Sometimes, for various and indefinite reasons, great talent and accomplishment goes largely unnoticed by those closest to it. Just as Vincent Van Gogh, a revolutionary in the art world, received little notoriety by his contemporaries, few people in Ada are aware of the small group of revolutionaries working right in their own back yards. However, these are revolutionaries of a different kind of art—an art that exchanges paint brushes for drill bits and CNC machines, and trades canvases for fuel injection systems and unleaded fuel compounds. These are the men and women of General Aviation Modifications Incorporated (GAMI) and Tornado Ally Turbo Incorporated (TATI).
GAMI was founded in 1994 by George Braly and Tim Roehl. Prior to the founding of GAMI, Braly, who had a degree in aeronautical engineering, had become friends to Roehl, who had experience in aerospace manufacturing. Braly was an active pilot who practiced law in the area and who also owned a Beechcraft Bonanza airplane. The aircraft contained a new engine monitoring system that, at the time, was a fairly new instrument that allowed the pilot to monitor the exhaust gas temperatures and the cylinder head temperatures of all six cylinders in their airplane’s engine. With this new device, Braly began to notice that the cylinders were operating at different air-fuel ratios. This is significant because when engine cylinders have different mixtures of air and fuel the engine’s performance can suffer greatly, resulting in larger fuel consumption.
Because of this imbalance, Braly and Roehl wanted to see if they could balance the air-fuel ratios inside the engine’s cylinders and in doing so they began to modify the flow of the fuel injectors, thus leading to the invention of what they now call “GAMIjectors®” (GAMI + fuel injectors = GAMIjectors). By balancing the airfuel ratio they found that their engine would operate significantly better at more uniform temperatures and at much lower fuel flows, thus saving gallons upon gallons of fuel.
GAMIjectors® are manufactured in Ada and, as the recipient of Aviation Consumer Magazine’s “Product of the Year” Award, have not only become a worldwide success, but have also changed the way people fly planes. Because of the fact that these fuel injectors allow the engine to run much smoother they discovered that they could operate their engines at what is called “lean of peak EGT” (lean of peak for short). EGT stands for Exhaust Gas Temperature and the term “lean” essentially means to use less fuel, so therefore “lean of peak” basically means to run an engine with less fuel, lowering the exhaust gas temperature. This in turn saves a great amount of fuel, because before this discovery, pilots were told to run their engines “rich of peak” (the opposite of lean of peak) in order to make the engine work less, thus lowering the cylinder head temperatures, which keeps the engine from overheating.
Before GAMIjectors, there was no way to operate an engine lean of peak because the engine would not run smooth enough and the engine temperatures were dramatically different. With the ability to more closely control how much fuel is injected into the cylinders, they were able to operate the engine at lean of peak, and they found that they could indeed run leaner with the same amount of horsepower. Further, another difference was that when doing so, it ran cooler and it consumed significantly less fuel. There are now over 19,000 sets of GAMIjectors flying worldwide, all of which have completely changed conventional ideas within aviation and have also saved the general aviation industry tens of millions of gallons of fuel and this was merely the beginning of accomplishment for Braly and Roehl.
After the success of the GAMIjectors, one invention simply led to the next. The fact that they could now run engines at lower temperatures meant that there was a lot more power that could be utilized which opened the market for turbo-charging systems to become a more popular component in aircrafts. Turbochargers in essence increase the amount of air that is taken into the engine’s cylinders. With the engine running cooler the turbo systems could add more manifold pressure thus creating more horse power. Consequently, in 1998, Braly and Roehl founded TATI (Tornado Alley Turbo Inc.) and gained permission to modify existing turbo systems on many popular aircrafts to efficiently fit with their GAMIjectors.
Along with the modification of existing postmarket turbo systems, about four years ago TATI began manufacturing turbo systems for the most popular high performance single engine aircraft : the Cirrus SR22. For years Cirrus had been trying to incorporate a turbo system into the SR 22 model with little success. The people at TATI therefore decided that it would be wise to build a turbo system for this model in hopes that it would become a popular component for a popular airplane. When Cirrus caught wind of TATI’s manufacturing efforts, they decided that they would test it out for themselves and they liked it so much that they immediately started offering it at their factory. TATI has since manufactured close to 1000 turbo systems for the Cirrus SR 22 which is a venture that has led them straight into their current project: the creation of a highoctane unleaded fuel which can be used in place of the current leaded fuel that is used in many airplanes today.
The fleet of planes that TATI had manufactured the 1000 turbo systems for is now the first certified fleet to attempt to operate on their new unleaded fuel. The reason behind these attempts to create an unleaded fuel is that general aviation aircraft are some of the last remaining vehicles that still use leaded fuel because leaded fuels have high enough octane to satisfy and not damage the engines of aircrafts. But because of the pollutants that are emitted from leaded fuel, certain environmentalist interest groups have petitioned the EPA to crack down on the FAA in an attempt to rid the general aviation industry of leaded fuel. As a result the industry now faces the crisis of developing an unleaded fuel with a high enough octane to not hurt aircraft engines. GAMI has since taken this challenge and formulated an unleaded fuel with a 100 MON (Motor Octane Number) made only out of petroleum based chemicals. The fuel is now awaiting approval from the FAA. Once approved it will be one of the only unleaded fuels available with such a high octane, and for that reason, one of the most efficient. This could essentially solve the fuel crisis and provide the general aviation industry with a truly quality product.
With all of these innovations GAMI and TATI have rearranged and are still rearranging the landscape of the general aviation industry. Revolutionaries in their own right, with a gifted maintenance crew, without whom none of their work would be possible, their talent and accomplishments should not go overlooked. Citizens of Ada should feel proud to be home to such great minds.
By Josh Forrester
