C-17 Synthetic fuel

[iggys-amsoil]

C-17complete flight with synthetic fuel

On the 104th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight -- Monday, Dec. 17 -- the U.S. Air Force completed the first transcontinental flight using synthetic fuel.

A C-17 Globemaster III took off just before dawn from McChord Air Force Base in Washington and landed early in the afternoon at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. The cargo plane was powered by a 50-50 mixture of JP-8 jet fuel and a natural gas-based fuel. The synthetic mixture emits less carbon dioxide and sulfur. The synthetic fuel, which could be based from wood fiber or coal as well, is also cheaper to produce than petroleum-based jet fuel.

"There’s no doubt everyone is becoming a lot more conscious of their impact on the environment,” said Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne, who met the plane at McGuire. "Cleaner fuel means the engine doesn’t have to work as hard, which hopefully means less time and money will need to be spent on maintenance."

With the price of oil on the rise in recent years, the Air Force has felt the impact of increased fuel costs. In 2003, the service spent $2.3 billion on fuel. In 2006, that cost jumped to $5.8 billion. The Air Force uses about half of all the fuel consumed by the Department of Defense with about 6,000 airplanes using 7 million gallons of fuel every single day.

The synthetic fuel mix was tested on C-17 engines in October; Boeing engineers were on hand to assist in the tests. No modifications were needed for the Globemaster to use the blended fuel. Don Gallion, Boeing’s base manager at McChord for the Globemaster III Sustainment Partnership, said engineers will examine fuel filters on C-17s that use the mix, but they are doing little else differently with aircraft.

"After they landed at McGuire, the flight crew reported back that the flight was uneventful," Gallion said. "They couldn’t tell it was any different than any other flight."

“In order to support the Air Force Alternative Fuel Initiative Boeing engineering working closely with the Systems Group at Wright Patterson AFB; the engine supplier-Pratt & Whitney; the Auxiliary Power Unit supplier-Honeywell; and Fuel Quantity Gauging Supplier-Parker Hannifin; successfully developed and implemented a system engineering investigation and validation of the synthetic Fischer Tropsch fuel,” said Sanford Fleishman, Boeing Fuel Systems Technical Fellow, and technical lead for the Alternative Fuel Initiative. “Beginning back in June 2007, Boeing was placed on contract to perform a three phase investigation which would ultimately culminate with full certification of the synthetic fuel originally tested and approved on the B-52.”

Fleishman said the C-17 would go through a more rigorous investigation than originally planned. “However, the team of engineers in Long Beach and at Edwards Air Force Base successfully met every challenge and satisfied our Air Force customer and supports the introduction of alternative fuel for continued use on the C-17.”

The Air Force expects to certify all of its C-17s to fly with the new mixed fuel by May and with every active Air Force aircraft by 2011. B-52s were the first airplanes to be certified in August.

[ouch360]

Rob this wasnt one of your jets was it? ?

Rosco and I both work on McChord. Go Air Force!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Army base (Ft Lewis) thats basicly attached to McChord is a very big user of Bio Diesel, I'm not sure what they are using as their raw product. Go Army!!

[sabreguy]