What Will Fuel Our Flight Training Fleets?

At Redbird Migration, industry experts address the question and offer limited solutions for now.

Friday, February 11, 2022 at 03:39 PM ET

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GAMA’s Walter Desrosier put it bluntly: the continuity of the avgas supply is key to the stability of the GA industry. [File Photo: Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

The general aviation industry is at a critical juncture, needing to urgently transition to sustainable and unleaded aviation fuels due to environmental concerns and the precarious supply of leaded avgas.
While electric and hydrogen aircraft represent the future, their current utility and infrastructure are limited, making Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) crucial for existing jet aircraft to reach zero emissions goals despite current blending and supply challenges.
A significant immediate challenge is the reliance on 100LL avgas containing lead, supplied by a single global source, which is difficult to phase out due to the large fleet of high-performance piston aircraft requiring it.
Much of the training fleet and other piston aircraft can already use readily available unleaded fuels (UL91, UL94), and flight schools are strongly encouraged to proactively adopt these alternatives before regulatory changes mandate them.

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Redbird Flight Simulations has contributed significantly to innovation in the flight training industry since it entered the market in 2007. So it makes sense that during the company’s annual user conference, Redbird Migration, the compelling need to evolve beyond current powerplant technology—primarily to enable sustainable fuel to drive those engines—would form a good part of the agenda.

Migration 2022 was held Tuesday and Wednesday this week at the Aerospace Center for Excellence’s Ramos Skylab at the Lakeland Linder International Airport (KLAL) in Florida.