A better way would be to switch to mogas and authorize cheap fuel system retrofits and maybe mandate dual FADECs on engines similar to the ADS B requirements. Your modern general aviation pistons can easily handle mogas.

An even better way would been to encourage the migration to turbines and deprecate pistons entirely. Jet A (diesel) for the win.

The new turbotechs regenerative turbines are a lot more reliable (3000 hours TBO).

https://cubcrafters.com/c/2026/07/press-release-cubcrafters-...

Pistons suffer from too many reliability issues (especially if you don't have a MX team on call like a commerical operation).

I am not sure why the aviation industry (and the FAA in particular) is obsessed with keeping around almost-a-century old lawnmower engines (Yes your Cessna Skyhawks, if you trace them back to their predecessor, are from the WWII days). Learning to "lean an engine" never made me a better pilot and there's a reason FADECs are used everywhere else.

It's a very big problem because most of the big general aviation players (Cirrus, Diamond, Continental, a bunch of others) are snapped up by Chinese conglomerates now and they are hardly known for their expertise in piston engines. People buy Chinese EVs, nobody buys Chinese ICE cars. Diamond owners had to ground their planes for over 2 years because Diamond couldn't figure out how to do a Mercedes OEM license-built piston head properly.

Imagine buying a fancy Porsche car and only to be told that you have to keep it in the garage most of the year because the car company got bought out and the new owners don't know how to produce a proper piston. Owners would riot. Sadly general aviation operators are trained to take it up the ass like a good little pilot because the dinosaur FAA (for whom general aviation is their lowest priority, about the same importance as hot air balloons) mandated that the OEM's word is literal law and if it's grounded then too bad.

As I understand it, a big part of the problem is that the general aviation market is too small to justify the expense of getting new designs certified. Also, it seems baked into the regulations that the old design was "good enough", so it still is today, even though technology has moved on.

When people are building experimental class piston airplanes with better features, reliability, and performance than the certified world can muster at half the price, you know something has gone wrong.

I actually hope the turbotech holds up under actual use. I'd love to toss my IO-550Cs for Jet-A.