Ahead of AirVenture Oshkosh 2024, Experimental Aircraft Association CEO Jack Pelton discusses what's on the docket for the world's largest general aviation gathering, touching on show highlights as well as major issues facing pilots and operators.
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Transcript
Molly McMillin:
Hello and welcome to today's BCA podcast. I'm Molly McMillin, managing editor for Business Aviation at Aviation Week. Today I'm delighted to have with us Jack Pelton, CEO and chairman of the Board of the Experimental Aircraft Association. Jack joined EAA after retiring as chairman, president and CEO of Cessna Aircraft, now Textron Aviation, here in Wichita, Kansas. So welcome, Jack.
Jack Pelton:
Thanks, Molly. I always look forward to our air venture discussions. It's a good time to catch up on what's going on all things EAA.
Molly McMillin:
We're very happy to have you. We're just days away before the opening of the largest general aviation event in the world EAA Air Venture 2024. The event runs Monday, July 22nd through Sunday, July 28th in sunny Oshkosh, Wisconsin. At Aviation Week, we'll have a team covering that show.
Tell us a little bit, Jack, about the upcoming show. How many are you expecting this year and what are some of your favorite things that you're looking forward to?
Jack Pelton:
Well, Molly, last year was another record year relative to attendance where we had 670 plus thousand people here. Currently, I mean, as far as presale goes and if the weather continues to maintain its normal, beautiful summer up here, we're anticipating a very similar crowd. We've prepared for that same number and all things are lining up for that. It's going to be another special year because we have the Canadian Snowbird Military Demonstration Team coming this year. It's the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force. So, the Canadians are coming down with some historical airplanes, the Snowbirds, which put on a beautiful, beautiful aerobatic routine in their jets and that always is a big show favorite. So, all things are shaping up very, very well for the week.
Molly McMillin:
Great. I noticed that on Wednesday night, it looks like you're having a special drone show.
Jack Pelton:
Yeah. One of the things, we had demonstrated some drones a couple of years ago and it didn't go very well, and I think the drones at entertainment events now has gotten to be pretty mainstay. If you look at the Super Bowl and some of the other ones that have occurred, we are actually bringing the company that did the Super Bowl to augment and integrate it into our fireworks display on Wednesday night and on Saturday night. Our fireworks display after the night air shows on Wednesday and Saturday are always spectacular and everybody speaks very highly of being some of the greatest ones in the country, and I think adding this dimension of putting drones up there with it will just add some more fun to the evening.
Molly McMillin:
I realize I'm at risk of asking you which one of your children is your favorite, but what do you look forward to the very most at the show or what event is your favorite?
Jack Pelton:
It's so hard to pick a favorite. I'll actually say it's not an actual event, it's the event because for me, having been in this industry my entire life, it's like a family reunion, being able to see everybody coming back with their beautiful airplanes and their participation in the industry for one week to be able to catch up and understand and have some pretty great discussions on what's really going on in the aviation industry, where are things headed, what are the concerns, what are people worried about, what's going positive, what innovation is being launched or incubated. So, all of that is really for me what this whole week is all about. Then you can dissect it into the air show, the speakers, the forums, all the exhibitors, which is a chance to see. Actually, it's usually a chance for me to drain my credit card a little bit on all the new and interesting aviation gizmos and gadgets for pilots and aircraft owners at pretty good discounts too.
So, it's a full busy week and I guess I'm glad you didn't ask me about which kid because not sure which one I would've picked, depends what the week is, but that's really what the week is all about.
Molly McMillin:
EAA is an advocate and you're an advocate for the general aviation industry and the issues that it faces. So, what maybe keeps you up at night or what are the biggest issues that you're tackling today?
Jack Pelton:
Yeah, the advocacy work we do is we're very proud of because we have a long storied history in EAA being a participant or actually driving some of the regulatory changes that have occurred over the years from the light sport aircraft movement to sport pilot to auto fuel back in the day into aviation and then just general home built, the regulatory environment that allows people to construct and build and fly their own airplanes in the system is what EAA is all about.
This is going to be a great year to celebrate two very big wins that have occurred. One of them is, we're calling it LSA 2.0, where they have changed the rules with a new regulatory change that's in the works called MOSAIC, which is modernization of the special airworthiness certificates, which is going to widen the ability for people to participate as light sport pilots using what we just have done some homework on, Molly. It's kind of amazing. It's almost 55% of the certified general aviation airplanes that are out there today will qualify to be operated as light sport aircraft when this regulatory change comes into effect at the beginning of 2025. And that change went from a mandatory weight limit of 12,040 pounds to what the airplane size could be to be able to operate it with a sport pilot certificate to now it's all performance based. So, it can now have a constant speed prop. It can have retractable gear as long as the stall speed is nowhere 54 knots clean. There's no speed restriction.
So, it now allows you to fly a Cessna 172, a Piper or Arrow. It just way open to using the sport pilot privilege, which is a license that you can obtain in far less hours than your private pilot's license. You can do it without having to have a medical, including basic med. It can be license medical. And so this is very exciting and that we're going to hear the FAA administrator talk about where they are in the process of releasing that new reg. And we've worked tirelessly on this for about five years to get it put in place and I think it's going to be a game changer -- a significant game changer.
And concurrent with that, Congress in the FAA reauthorization bill made significant changes to the definition of basic med. So that's another big game changer that is actually in place. And that change took the aircraft up to 12,500 pounds, which is all the way up to many of your light turbines and even the entry level Citation jets or speed restriction 250 knots. You can now carry more passengers. It's just going to get the burdensome of the bureaucratic medical system relieved and creating an avenue where pilots, by getting with their doctors and having open conversations about being fit to fly and taking care of your health issues, are going to allow you to continue to fly, not necessarily much longer, but certainly during your healthy part of your life. You hate to put an actual time limit.
So that, when it got signed into law, had a little ‘nother gotcha in there, which is they have to implement MOSAIC, the regulatory environment I just talked about regarding light support aircraft, within 24 months of the president having signed it, and he signed it back a few months ago. So, it's all coming together very nicely.
So that's the positive that we're going to celebrate like crazy. It's been 20 years of the success of LSA with a safety record that's been fantastic and has proved itself that it works.
And now we've got to turn to what's the one that keeps you awake at night. And that's getting rid of the lead in aviation fuel, and we have until 2030 to make that happen. And it's got people nervous and wanting to being concerned about where that's going and what's going to happen if we aren't successful. We do have three fuels that are various states. The GAMI, out of Ada, Oklahoma, fuel, which has a supplemental type certificate on it that allows it to go in almost every piston engine airplane out there today. Then we have Swift that's manufacturing and testing a similar unleaded fuel or no lead fuel type. And another one that's also in the works by LyondellBasell Fuels, which is in the testing phase.
So, we feel that between the three of them, we're going to have some options and it'll really be up to the oil distributors and manufacturers of fuel as to which ones do they embrace and are willing to actually produce in large quantities to replace the loaded fuel. A lot of churn and angst over it right now – a big one being with GAMI who has this fuel out there and it needs to get distributed so people can get access to it to understand its characteristics, but 2030 will be here before you know it. And so, we are very concerned. And certainly, a lot of the states that are very strict on environmental regulatory rules like California and Colorado are trying to ban leaded fuel as we speak that's going on. And so the need is there now and we've got to get pushing on that.
Molly McMillin:
How long do you think it will take to get those fuels, one or more of those fuels out so it'll be available?
Jack Pelton:
Let me just go through them. If you look at GAMI, it is available, and they've actually produced... I think there's a million gallons that's sitting in Houston today. It's getting somebody to actually distribute it through our existing distribution system and FBOs to embrace it and use it. And most of that has been a concern currently with liability. And they feel that that fuel, while it was certified, while it was an STC by the FAA, which makes it a certified fuel, there's liability concerns because it does not have an industry-wide standard on it. It's a very specific formula that is not open source, if you will. And so we've got to get to where we can get it distributed and get whatever comfort levels the distributors need to cover their liability. So that's there sitting waiting to go. And then the other two are doing their certification through the path that would give it an industry consensus standard, which gets rid of that liability concern. So, it's kind of a horse race with issues associated with both of them. One is timing and the other is getting the liability resolved.
Molly McMillin:
What's the next thing on your plate?
Jack Pelton:
Well, let's see. I think with the MOSAIC, that's certainly the big one, basic med getting taken care of, the fuel issue. And then I think the course, as we move into the integration of UAS, drones, AMA or whatever acronym you want to use relative to the new replacements for helicopters, if you will, and eventually unmanned, getting the regulatory environment figured out so that we can have the right safety net in place and the right requirements, hopefully without burdensome to the existing general aviation fleet. We do not want additional equipage. We think they need to do their fair share as far as equipment. And then just watching as that technology evolves, which by the way, the new MOSAIC rule now opens up those category airplanes to be certified with electric engines, turbine engines. The current ASTM standard for light sport aircraft only allow you to put reciprocal engines that run on avgas. So the technology evolution is going to come, and I think some of that will come out of this UAS category.
A lot of money being spent on development, a lot of promises and things being made for where this is all going to go. I'm kind of in the, let's wait and see.
Molly McMillin:
One thing I was looking at where all the... There are so many educational sessions going on the week of Oshkosh, everything from how to fly like a test pilot to, gosh, Sheet metal 101, Welding 101, wood construction, troubleshooting your Lycoming engine. You could just go all day and accumulate all this knowledge.
Just on a personal note, my sister and I, my father passed away several years ago and we have not tackled his garage yet. And this weekend, this past weekend, we found his EAA membership cards and he was an EAA member for years and it was just a real blast from the past that he had saved magazines. It was so fun going through...
Jack Pelton:
Well, I'm sure he was very proud of the fact you became a pilot. That was, I'm sure, a big milestone for him personally.
The week is all about education. The forms and workshops are important. There's over a thousand of them. Kids 18 and under get in free. So, we really encourage people to come out and explore what their aviation interests may be and hopefully they'll get that spark that will ignite them into a future career.
Molly McMillin:
Well, I also might on an Aviation Week note, note that our colleague, Mike Lavitt, is hosting a session on that Tuesday morning called Shoot to Win, how to Take Award-winning Aviation Photos. Aviation Week puts on a contest once a year of photos in every aspect of aviation. And so, for the last couple of years, he's put on a session. Brett Schauf is going to be our resident expert photographer with Mike. So, for those who want to come out and learn how to take award-winning photos and what it takes to win, that will be a fun event.
Jack Pelton:
And that issue you by you guys is one I look forward to every year. It's phenomenal the pictures that get published.
Molly McMillin:
Great. All right, well, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you all for listening. Thanks, Jack, for joining us today, especially on your busy schedule leading up to the show.
Jack Pelton:
Thank you, Molly. As always, it's a pleasure to talk with you.
Jeremy Kariuki:
Thanks for listening to the BCA podcast by Aviation Week Network. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to like or follow us on your podcast app of choice. If you'd like to support us, please leave a rating wherever you listen. Thanks again and we'll see you next time.
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