Horizons Online Edition

Issue date: 9/14/06 Section: News

A B-52 bomber takes off from Minot AFB, North Dakota on its way to Edwards AFB to begin testing a new synthetic fuel.

The United States Air Force is currently testing a new type of fuel that will reduce its dependency on foreign sources of fuel and help the environment.

The type of a fuel, a synthetic form of kerosene, will be mixed in a 50 percent ratio with traditional JP-8 jet fuel and flown on a B-52 bomber. The testing will take place at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. The bomber is on loan to Edwards from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota

The first test flight of the program was completed on Sept. 19, 2006 at Edwards AFB. The flight was a success. For this first test flight, two of the bomber's eight engines were powered by the blend of synthetic and traditional fuels.

Because the B-52 has eight engines, should either of the engines testing the fuel lose power, the aircraft has sufficient power to land, increasing the overall safety of the test flights. In future flights, the mix will power more of the aircraft's engines.

The Air Force hopes to extend the testing program beyond the B-52 to include all bombers, transports, and possibly fighters in the current and future inventory of the USAF. Other military branches are also interested in the results of the tests.

The Air Force is hoping its testing with the synthetic kerosene will spark the interest and investments of others, leading to more large-scale production of the fuel and possibly leading to commercial and private aircraft using a blend of the fuel in the future.

The synthetic fuel and the process for making it has been around since the 1920s, but until recently, there has not been a cost-effective and realistic way of manufacturing the fuel. The fuel is manufactured using the Fischer-Tropsch process, and is the result of several years of research and testing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio using coal as the basis for creating the fuel. The process combines hydrogen and carbon monoxide in specific quantities and is then refined to produce a hydrocarbon form of fuel.

Currently, the Air Force is responsible for the consumption of 58 percent of the fuel used by the Department of Defense. That amounts to just over 3.2 billion gallons of fuel per year.

According to the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, the USAF has an interest in acquiring 100 million gallons of the new synthetic fuel by 2008 and hopes to have at least 50 percent of its fuel coming from alternative sources by 2016.

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