Aviation Week Network editors provide the latest news and insight from the Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida.

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Rush transcript

Molly McMillin:

Hello and welcome to the BCA Podcast. I'm Molly McMillin, managing editor for business aviation at Aviation Week, and I'm here with my colleague, Mike Lavitt, director of editorial production with Aviation Week. We are both in Lakeland, Florida, at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport for the 2023 SUN 'n FUN Aerospace Expo. And we'll share with you some of what's happening at SUN 'n FUN. Before we get started, a reminder that you can subscribe to the BCA Podcast on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. So thank you for joining us, and thank you, Mike, for being here.

Mike Lavitt:

Thanks, Molly. It's good to be back in Lakeland.

Molly McMillin:

One thing that's very evident at SUN 'n FUN this week is the robust training market with the shortage of pilots. The flight schools are busy, and that has led to an announcement of orders for training aircraft. For one, Piper Aircraft kicked off the show with an announcement of a large order for up to 115 trainers from Blue Line Aviation, which is a North Carolina-based flight school. The order is for 55 Piper Archer TX Aircraft and 5 Seminoles that are twin engine and an option for 60 more. And at the same time, Blue Line announced that it's opening up a second location of a flight school in Winter Haven, Florida. Blue Line Aviation is known for its six-month career training program, which takes someone from zero time to CFI or certified flight instructor in as little as six months. So big order for them.

At the same time, Textron Aviation announced an order from Epic Flight Academy for 15 Cessna 172 Skyhawks. The school has ordered 43 172s since 2016. So both Piper and Textron and others note the robust demand and full order books. Textron Aviation, for example, said this week that their 172 is sold out until 2026. We also spoke of a shortage of pilots and mechanics. And Mike, you saw firsthand what one nonprofit is doing to encourage young people to pursue careers in aviation, taking a unique tack on that.

Mike Lavitt:

Yeah. I did come out of a session yesterday and Kevin Lacey, who's an aviation celebrity, he was one of the people featured on a series on Discovery Channel called Airplane Repo. He does a lot of other things actually, but in the show, what he did was repossess airplanes just like they repossess cars. So he had written a book and was signing copies and getting pictures with people, and we were talking to him. And he started an organization called the Tango Thirty One Aero Club in McKinney, Texas. It's a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It's a youth flying club. He really modeled it after the Lakeland Aero Club here. And Lakeland is actually hosting them at their hangar here.

And I met a couple of his charter members yesterday and spoke with them about what they do. And this is really, I think, Kevin's major interest right now. And he still got his business interests, but he's really fired up and enthusiastic about what they're doing. They buy old airplanes, strip them down. They build them back up from the ground up. They strip the pin off and everything, strip them down to the frame, totally revamp the cockpit, and then build it back up to an airworthy airplane. And in exchange for this sweat equity, the students who are active in the Aero Club get to fly with an instructor and the only expense they have is paying for fuel. So that's really an outstanding way of getting your pilot's license and also getting your airframe and power plant license.

Molly McMillin:

That's amazing.

Mike Lavitt:

Yeah. No, I spoke with two of the charter members, as I said, Alex "Blue" Coats and Kevin "Hammer" Butler. Working for Kevin [Lacey], they're all going to have call signs. Kevin [Coats] is 25 and he is in A&P and IA, inspection authorization. So he can sign off on major repairs and annuals and he works for Bombardier in Dallas. And then Alex Coates, who's 23, is a senior technician for Cirrus now and he's got his airframe and power plant mechanic license. So it's pretty amazing. He takes these students who have an interest in flying but no experience and gets them to the point where they have a marketable skill and a pilot's license and they can go out and get a job. They have two Cessna 152s that they flew here, and I imagine they flew two in each aircraft. One of the pilots only had his license about six months.

Molly McMillin:

That's great. You also gave a seminar on called Shoot to Win, which was how to win our Aviation Week contest, but also how to take better aviation photos. And I thought it was fascinating. There were three photographers, one with an expertise in each area. So Mike, can you talk about that just a little bit?

Mike Lavitt:

Sure, yeah. Glad to. Jim Koepnick was the chief photographer for EAA for years and he now freelances. He lives in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which is a great place for an aviation photographer to live. And Jim's specialty is really air-to-air. He gets incredible air-to-air shots. He has had the best of the best photo in the Aviation Week photo contest twice, and he wins in some category virtually every year. So he talked about shooting air-to-air and how to get great shots, how to do it safely, and it was really good presentation.

And then Erik Kuna likes to keep his feet on the ground while he is taking pictures of things in the air, and he does a lot of air show work and he's also getting more and more into space photography. Erik helped to dispel the myth that in order to get good space photos, you need access to the launch sites. You really don't. And we showed photos that showed most of those photos didn't require any special access. He could be on a beach a few miles away. In one case, Erik chartered a boat and went out on the water. Cost a couple of hundred dollars for the boat, but he got a lot more than that for the sale of his photos. And he also teaches photography with KelbyOne. So Erik is again making his living as a photographer.

And then finally John Slemp, who's a well-known and very talented aviation and automotive photographer. There's a lot of automotive work too. And John was really the one who inspired us to add a new category this year called photo illustration. And it's the innovation we've made in the photo contest since we stopped making people send in slides. We're a journalistic organization and our photo contest has always been journalistically-focused where we didn't allow extensively retouching and editing of photos. A little color correction and manipulation was okay. Whatever you could do in a standard back in the darkroom days was fine, but we didn't want people combining images and things like that. And John really made a convincing argument that we should allow this. And I talked it over with the judges, and we decided to create a new category for this.

So our normal categories are, according to type of subject, so commercial aviation, business and general aviation, space, and defense. This new category, anything goes, any subject matter, and you can manipulate the photos. And John gave some good examples of what he's done. We'll be opening the entry period for the photo contest in early August and it runs into October.

Molly McMillin:

Great. Thanks, Mike. The manufacturers I spoke with this week, I was curious about how demand is going, especially given the banking situation and the economy right now. And they all said that demand is still strong across the board, although the fast order pace during COVID and pre-COVID seems to be going back to a strong but more normal level of interest. And as we record this, the first quarter of 2023 is just ending, which is typically a slower quarter in the year. But they all say that demand is still there and still strong, but more normal. And that the largest challenge that they see is still the constraints in the supply chain, that all of them are facing similar challenges, and they are all working with their suppliers, and in some cases the suppliers of the suppliers, which has limited their production schedules a little bit. But it also may help mitigate if there is a downturn, because they haven't ramped up as much as they could have otherwise, if the supply chain didn't have these restraints. That  might mitigate what happens if there is a slowdown or an economic recession.

Several of them also announced some new or upgraded products or services. Daher announced that they have the Hartzell propeller's five-blade propeller is now an option for its Kodiak 100 turboprop. And one of the main benefits is noise reduction, which has become a huge issue not only in Europe but in the US as well. It's quieter and has some other features. Daher has also designated Simcom as its new factory-approved training organization for the Kodiak 100 and the 900. It also announced that it plans to open another assembly line at its facility in Florida or its first assembly line really in the U.S., in Florida.

Cirrus Aircraft introduced a configurator, which is on display at its exhibit where you can go online and pick the airplane that you are interested in, whether it's the Vision Jet or the SR20 or SR22, and you can configure it as you’d. You can add paint colors that you think might be interesting and change them and look at the features you might want. So it's a cool way to explore the airplanes and figure out if you're interested in buying one how you wanted to look at the end.

Mike, you had a good conversation about unleaded air fuel.

Mike Lavitt:

Yes.

Molly McMillin:

I wondered if you could talk about that a little bit.

Mike Lavitt:

The EPA issued a finding last fall saying that the lead in avgas, in 100 low lead aviation gasoline, poses an environmental threat and health threat. Aviation fuel is the last fuel that uses lead. We haven't had leaded gas in cars since the '70s or the '80s, but just in powering, airplanes still use it. So basically, the industry knows that by 2030, based on this FAA finding, there will be regulations that require that only unleaded fuels be used and that the lead be taken out of the av gasoline. There are several companies that are developing substitutes. There's already a substitute out there for aircraft that burn 84 octane gas, but there has not been a substitute for the higher octane, 100 octane gas that a lot of aircraft use.

George Braly, who is the founder of a company called GAMI, General Aviation Manufacturers Inc., in Oklahoma has developed and gotten FAA approval for something called GAMI 100UL. And it's an unleaded 100 octane aviation fuel. It's a drop end substitute so you don't need to make any modifications to either the aircraft or the fueling system at the FBO in order to accommodate it. It is not being made in any significant volume yet, but he has a refiner in the Houston area who he declines to name at this time who is ready to produce it. And he also says that there are a number of FBOs in California where some municipalities or counties have already banned 100 low lead sales. Basically once they sign on and say they want the fuel, George says that he can get the refiner in Texas to start making the fuel and they can load it up on rail cars and ship it to California.

There's also, and this was first reported in the aviation consumer, there was a suit many years ago in California about stopping sales of 100 low lead. And the fuel sellers in California signed a consent decree that allowed them to continue selling 100 low lead. But one of the things in the consent decree was that they agreed that once there was an acceptable alternative, they would start selling it. So George feels that he's at a point now where he's got the FAA supplementary type certificate that allows him to sell the fuel or make the fuel, and it allows it to be used in every piston aircraft and every piston engine out there. So I did an interview with him and we'll have a Fast Five BCA and maybe something in the Weekly Business Aviation rather as well, so you can learn more there.

Molly McMillin:

Right. He was fascinating interview. What is his biggest challenge right now? Is it consumer acceptance or the fuel providers?

Mike Lavitt:

It's just bringing it to market. And he feels that he feels the people involved in the Eagle program, which is an industry-government partnership about for fuel, for getting lead out fuel, are slow walking the whole thing. And he's got the alternative. It matches the performance of leaded gasoline almost perfectly. It's actually, it generates about 4% more power. The fuel has about 4% more energy in it than 100 low lead. So he's ready to go and the others are still trying to come up with solutions.

Molly McMillin:

Okay. Well, I look forward to reading what you're writing there with that interview.

I think that's about all the time we have for today. Thank you for listening and joining us. And thank you, Mike, for your insights, too.

Don't miss the next episode by subscribing to us in your podcast app of choice. And one last request. If you're listening to the BCA Podcast in Apple Podcast and want to support this podcast, please leave us a star rating or write a review. Thank you very much and bye for now.