You know, with all the scandal surrounding the Air Force recently, it’s refreshing to see that the service is breaking ground in areas that might be a little below the radar now, but will pay big dividends in the future for both the service itself and the general public.
F-15 Hits Mach 2 on Synthetic Fuel
History was made at Robins Air Force Base this week as an F-15 Eagle flew at more than twice the speed of sound using a blend of synthetic fuel.
The Aug. 19 flight was the world’s first test of a high performance fighter aircraft powered by a 50–50 mix of traditional JP-8 jet fuel and a synthetic using natural gas as a source.
The Air Force already had tested the new blend on a C-17 cargo aircraft and B-52 and B-1 bombers. But Jeff Braun, director of the Air Force’s Alternative Fuels Certification Office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, conceded that fighter aircraft offered a much different challenge.
“They are much higher performance and a much more demanding environment,” he said during a late afternoon interview.
Braun said the daylong process included a 50-minute ground test Tuesday morning that pushed the aircraft’s engines from military power to full afterburner.
“That was just another risk reduction step to prove the aircraft was not leaking fuel and the engines were behaving nominally,” he said.
The actual test flight came in the afternoon. “It was a full functional check flight of about 55 minutes,” the engineer said, “reaching speeds of Mach 2.2.” Mach 2.2 is approximately 1,450 mph.
Immediate feedback came from the pilots.
“We asked them point-blank if they noticed any difference in performance and they said it was a ‘non-event,’ ” Braun reported. “In other words, they couldn’t tell the difference. The aircraft behaved the same.“
For a service that’s so fossil fuel intensive, it’s amazing to see that something as high performance as USAF fighter jets can be powered by blended fuels seamlessly.
Wonder if the airlines will be reluctant to adopt the program since they seem to like nickel and diming the public with extra charges to cover their (waaa waaa) higher fuel costs…?
– Christian
What’s that old saying about “too good to be true?“
I’ve been curious how the U.S. and the services in particular plan to handle the inevitable dry-up of oil. If you think it is bio-fuels you get slammed by the price-increase on food. If you speculate it will be coal-to-fuel as I surmise this test was derived from, the democratic environmentalists hammer you.
This particular article sheds light on a recent resignation of an Air Force official who was apparently pro-synthetic fuel:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/13/113725/293
And don’t think John McCain will bail us out if elected because he and Sen Lieberman co-sponsored legislation that further restricts CO2 emissions which hammers coal-to-fuel chances, if you click on the link in the opening sentence of the article above.
Just believe that less available/exponentially more expensive future fuel forecasts the need for smaller-in-number, but more capable-per-plane USAF and Naval air services making greater use of simulation in training. Aircraft like Reaper also expend far less fuel, and use of the correct KC-X aircraft for pallet loads will save fuel vs. guzzling-but-wartime-essential C-17s/C-5s.
Just a geeky observation.
This isn’t a hybrid its a flex-fuel. A hybrid F-15 would have an electric engine that it can switch two when doing low speed maneuvers or whatever… I’m not sure how that would work in the air.
Another observation:
With the upcoming retirement of the BUFF, do you think that there should be funding in a non-stealthy near mock 1 cruise fuel efficient B-5x.
Let me know what you all think.
Im very interested in hearing that the US Air Force is in fact researching and testing newer fuel sources. This is especially true for one of the highest consuming organizations of fossil fuels on the planet; the US DoD. I do agree with another comment, on why spend the time and energy, as well as valuable research time to integrate a new technology to an already proved (and aging) bomber fleet and fighter force? Especially when we’ve already spent the billions of dollars developing the F/A-22 and the F/A-35 JSF (which will be used in the USAF, USN, and USMC).
With all due respect, being the dependent of an active duty service member, I understand that it is the DoD’s responsibility to ensure that the US stays in a constant state of readiness, and in order to do that on an easier level is to guarantee that our fighting men and women have the best, most advanced technology on Earth. And with the state of the country’s debt, I think that the research is in fact valuable in some aspects (such as possibly incorporating it into the newer generation of fighting aircraft, or better yet, the Army’s consumption of fuel with their numerous ground vehicles and helicopters). The point I’m trying to make is fairly simple; dont completely single out one service branch for making headway in the battle for lessening our dependence on oil, when there are two other major branches which use just as much oil on a daily basis. The USN with all their aircraft aboard their 8–12 carrier groups (and each carrier can accomodate up to 90 aircraft), and the US Army’s extensive ground campain in the Middle East, as well as training here in the States. At least one branch has put a tested product on the table that will attempt to reduce their fuel consumptions, in order to utilize ALL of OUR tax dollars more effectively and efficiently.
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During the latter part of WWII Nazi Germany was using synthetic fuel for trucks, tanks and aircraft. It is a shame that we have lagged behind in its development over the years. I do not see us dropping oil as a source, but can see it being used with other fuels. After all gasoline is a by product of the cracking process.
With all of the hype about ethanol, we should remember that ethanol has been proven to be 30% less effeceient than gasoline. That is something people haven’t been made aware of. So why have a fuel source that gets less miles per gallon? Ethanol is 3 molecules off from gasoline and still is a “Carbon based” fuel, which give off it’s own pollutants.
Now the garbage about reductions in CO2, well people I would strongly suggest a certain political party shutting the hell up! Carbon Dioxide is the by product of breathing. Trees and plants use it to create Oxygen. Or have they forgotten that fact from elementary school science classes?
Something the left is failing to mention is some of the capped wells have some how started to replentish them selves with new oil. So if they are hiding that from every one, then are we really running out of oil?
Peak oil is a hoax. It is just a scam to put someone in control of your life who has no business being there. consider this: If we are running out oil then who will tell what we can use for fuel next? Al Gore? O’Bambi? The peak oil cam is just like the CO2 warming scam. You can’t drive THAT car, it’s too inefficient. You can’t own that HOUSE, it’s too big. You can’t have that job, you make TOO much money. If others can earn big, drive fancy cars and live in big houses, then I want that too.
Last time I checked Oil is a function of decaying dinosaurs — and I haven’t seen one walking in my town for a while. It is a finite resource just like land to build on. As to the who is in control of your life question — right now it is the Oil producing countries.
Retired Air Force guy –
(written by Navybrat111)
“Peak oil is a hoax. It is just a scam to put someone in control of your life who has no business being there.”
Back in the 60’s we were racing sports cars and discovered a synthetic lubricant that worked much better than regular oil. We bought it from Union Carbide who said the could not sell it as regular lubricant for cars etc as the oil companies said “they would not buy their chemicals”, so they would only be able to sell it as a stationary lubricant. This lubricant would get thicker as it got hotter, it would cause rod bearings to polish instead of gaulding.
It’s well known the Germans during WWII nearly completely relied on synthetic fuels to move thier armies. The newsworthy aspect of this subject is the question: why the US took so long to adopt this old technology and what if any are parallels (social and economic) that should be looked at?
Forgot who mentioned synthetic oil…heh, I use Mobil 1 in all the family cars, but that’s not the point. Neither should we believe that the oil companies are conspiring to keep it off the market. Just suspect there are many challenges exemplified by this interesting link:
http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/080609b/
If the USAF uses 1/10th of U.S. jet fuel and coal-to-liquid production results in twice the CO2 emissions, somebody is going to be unhappy…particularly if the airlines end up using the same fuel. If they capture and ship the CO2 (produced in production) by pipeline, they still need to store it somewhere, making the nuclear waste storage problem look miniscule by comparison.
I’m guessing if they currently need to clean out tankers when they transition from carrying Navy JP5 to back to JP8, that there will be similar problems with a 50/50 blend of synthetic/JP8. As Todd points out, we won’t know the long term effects of synthetic fuel on engine parts for a while.
Guess that Natural gas and “Biomass” can also be converted to synthetic fuel. Thought I read something about a California firm investigating conversion of dead bugs into fuel? But given how much coal we have in the U.S., it sure would be nice if we could convert it in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner.
There may be little choice but to go to synthetics, but at $2–3 billion to produce the plants, it will be an expensive proposition. And the environmentalists will be screaming bloody murder all the way, while Al Gore will probably get another Nobel prize decrying its use.
Don’t see how making fuel from natural gas helps much. Domestic natural gas supplies are already tight and transporting natural gas overseas is expensive. Probably easier to convert to JP8 then transport, but that’d mean putting your conversion plant in some nice “stable” region like Georgia or one of the “stans”.
Generally these synthetic fuels burn cleaner than the refined product (Audi diesel racecars use a synthetic diesel made by Shell) but the synthetics are more expensive. (Of course any new aircraft fuel needs extensive testing)
Probably best policy is to reduce other use of oil (power generation, ground transport) which would free up more for aviation and maintain a strategic reserve for a crisis.
Eventually non-food biomass or hydrogen could take to the air but that’s way down the road.
The company behind the synthetic fuel for the USAF is HEADWATERS. They are traded on the NYSE, ticker HW. If you want to be filthy rich load up on their stock.
Looking at Headwaters website it looks like they’re into liquid fuel from coal (As I recall the AF has experimented with that fuel as well).
While looking on the web I came across info on a company doing this:
“Once in operation, the Geismar plant will produce fuel made by using various non-food grade animal fats
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Synthetic fuels are not some wonder cure for pollution or a replacement for fossil fuels. All they are is the result of using chemistry to change one type of fossil fuel into another. This certainly has it’s advantages, since you can create liquid fuels of various types from solids like coal or gasses like methane, liquid being the most practical state to use in a vehicle. But there are disadvantages too. The process does require energy, and while certainly less than the energy that can be utilized from the product, it does mean that overall the useful energy per amount of extracted fuel is less. The advantages, however, may outweigh the costs in the future. Oil is a much rarer and much more immediately useful fuel than coal or gas. The geological processes that determine what form biological matter will eventually take seem heavily weighted towards coal rather then oil, and it’s entirely possible that we may never run out of coal, so having a means to convert it into a fuel that burns in jet engines could become less of a novelty as oil becomes less ubiquitous. Then again, maybe we will never run out of oil either. So long as there is life of earth and a sun in the sky, solar energy will be stored in organic molecules by plants and they and the animals that eat them will die and get buried, eventually being compressed into fossil fuels.
Synthetic fuel maybe made from easily from either natural gas or coal. Making it from natural gas in full production would be stupid just like burning it for electricity is(The ban on natural gas to electricity was lifted in the 90’s so morons could have clean expensive electricity instead of cheaper clean nuclear). Currently the synthetic fuel is mostly used for small scale testing and pilot plants to test the fuel.
1)Synthetic fuel maybe burned in an unmodified diesel or jet engine and has about 96% of the energy per gallon of non synthetic fuel.
2)It is ultra-clean when burned (so clean in fact that contrails from water vapor condensing on particulates in the exhaust doesn’t occur as there are no particulates)
3)Estimated full scale production costs are ~$0.8 per gallon.
4) The only reason this is currently not used is that by using coal as a feed stock you would produce ~30–40% more CO2 per gallon of fuel than from oil or natural gas. It is strictly a political desicion to bow to the Watermelon lobby (Green on the outside Red on the inside).
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