G100UL Update from George Braily from BT

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Timothy
George asked this be posted around
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Update to the Power Point / Seminar on Tuesday at Sun and Fun.

Recall, after a long string of previous broken commitments by FAA Senior Management as to the conclusion of the FAA's "Special Cert Review" (finished successfully on Jan 5th) and three subsequent "reviews" of the "Special Cert Review" (burning up all of January & February) - -

On March 2 & 3rd, the Wichita ACO advised GAMI via two emails that the ICT ACO had completed the entire project. However, "FAA HQ " had prohibited the Wichita ACO from signing and delivering the two fleet wide engine and aircraft AML STCs.

Instead, the FAA decided to create and impose on the G100UL project an entirely new (and never before used for a General Aviation Project in a post compliance finding process or even in a post certification environment without a demonstrated "Continuing Operational Safety" "COS" "issue") "review" to be conducted by a Technical Advisory Board (TAB) pursuant to the newly adopted (Feb 27, 2022) "AIR-700-TAB-W1" "work instruction # 1".

This new "TAB" was started on April 1 and it was mandated to be concluded by May 1st. AIR-ONE (then Earl Lawrence - - he was "removed" shortly afterwards by FAA "leadership") advised George Braly in a phone call around March 27th (with Mel Johnson and Lance Gant on the call - - then AIR-300 and AIR-700, respectively) that the G100UL project would not be further delayed after the May 1st TAB report which was "only" concerned with "POLICY" and not concerned in any way with the validity of the compliance findings previously made the various FAA ACO's that had worked on the project.

Of course, based on the limited information GAMI has received (verbally, only) about the status of the TAB May 6th FINAL report - - the report is, in fact, ALL ABOUT THE COMPLIANCE FINDINGS.

In reflecting on the course of events of the last five months - - I am unable to identify even a single promise or commitment made by the FAA to GAMI that has not be completely broken and disavowed! I cannot identify even a single significant event or time deadline or "process" or "method", "commitment" made by senior FAA management that has not be later rejected, breached or otherwise disavowed. And in no case has there ever been any "explanation" for the broken FAA promises.

This whole episode (post last November, 2021) is now the single most extreme example of a complete "Lack of Accountability" within a Washington Administrative Agency that I can remember in my lifetime. There has literally (since January 5th, and the rather excellent work done for the FAA Special Cert Review finished by the Atlanta Certification Office) been no effort by any person in the FAA to "seek the truth". That is demonstrated by the fact that the "Director" of the TAB admitted in a zoom call on or about May 3rd, that the six TAB members had not had the time to read the certification documents which had been provided to them a month earlier by the Wichita ACO.)

I hope the pilots in California are prepared to mothball their high performance engines for an indefinite period of time.

Regards, George
 
To add fuel to this dumpster fire, a new AIR-1 took over a month or so ago. So the signature he needed, now someone else sits at that desk. What this is at the FAA level is someone not having the stones to put their name behind this

AOPA and EAA shouldn't be getting anyone's money after they supported EAGLE, considering the boondoggle PAFI was. I have no idea why the alphabets haven't gotten behind GAMI.
 
Meh....more deck chairs moving about at the FAA is not going to help this.....o_O
 
AOPA and EAA along with other groups have started another process "Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions (EAGLE)"

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/march/17/coalition-advances-unleaded-fuel-future

The skeptic in me says this is just more job security, meetings, meetings, meetings. At this point I'm thoroughly confused. It seems like they are reinventing the wheel so to speak.

Actually not correct. The PAFI team started EAGLE. No public reason stated, but when you look at the tea leaves, the FAA obviously came to the conclusion that the requirements were bad; and effectively needed to reboot it.

From an interview with the president of AOPA, he is on the phone daily to the FAA about the GAMI, SWIFT solutions using the STC route and also the EAGLE program. From a funding perspective, the three do NOT touch the same funding sources at the FAA, so there is little to no perceived friction. This is the largest issue facing AOPA and associated groups, and consumes the majority of the executive time.

Never forget, AOPA, EAA whatever can only call, cajole and plead. They have zero authority....

Tim
 
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