights in the US a day (some of those are doubled up). https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ But the key number is there 25,506,000 GENERAL AVIATION FLIGHT HOURS PER YEAR, which is almost exactly the amount of 100LL used a year (technically some GA flights are jet).
  - robonerd 5y ago
    These GA statistics seem to include Aerial Work, so it includes a considerable number of turbine powered aircraft (most helicopters for instance.) This Excel(!) document breaks GA hours down between types of aircraft: https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/general_aviation/CY2020/media/2020GASurvey_Chapter_2_Tables_508_Compliant_03DEC2021V1.xlsx https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/g... From that document, here are the estimated total hours flown by type of general aviation aircraft: Fixed wing piston: 12.9 million Fixed wing turbine (turboprop + turbojet): 5.6 million Helicopter (turbine): 1.8 million Helicopter (pison): 0.6 million Aside, if you compare Chart4 and Chart5 in that document, you can see that although piston aircraft are far more numerous, on average they spend a lot more time on the ground than turbine powered aircraft.

EricE 5y ago

You can encourage GAO to investigate: https://www.gao.gov/about/what-gao-does/fraud https://www.gao.gov/about/what-gao-does/fraud Remember to keep it polite, brief and to the point. This isn't the time for a three page discourse filled with emoji and slang - keep it professional and to a five sentence paragraph. Ditto for your congress critter. Unlike with GAO, paper letters carry the most weight here, followed by phone calls. Forget email or other electronic forms - the traditional methods will get the most traction! Indeed phone calls seem to carry the most weight - I have gotten follow up every time I have phoned in to bring something up; not so much with other methods.

dpifke 5y ago

Part of the irony here is the FAA enforces strict deadlines upon those it regulates, but seems to ignore deadlines set for itself or by Congress. My medical certificate is due for renewal in August. I have no ability to tell the FAA, "sorry, it's been delayed, I'll have an update for you in a few months." Edit to add: Lest this come off as generic complaining, here's an example of people dying because the FAA failed to do in a timely manner what Congress repeatedly told them to do: Ten years ago, Section 203 of the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 mandated that the FAA create an electronic pilot records database (PRD), which was intended to improve the timeliness and efficiency of the PRIA records retrieval process by providing hiring operators and DAs with direct access to pilots’ FAA, NDR, and former employer records in a single database. By 2016, the FAA had not yet implemented the PRD, and Congress imposed an April 30, 2017, deadline, which the FAA also missed. Although the FAA has begun phasing in the use of the PRD, the PRD is not yet fully functional; it contains only pilots’ FAA records and is available to hiring operators for use on a voluntary basis. On March 30, 2020, the FAA published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that outlined PRD functions. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR2002.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/... [PDF] (page 49)

mbustamanter 5y ago
I was an amaetur pilot for some time, enough time to conclude from experience and talking to colleagues in the realm of aviation that regulatory institutions across the world enforce the strict (and reasonably so) rules on pilots and smaller companies, while turning a blind eye to big airlines, manufacturers and succumbing to political incentives.
- throw1234651234 5y ago
  I would be interested to know why you quit. I took some classes, but never got the license - it seems very high risk to fly once every few months in terms of skill degradation from disuse, and I never got any real excitement out of just going up to fly a rented Cessna when it's $150+ an hour, so I don't see myself just doing for that. Actually "flying cross-country" also seems impractical without skill upkeep. Seems like the stereotype "it's for rich bored people" is mainly true unless it's a primary hobby or people are going for airline pilot in the long run. P.S. Another random thought, but I feel like I would need to just spend 2 days straight landing and taking off to get comfortable with it. Like take-off, get some altitude, transition to slow flight, practice approach pattern, fully land, turn around, take off again. Seems like the classes spend a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really happen that much (stalls), stuff that isn't critical (ideal 180 turns within x time), etc.

FL410 5y ago

This is such a mess, and it highlights how ineffective the FAA has gotten. I don't want to hear them act like this is an "abundance of caution" when this very same organization pushed the 737 MAX right through. Maybe the problem is that George hasn't greased enough palms? Pilots WANT unleaded. It's better for the engines, but more importantly, it nullifies concerns from the general public about lead emissions causing health concerns. Which isn't to say those concerns are even scientifically valid, but given the option most pilots would gladly pay a bit more to be good neighbors. It's just beyond frustrating to watch.

SomeHacker44 5y ago
I disagree that unleaded is better for engines. These engines were designed for leaded gas; the lead serves a necessary lubricating function. That doesn't mean there will not be an alternative, or even a possible modification to the engines. What little lead fouling I have seen has been on plugs from running too rich a mix, and that can usually be "burned off" easily, or cleaned manually.
- buildsjets 5y ago
  Lead used to serve a necessary lubricating function way back in the 1930s-1940s before the invention of Stellite valve seats, and other hardened alloys for valves. Any aircraft engine that has been either built or overhauled in your or my lifespan already has hardened valve seats installed, or it is a fairly minor procedure to replace them as a part of a top-end overhaul, which often does not even require the engine to be removed. A far worse problem than lead fouling, which just electrically shorts a spark plug and results in power loss and annoying vibration, is lead deposit preignition, where hot bits of lead oxide deposits adhered to the piston act as preignition site triggers, resulting in detonation. Despite the violent sounding name, it will typically go unnoticed by the pilot unless they have automated cylinder head temperature monitoring and alerting, which the majority of piston powered aircraft do not have. At cruise power it can destroy an engine within a minute or so. https://resources.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/articles_eaa/EAA_2010-09_destructive-detonation.pdf https://resources.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/artic...
- 5y ago

chrisbrandow 5y ago

Continuing to emit lead is completely outrageous. I was completely unaware it was happening. I would urge anyone on this thread who is mad and to write a letter to the address at the bottom of the post. It will be a heck of a lot more effective than just commenting here even if it feels like a mere drop in the bucket.

jacknews 5y ago
Exactly, I thought lead in fuel was banned a long time ago. This really shouldn't be determined by amateur pilots preference, or even the FAA, it is up to the rest of us who are having lead rained down on us, to demand change.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Every single pilot flying for the airlines who didn't come via the military learned to fly in piston-engined airplanes. (Where would airline pilots get to the 1500 hours required since the Colgan 3407 crash?) Without a workable substitute for 100LL, banning it is not practical.
  - alan-hn 5y ago
    Why is lead a requirement for piston-engine aircraft? Land vehicles seem to be doing just fine without leaded fuel
    - FL410 5y ago
      Because airplanes still use engine designs from 70 years ago. Your next question is: why? Same reason it takes 12 years to get a replacement fuel approved.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Piston-based aircraft are built to survive numerous failures that wouldn't be a major issue for a land-based vehicle (or a boat) - both of those just kind of sit there when the power generator fails. A plane turns into a glider at that time. Off the top of my head, they mainly use magnetos instead other forms of ignition, have dual mag setups so that one can fail and the engine will still run. And lead-based fuel lubrication is simpler than other forms. Some work is being done on diesel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine#Modern_developments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine#Modern_... - and jets of course run off of kerosene basically. And a brand-new plane is really hard to build out cost-wise, much of the aviation fleet is very, very old.

giantg2 5y ago

The GAO is probably one of the best parts of the government, yet it's effective is limited. I'd like to say this type of stupidity in the government surprises me. But let's face it, even investigations into real scandals (that result in deaths no less) go nowhere (looking at you ATF Fast and Furious). Agencies constantly ignore and misapply laws/regulations as long as it benefits their goals or political agenda.

Symmetry 5y ago

Mancur Olson[1] strikes again. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_sclerosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_sclerosis

Havoc 5y ago

Between this and the Boeing self-certification fiasco it sure seems like the FAA has lost its way rather thoroughly

cmurf 5y ago

The FAA is among many federal agencies that are the result of delegated authority from Congress. They have been (so far) unsuccessfully argued to be unconstitutional, the argument is that the constitution doesn't give Congress the power to delegate their authority. These agencies are quasi-legislative, they make their own regulations both applied internally but on the public; for the FAA these are the Federal Aviation Regulations or FARs. They are quasi-judicial, they have their own enforcement. Pilots, manufacturers, flight schools - anyone and anything regulated by the FAA caught violating FARs are subject to enforcement action by the FAA, they don't go before a judge or a jury. And they are also quasi-executive, because they enforce their own regulations. If you've heard of separation of powers, three branches of government, this regulatory arrangement is the exact opposite. While you get all kinds of specialization within these different departments, they're also sufficiently divorced from accountability that they aren't really accountable, except by budgeting. Congress can and frequently does just decide to defund specific projects within departments. Quite a lot of this bureaucracy is by design though, Congress is highly incentivized to spend more time campaigning/taking legalized bribes, and less time making laws and keeping track of where all the money is spent, and if it's spent effectively and per the law - hence another department that specializes in that so Congress doesn't do it unless there's a TV reason (raise money) to do it. That'd be the GAO. So it all comes back to money and not civic duty. But this kind of government is exactly what we get in a culture that values entertainment over facts, spectator sports over citizenry, the incivility of outrage politics over civility, illiberalism over liberalism. And the impatience of people over due process does incentivize the desire for personalities who can break through the log jam, maybe even violate the law, and force bureaucrats to do their job - autocracy all very appealing to the weak minded, and there's a lot of that. If the society were more on the same page than not, we'd stand a better chance of amending the constitution and get money out of politics. But we're not, so oh well.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
Sir this is a Wendy's

stevespang 5y ago

flareback 5y ago

Devils Advocate: They need to evaluate very carefully the switch. If an engine was designed to run on 100LL then there's a switch to G100UL then care must be taken to ensure it won't mess up the engine. We're not talking about a land based engine (like a car) where if the engine stops you just coast over to the side of the road and call a tow truck. You're talking about an emergency landing which means possible damage to people and property other than the pilot and plane. Many of the general aviation planes out there were built in the 60's and 70's so the FAA needs to be sure it won't cause problems.

KennyBlanken 5y ago
You clearly didn't read the article. > To scrub the playhead forward, last summer at Oshkosh, to great fanfare, the STC approving G100UL was announced. It applied to a limited number of engines and GAMI was tasked with additional testing and data work to expand the engine list. This it did. The Wichita Aircraft Certification Office duly sent a letter to FAA HQ reporting that GAMI met all the test requirements—best-run program they had ever seen, or words to that effect—and was entitled to an STC-AML with every single spark ignition engine in the FAA database approved to use G100UL. > The document rests on the desk of the executive director of the Aircraft Certification Service otherwise known as AIR-1. It’s awaiting the signature of AIR-1, who is Earl Lawrence. No date certain has been given, but in yet another last-minute delay, the FAA is now subjecting the STC to a Technical Advisory Board, a bureaucratic fence line that sprang out of the 737 MAX fiasco. The legislation that enabled TABs specifically applies to transport aircraft weighing 150,000 pounds or more, Braly says, and it hasn’t been explained how it can be applied to light aircraft. >At a press conference, Lawrence said he thought PAFI had been “a great success.” I simply cannot agree. I don’t know how anyone in the industry could think this. PAFI was supposed to yield an unleaded drop-in replacement for 100LL. It did not. It was an abject failure and now, even though the FAA has an STC in hand awaiting approval for a fuel that has been proven, ad nauseum, to work in all engines, it wants more money for more testing. While the PAFI program—that was Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative—supposedly produced data, accessing it is all but impossible.
djrogers 5y ago
> Devils Advocate: They need to evaluate very carefully the switch So instead of 10 or 20 years of testing and 'carefully evaluating, how many would you think sufficient? Is it 50 years? Or is 100 years about right?

hokumguru 5y ago

Reading this in Paul’s voice makes this all the better. Check out their YouTube channel for more of his wit and sarcasm.

cjrp 5y ago

There's already an STC (Supplemental Type Certificate; permission from the authorities to modify or operate an aeroplane in a way that is different from when it was manufactured) which allows the use of regular gas (literally, from a gas station) in many different planes - https://www.autofuelstc.com/ https://www.autofuelstc.com/.

dark-star 5y ago

I have read the first few paragraphs and I still have no clue what this is about. It is full of buzzwords that I am not sure if they're names of a company, a product or a shortening of two or more regular English words into a new one. What are GAMI, avgas, G100UL, etc? I assume it's all familiar terms for people in the US aviation industry but I would have welcomed a short introductory paragraph or two on what this whole article is actually about

sokoloff 5y ago
GAMI = General Aviation Modifications, Inc., a company with experience in developing and selling modifications to general aviation aircraft. (They are best known for custom-tuned fuel injectors, but have several other products and the principals of GAMI also overlap with Tornado Alley Turbos [another modification company].) Avgas - Aviation gasoline - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas G100UL - The unleaded fuel proposed by GAMI as a drop-in replacement for 100LL avgas.
JaceLightning 5y ago
Gasoline. Airplanes use avgas. Most of them use 100LL which is the octane rating of 100 (same as cars you see 85, 90, 95, etc. on the pumps) followed by LL which stands for "Low Lead" UL stands for unleaded. Basically the guy invented unleaded gasoline that works with airplane engines and is the same octane rating.
bluejellybean 5y ago
GAMI is a firm that develops avgas[0]. Avgas is a shorthand for aviation gas, or fuel. G100UL is an unleaded avgas that acts as drop-in replacement for 100LL(100 Low Lead), used heavily in general aviation, think little Cessna. And yeah, the terms are all pretty standard for anyone who has flown before. Analogous to saying DFS instead of depth first search for anyone in computer science land. Hope it helps! [0]https://gami.com/g100ul/news.php https://gami.com/g100ul/news.php
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throwaway0a5e 5y ago

There's nobody holding them accountable for not getting stuff done, so why would they get stuff done? From the perspective of bureaucrats, nobody ever got demoted for following established protocol and when the established protocol is delay any deny... It boggles the mind that people think that the FAA, CDC, EPA, and their other "favorite" agencies are somehow immune from the misaligned incentives, bureaucratic dysfunction and "not technically corruption" that characterize the agencies they don't like.

bell-cot 5y ago

A Modest Proposal (aka nice-sounding fantasy): Congress identifies a country with a competent, responsible aviation regulation agency which has either "gotten the lead out", or is energetically moving down that road. It starts drafting laws to replace the FAA with a new "Contracted Regulatory Services" division of that other country's agency...with an explicit "the FAA will be eliminated" endgame. Whether that threat stimulates timely and competent action at the FAA, or not...

jquery 5y ago

I’m not surprised at the extreme red tape here. I’m more shocked to learn leaded gas is still a thing. And kinda furious about it.

phendrenad2 5y ago

For context, the FAA is the Federal Aviation Administration. Avgas is aviation fuel. Wichita is a town in Kansas. BP is British Petroleum. The rest of this rant/post is a mystery soup of acronyms and references to events we're supposed to have already known about before reading it.

bell-cot 5y ago
A site billing itself "World's Premier Independent Aviation News..." might assume that their target audience is more familiar with those things than the average HN reader is?

ekanes 5y ago

Related: Is the FAA able to stop the terrible practice of airlines having to fly EMPTY flights in and out of airports to maintain their berthing rights? So frustrating to emit so much pollution needlessly.

natch 5y ago

I don’t see why they only poll pilots about this. All people are affected by lead.

elromulous 5y ago

Re other comments. I'm just going to put this [1] here for easy access. Write to your congress person! It's by far the most effective way to support these kinds of cases and motivate change. [1] https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...

goodluckchuck 5y ago

There's really no surprise that the FAA hasn't fixed this. You see, as the article explains, the FAA regulates airlines and airlines use leaded gas. Inhalation of lead causes decreased IQ and diminished intellectual capacity. Since FAA regulators have to spend substantial time around airplanes and leaded gas, they have become a bunch of bumbling idiots. It's a Greek tragedy really.

p_l 5y ago
Barely any airline uses leaded gas anymore, exception being small and/or specialised outfits like those that fly WW2-vintage DC-3s in Alaska and so on. Airlines have long enough flights and can pack them enough that the overhaul economies of turbine engines work in their favour (they work very not in favour of private aviation). What overhaul differences? Piston engines are overhauled per amount of hours worked, period. Turbine engines have overhaul times specified both in hours worked, and cycles, and you have to overhaul when you reach either of those limits, whichever comes first. A cycle is engine-start to engine-stop. In private aviation you're going to shut down the engine often, so you can quickly rack up cycles that end with you having to send your engine for expensive overhaul.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

The thing that's most remarkable about this is that, to my knowledge, the FAA has approved multiple (at least five!) different jet fuel substitutes over the recent years, including those based on chemical transformation of sugars, other biomass, recycled cooking oil etc.

p_l 5y ago
The only reason you can't run a plane jet engine on random crap you pulled from fat trap diluted with some solvent is that a lot of the parts are designed to be lubricated with kerosene, so essentially fuel is also piped for lubrication in many places. The actual burning part tends to work so long as you can 1) push the fuel through the atomizer efficiently enough 2) it will burn "well enough" at the pressure provided (you don't want unburnt fuel fouling up turbine). I believe some turbine engines have been demonstrated to operate with coal dust mixed with ethanol, and similarly with wood dust - engines that normally operate on diesel.

deleted 5y ago

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willmadden 5y ago

Which brings us to the unasked question, "what's in it for them?".