They have a saying in Saudi Arabia: “My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son rides in a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel.” Now I’m not flying a jet at the moment, but I am cruising at 22,000 feet over the snow-dusted mountains of central Idaho flying Cirrus Aircraft’s answer to the terminal prognosis of 100 Low Lead - the brand new, turbocharged Cirrus SR22T.

Though the Saudi saying speaks more to the dwindling world supplies of crude oil and our need to look beyond petroleum-based fuels, there exists a more urgent fuel issue for piston-powered general aviation aircraft - the phasing out of 100 Low Lead. It’s going to happen, and when it does, big-bore, high-compression engines, and the aircraft they power, might be left low and dry unless a viable alternative is found. And while we know these demanding and sometimes temperamental engines will run quite well on ethanol, its adaption as a widespread alternative fuel is less certain, unless you’re in Brazil.

According to Pat Waddick, COO and Executive Vice President of Cirrus Aircraft, the lower-compression (7.5-1 vs. 8.5-1 for the motor in the other Cirrus Turbo), 315 horsepower TSIO-550K engine powering this new turbocharged SR22 is more tolerant of lower octane and will run on a range of fuels, from 100 octane no-lead down to 94UL, the worst-case unleaded alternative now in the pipeline (pun intended). This no-lead, lower-octane tolerance is of utmost importance to the brass at Cirrus, who want to ensure their customers aren’t left with literal hangar queens the day 100 Low Lead is phased out.

Why is lead such a big deal? Because it boosts octane and helps to protect the engine. Fact is, octane isn’t a quantification of the amount of energy in a fuel, it’s a measure of its resistance to detonation. The higher the octane, the more the fuel/air mixture can be compressed without detonation.

According to Chevron’s Aviation Fuels Technical Review, tetraethyl lead (TEL) is an effective antiknock additive because it interrupts the chain reactions that lead to auto-ignition (detonation). Occasional light knocking won’t hurt an engine. Heavy or prolonged knocking can result in loss of power, overheated engine parts, and engine damage, potentially leading to engine failure.

After spending two days with Waddick flying this new SR22T from the Cirrus mother ship in Duluth to Afton, Wyoming and Portland, Oregon, I learned that not only is this engine/ airframe combination designed to be more friendly to the environment, it’s also designed to be more friendly to pilots and passengers. And of Afton, check out page 84 in this issue for a story about our visit to Aviat Aircraft.

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It’s been 15 years since Stu Horn – then a successful real estate developer from New York with no experience in aviation – bought Aviat Aircraft in Afton, Wyoming, manufacturer of the Aviat Husky. That’s long enough for the rugged bush plane to bear Horn’s imprint almost as indelibly as its designer’s, Frank Christensen, who introduced the Husky in 1987 in a quest to create a better Piper Cub. Since acquiring Aviat in 1995 Horn has overseen certification of several model changes representing major airframe and powerplant upgrades and numerous STC’d enhancements. The latest advance, announced this Spring, is a glass panel Husky, outfitted with a Garmin G600 or G500, Garmin GNS 430, and JPI’s EDM-930 digital engine monitor.

And while Horn has been busy making changes to the Husky, there’s been ample time for the wide open spaces of Wyoming to do the same to Horn. So visiting Afton puts one in an ideal position to observe a rare convergence of man, machine, and milieu, and ponder its impact on the world of bush flying. It wasn’t exactly along the way during a recent cross country trip from Duluth to Portland, Oregon, and the time allotted to get across the continent was short, but there was no way we weren’t going to stop at Afton.

he town and its airport (KAFO) sit at an elevation of about 6,200 feet in a long, lush valley, flanked by the Salt River Range rising to 9,000 feet to the east and the 10,000-foot Webster range on the Idaho border to the west. Aviat occupies a compound of small, low buildings reached by a small taxiway off the approach end of runway 34. The buildings were quiet late on a Friday afternoon as Horn conducted an informal tour of the facilities. He said the switch from building houses to building airplanes has agreed with him.

“Having a workforce inside a building that gets proficient at a trade was very gratifying,” Horn said. “In real estate, just as you’re getting into a groove, the project is finished and you’re going into a new physical site, and in some cases dealing with new jurisdictional authorities. Here, you deal with the same FAA offices, the same people.”

Huskys are largely hand-crafted. Parts are fabricated on well-worn equipment, and some machines here doubtless predate Aviat’s arrival. These buildings were originally home to Call Aircraft Co., which introduced the first purpose-built agricultural aircraft, the A-4, in the mid-1950s. In the early 1970s, Pitts Special S1-S aerobatic aircraft were made here under the aegis of Aerotek. Frank Christensen’s company, Christen Industries (manufacturer of the Christen Eagle II kit aerobatic aircraft), acquired the rights to the Pitts Special in the early 1980s and continued building them here before creating the Husky. Today the Pitts and Eagle are part of the Aviat Aircraft family.

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