USAF Thunderbirds put bio-jet fuel through tough paces
As the US Air Force’s premier flight demonstration team, the Thunderbirds are used to flying on the edge. At the big air show at the Andrews Air Force base in Maryland this past weekend the team took that notion one step further by flying their F-16 jets on alternative jet fuel.
The Thunderbirds used “camelina-based hydrotreated renewable jet fuel” which is derived from camelina, or plant seed oil, beef tallow, or animal fat, and various waste oils and greases, the Air Force stated. The fuel was a blend of 50-50 mix of camelina-based biofuel and regular Jet Propellant 8 fuel.
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The Air Force has been testing a variety of its aircraft on the blend, having so far tested and certified the biofuel in the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the F-15 Eagle, the C-17 Globemaster III and the F-22 Raptor. The Air Force says it expects “fleetwide certification by 2013.”
In the past the Air Force has stated it wants to fuel half its North American fleet with a synthetic-fuel blend by 2016. The Air Force is the single largest user of aviation fuel inside the Federal government, using an estimated 3 billion gallons per year, according to the Air Force. Each time the price of oil goes up $10 per barrel, it costs the Air Force an additional $600 million for fuel.
The economic impact to the Air Force resulting from these types of energy efficiency initiatives could be savings in the “hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis,” said Terry Yonkers, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations in a release.
NASA too has been in the news lately as it is checking out biofuel made from chicken and beef fat.
The chicken fat fuel, known was recently burned in the engine of a DC-8 at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center as part of its Alternative Aviation Fuels Experiment that is looking at developing all manner of biofuel alternatives to traditional JP-8. The DC-8 is used as a test vehicle because its engine operations are well-documented and well-understood, NASA says.
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