"They're DOOMED!"
Posted on 09/10/2006 9:53:29 AM PDT by BenLurkin
EDWARDS AFB - Searching for a means of reducing dependence on foreign oil, the Air Force is testing a synthetic fuel for its aircraft. The fuel could be a replacement for the JP-8 aviation fuel currently in use.
Already tested by the Air Force Research Laboratory and in ground tests using an aircraft engine unattached to an airplane, the fuel will be put to the test at Edwards Air Force Base this month.
"Now what we're going to do is take the next step and fly this," said Col. Arnie Bunch, commander of the 412th Test Wing.
The flight tests will use a B-52 on loan from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Two of the bomber's eight engines will use the synthetic fuel, the remaining will use the regular JP-8 fuel.
The B-52 was chosen for these tests because the fuel can be isolated in those two engines. If something should go wrong with the fuel, the aircraft can still land safely using the six remaining engines, Bunch said.
"Our pilots routinely train to do six-engine approaches. It's not anything a B-52 pilot doesn't routinely fly," he said.
The two engines that will use the synthetic fuel have not been modified, except to be outfitted with test instruments to measure performance, Bunch said.
The nonpetroleum fuel is made using the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal, natural gas or other hydrocarbons. The process was first developed by German scientists in the 1920s as a means of compensating for that country's lack of oil supplies.
For this test, the aviation fuel is made from natural gas. Oklahoma-based Syntroleum has provided 100,000 gallons of the aviation fuel for this flight test program, according to company officials.
This is the first flight test of the aviation fuel.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
B-52 ping
Hell, while they have it in the air, how bout mounting some specials into the bomb bay and send her over Tehran?
2 birds, 1 stone.
Ther ought to test it with a niced re-fuele drun over Tehran!
Oil is oil whether from wood, coal, crude, or dinosaurs.
Or whales.
M&Ms in SA.
Or penguins
Wow, if this kills the engines...
the pilots would have to land with the "dreaded 6 engine approach". ;-)
Oops, I got beat to the joke :-)
BUFF will tell the story. All they have to is change the specific gravity on the fuel conrol and BUFF will burn the fuel.
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