412th TW tests Global Hawk with alternative fuel for first time

Edwards Air Force Base News ^ | 11/29/2010 | Kenji Thuloweit

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

An RQ-4 Global Hawk completed a 32-hour flight test using an alternative fuel mixture, Nov. 23.

The 412th Test Wing's Global Vigilance Combined Test Force's Block 20 Global Hawk took off at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 22 and became the first remotely piloted aircraft to fly using the Fischer-Tropsch Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene fuel and regular JP-8 jet fuel blend.

The Fischer-Tropsch process is a set of chemical reactions that converts carbon-based materials into liquid hydrocarbons. Typically utilizing coal, natural gas, or biomass as a feedstock, the resulting synthetic liquid is utilized as a petroleum substitute.

"The RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft is the last platform to be certified to use SPK fuel," said David Tangren, Global Vigilance CTF, Lead Flight Systems Engineer. "The Global Hawk marks the end of the Air Force-wide Fischer-Tropsch testing effort to certify all aircraft platforms."

Maj. Gen. Ellen M. Pawlikowski, Air Force Research Laboratory commander, visited Edwards from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, for a briefing on the SPK Global Hawk flight test. She acknowledged that this flight represented a large step toward USAF implementation of future fuels and noted that AFRL is currently working on developing a number of additional alternative fuels for potential Air Force use.

"This flight test represents the culmination of an effort the Air Force has had the last several years to be able to qualify our aircraft to use Fischer-Tropsch-based fuels," said General Pawlikowski.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Ping

[struwwelpeter]

Interesting history to the Fischer-Tropsch process (from Wikipedia):

Since the invention of the original process by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the 1920s, many refinements and adjustments have been made. The term "Fischer-Tropsch" now applies to a wide variety of similar processes (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis or Fischer-Tropsch chemistry). Fischer and Tropsch filed a number of patents, e.g., US patent no. 1,746,464, applied 1926, published 1930.[8] It was commercialized in Germany in 1936. Being petroleum-poor but coal-rich, in Germany the FT-process was used by Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II to produce ersatz (German: substitute) fuels. F-T production accounted for an estimated 9% of German war production of fuels and 25% of the automobile fuel.[9]

The United States Bureau of Mines, in a program initiated by the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act, employed seven Operation Paperclip synthetic fuel scientists in a Fischer-Tropsch plant in Louisiana, Missouri in 1946.[10][9]

In Britain, Alfred August Aicher obtained several patents for improvements to the process in the 1930s and 1940s.[11] Aicher's company was named Synthetic Oils Ltd. (Now based in Canada.)

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

South Africa has a huge synthetic oil/gasoline program

[rickb308]

“Being petroleum-poor but coal-rich, in Germany”

Won’t help us one bit once Obummer is done destroying the coal industry.

[gr8eman]

this flight represented a large step toward USAF implementation of future fuels and noted that AFRL is currently working on developing a number of additional alternative fuels for potential Air Force use.

Why reinvent the wheel? Instead of doing R&D on optics packages and sensors they waste all this money on something to replace what we know works 100% of the time. Idiots!

[FDNYRHEROES]

It may be death from the sky, but at least it’s eco-friendly death from the sky.

[fred2008]

What they are going for is a stable supply of fuel unaffected by foreign BS. Rightly so since that’s a major reason for the lack of job growth. Energy price stability (meaning supply is within our control) means public and private sectors can plan more effectively. Military spending for energy is huge. Make that unknown into a known, and you uncork a lot of possibilities.

Ask any airline exec what they think of stable fuel prices for say the next 25 years. The impact would be huge — profits would go up and so would hiring.

My business is in the aviation sector. Fuel price stability would certainly help me plan more effectively and consider hiring more people as I expand the business.

Fear and uncertainty is not very motivating when it comes to considering expansion or hiring people. Energy prices affect the entire economy. Deal with that single issue and the others are more easily dealt with.

[Wonder Warthog]

"It may be death from the sky, but at least it’s eco-friendly death from the sky."

Uh, this is about "coal gasification". Anything to do with coal is absolutely anathema to environmentalists, and most definitely NOT "eco-friendly".