George Braly, co-founder of General Aviation Modifications Inc. (GAMI) and Chris D’Acosta, the CEO of Swift Fuels, both testified at a July 28 hearing of the members of the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on the environment. The hearing was called to address bipartisan “outrage” over decades of delay in phasing out leaded aviation gasoline, the sole remaining source of lead contamination among operators of internal combustion engines in the transportation sector. GAMI and Swift both have developed candidates for replacing 100 low lead (100LL) fuel with lead-free substitutes, but have faced regulatory headwinds that have stalled approvals.
The people who generate these study summaries never seem to write plainly enough. This one suggests that “mitigations” should be considered, without offering the most obvious mitigation which is “Don’t do it.”
RTCA doesn’t practice plain English. Have you read the full report? I haven’t. But, having worked with RTCA’s protocols I suspect they are all saying, “Don’t do it as presently planned.”
And, keep in mind, the field tests are yet to come before the FCC’s signs off.
The US Defense Department had already spoken up about this bleed through and I believe NOAA/NASA had also expressed strong concerns about the auctioning off these frequencies because they impact satellites from measuring ground temperatures which is important for weather reporting and collecting data for climate change.
So,
Impact to Aviation, Check.
Impact to Military Defense, Check.
Impact to NOAA, GPS, and weather reporting, Check.
They’ll sell it anyway because…Profit!! and wait to clean up the fallout when planes crash and GPS becomes more unreliable.
This is the Lightsquared/Ligado fiasco repeated. What is it about the physics of RF propagation and detection the FCC doesn’t seem to feel is pertinent? With Lightsquared the FCC allowed the purchase of Satband low power orbit to earth comm frequencies in the GPS guardband. Then allowed Lightsquared and Phil Harbin to “supplement” orbital comm signals with “terrestrial towers” to “fill in the gaps” with high powered terrestrial signals which put first order harmonics into the GPS bands. The initial low powered tests disrupted GPS at 10,000 ft for 1500 nm. Finally Lightsquared went bankrupt, now Ligato arising from the ashes is singing the same song: It’ll work this time and here’s the lightsquared data to prove it, so just give it to us.
And the story repeats… with radio altimeters? Glad I have my altimeter correction card glued to my forehead.
This makes a lot less sense to me than the GPS issue. These 4.2G band is 200+MHz away from 5G (which is HUGE), and the new transmitter (5G) can easily be required to have fairly tight filtering, just like it already does in the LTE bands. In addition, radar typically interferes with narrowband signals, not vice-versa.
In the GPS case, the problem is the millions of GPS receivers that were fielded had very little interference rejection filtering, so even a tightly filtered Ligado will still interfere with all the poorly filtering GPS receivers. In other words, the fault is not Ligado’s, but the fact GPS receivers were poorly designed, widely fielded, and there’s no going back now.
If this is a real issue, please enlighten me. Otherwise, this sounds more like an attempt to tie a trivial issue to a critical problem which only waters down the urgency of the critical issue and elevates the significance of the irrelevant one.
I am perplexed as to how this hearing occurred without the FAA or EPA. Isn’t the House in recess now? I know that some members are traveling. Also, is the House oversight committee the right one to be holding hearings on this. Last, is GAMI now lobbying for faster elimination of leaded avgas? 2030 is a tight deadline as it is for many owners.
Spare me your hollow, self-serving outrage, politician, and make the FAA do their jobs instead of being either wholly negligent or intransigent obstructionists as has been the pattern.
GAMI and Swift appear to be testifying that they have an unleaded 100-octane solution, but it is being held up by the FAA. I don’t think they are particularly lobbying for an earlier deadline so much as a chance to bring their products to market.
This sounds like more terrible epidemiological studies then reality. Its like the crap Wakefield put the world through with MMR vaccine and autism or the myths of banning DDT (see Silent Spring and/or Colson).
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, EAA STC’s for using Mogas (80/87 no lead gasoline) in most GA aircraft running 4 & 6 cylinder air cooled engines have existed for thirty years. Every new cylinder out there for the same past thirty years does not need lead for valve seat protection. And no lead, no ethanol, 90+ octane gasolines exist at many rural gas stations - at the pump - all across the country.
What’s the problem?
Grandstanding “outrage”! I’m shocked! FYI, Rashida Tlaib’s district is more than 50 miles from Flint but it does include DTW. As a Michigander, I don’t consider 50 miles to be “not far” from Flint. That said, using the word “Flint” when discussing any type of pollution is a powerful dog-whistle in political circles (especially within Michigan). She just won the primary election against three other candidates and will undoubtedly win in November.
“Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat”
“Cindy Chavez, commissioner of Santa Clara County, California,”
they are very good with tyrannical resolutions…
Yea right, “studies have show” hummmmmmm…
It was done by who, what criteria was used, sample size, etc…
Smells fishy to say the least…
Be careful what you ask for. GAMI and Swift getting congress along with more government committees, agencies, and bureaucracies involved might get something done faster. But might also give us a solution that doesn’t work or costs a fortune to fill your plane.
91 AKI E0 Mogas is available all across the nation. Pure-gas.org currently shows 16,856 sellers of it. We just need airports to add a modest self-service fuel system and find a local fuel supplier to deliver it. U-Fuel makes the best ones. The Mogas does not have to come from an Avgas / Jet-A supplier. Mogas can power 80% of the piston engine fleet with Petersen STCs or all the new engines designed from the start run on it. This is not an either-or option. Keep Avgas too, as is typical at European airports, where pilots have had a Mogas option for many years. This would send a message to those worried about a minuscule amount of lead that we’re really serious. When GAMI, SWIFT or others get their fuel certified, swap the Avgas for it. Every gas station in the country has 3 grades of gasoline, diesel, and often also ethanol-free fuel. Why is this a problem for airports?