Benefits of the Electroair Electronic Ignition System with James Spearman Aircraft 

Hello Carl. I’ve listened to many of your podcasts and am glad to see you on youtube. I’m a non pilot OTR trucker that aspires to get my certificate one day.

Having installed the Electroair system in my aircraft I would mostly agree with what James Spearman has to say. What is not in dispute is I am saving 1 USG per hour in fuel consumption , the engine runs very smoothly and starts very well. I can’t comment on the issue of lead contamination as we burn 91UL Avgas. As the ignition was installed at the same time as I fitted an overhauled engine I can’t be sure if the extra power that is apparent is due to the new engine or the new ignition system…..or both ! The installation can be an issue and depends on the aircraft, a PA28 or C172 are both types that have room in the engine bay so I would guess at two days Labour for a single system. My aircraft is very restricted on firewall forward space so the install was almost three days work but I am guessing that I could do it in two days the second time around. The big question is will it save me money ? The Answer is yes ! I would guess that the break even will be at 500 hours for my private aircraft ( based on European Avgas prices and Mag overhaul ) but this is with the aircraft being operated by experienced pilots, having rented aircraft to flight schools I had to allow for one battery and starter motor per year because of incompetence of student pilots when starting ( or not starting ) the engine. The electroair ignition will save that problem ( I fitted slickstart’s to all my rental aircraft and got rid of the starting problems but this was before the electroair was on the market ) so I think flight schools would likely see greater cost savings than a private owner.

Mags, I believe, go back to the 30s or 40s. Considering mags have a relatively low voltage output of around 25KV, Can see where the electronic system is much better. Thanks for a wonderful video.