As the month of June was winding down, Cirrus Aircraft became the most recent party to snub GAMI’s FAA-approved 100LL high-octane unleaded fuel replacement, G100UL. On the 18th of the month, it issued its Service Advisory SA24-14, which said that Cirrus did not approve the use of G100UL in its aircraft, that its material compatibility testing was inconclusive and that it did not “warrant or represent in any way an operator’s use of GAMI G100UL fuel in SR Series airplanes.”
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t mentioned that GAMI had been running G100UL in the right fuel tank of an SR22 continuously for 14 years without any problem—which is longer than any aircraft product test program we’ve ever experienced. It also didn’t mention that its personnel had followed the results of the testing closely.
Not surprisingly, when our sister publication AVweb (www.avweb.com) reported on the Service Advisory, it set off a firestorm in the aviation community. AVweb then published the thoughts of a retired, large law firm lawyer and experienced pilot who said that Cirrus, Lycoming and Continental don’t define “approved fuels” in their warranties and that the FAA had approved G100UL back in 2022 for use in every spark ignition piston engine and every airplane using a spark ignition piston engine in the FAA’s Type Certificate database.
That triggered a response by Lycoming that AVweb published on June 26. Lycoming stated that it publishes a list of approved fuels and specifications for them in its Service Instruction 1070. Its statement closed by saying “… customers should be aware that use of fuels not approved in Service Instruction 1070 would constitute operation outside of Lycoming’s published specifications.”
AVweb reached out to the FAA on the subject and received a reply stating that as far as the FAA was concerned, warranties were an issue for manufacturers, not the FAA.
Now where are we?
Let’s review the bidding: One aircraft and one engine manufacturer say that they have not approved G100UL for use in their products and that—for the engine—if a failure arising from the use of G100UL happens, the engine manufacturer will not pay for repairs under the warranty. From what we understand there are 2000-plus Cirrus SR series airplanes currently under warranty. So, is the sky going to fall if owners of aircraft still under an engine warranty use G100UL? Will it void the warranty?
The answers are no and no. It’s simply not a big deal when it comes to warranty coverage, although we think it is a big deal overall because, in our opinion, it looks like concerted action by manufacturers to try and keep G100UL off the market through lies of omission.
Here’s why. First, warranty law 101—a warranty is a contract between the manufacturer and the aircraft owner. Cutting to the essentials, the warranty obligates the manufacturer to pay to fix a defect in the product due to manufacturing during the warranty period. If a cylinder cracks during the warranty period because the manufacturer did something wrong while making it, the manufacturer pays for the repairs. If a cylinder cracks because a pilot ran it over redline CHT and it started to melt, the manufacturer doesn’t pay. Yes, a cylinder that has been repeatedly over-temped shows evidence of that condition.
About 20 years ago one of the avgas makers delivered a large load of defective 100LL that ruined a boatload of aircraft engines. When the very large dust cloud cleared, the company that made the fuel shelled out cubic money to pay for the engines and other damages. The engine manufacturers didn’t pay under their warranties because they hadn’t done anything wrong in the manufacturing process.
Warranty law varies on a state-by-state basis and is affected by the federal Magnuson Moss Warranty Act. Simplified, a manufacturer cannot unreasonably deny a warranty claim, or it can face ugly penalties.
That’s nothing new. Aircraft and engine manufacturers have been administrating warranties for years, sometimes well, sometimes not. What is new that Cirrus and Lycoming sent out material that, in our opinion, was a lie by omission designed to scare owners and prevent them from using G100UL because it wasn’t approved by Cirrus or Lycoming.
Who has the power?
What they didn’t say is important—neither one of them has the power to approve an aircraft fuel. That is solely and purely a function of the FAA, not manufacturers. When the FAA approves something under the Supplemental Type Certification (STC) process, it’s approved, no matter whether the manufacturer likes it or not.
When VGs were being approved under STC, we were subjected to harangues by one of the airframe manufacturers about how awful they were and that they made the airplane unsafe if it stalled. What we soon learned was that the company was upset that it hadn’t thought of it first and the “not invented here” syndrome was in full cry. Add-on VGs aren’t “approved” in any airframe manufacturer’s publications that we know of, yet they are FAA-approved and legally installed on thousands of airplanes and, in our opinion, are increasing the level of safety of those airplanes by reducing stall and Vmc speeds.
Let’s go further into the subject of approval. The FAA’s Office of the Chief Counsel issues official interpretations of FARs. The FAA has ruled more than once on the question as to whether a manufacturer can require owners, operators or mechanics to comply with the manufacturer’s instructions or approvals. One of the most succinct by the Chief Counsel was in its “Busch 2006 Legal Interpretation” letter. Bottom line is no, the manufacturer cannot compel the public (aircraft owners and pilots) to do anything—if the manufacturer wants to, it has to get FAA approval.
On page 2 of the letter, the FAA Chief Counsel said that a manufacturer compelling action by the public would be issuing “substantive rules as that term is used in the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). It would allow them to impose legal requirements on the public.” That is in violation of the law on two grounds. First, only the FAA can issue substantive rules, and then only after following an involved procedure set out in the APA. Second, the FAA cannot delegate the authority to issue substantive rules to manufacturers.
Only the FAA
There you have it. Manufacturers absolutely cannot approve aircraft fuels no matter how much they pontificate. The FAA is the sole authority to do so. That trumps anything the manufacturers say.
If a manufacturer denies a warranty claim solely because the engine was operated on G100UL, the legal sparks are going to fly and, in our opinion, the manufacturer is going to take it on the chin.
What most concerns us is that this most recent tempest appears to us to be further evidence of concerted action against GAMI and G100UL that we’ve been covering for the past year and change. We think there is going to be litigation over unleaded fuel in California as EAGLE and manufacturer groups try to stop its distribution. We’re going to be very interested to see what is uncovered in the discovery process in communications between manufacturers and EAGLE members. Stay tuned.
