EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- The Air Force's ongoing alternative fuels certification efforts reached a new milestone Aug. 27 when a C-17 Globemaster III from here flew on all engines using jet fuel blended with a combination of traditional petroleum-based fuel, or JP-8, biofuel derived in part from animal fat, and synthetic fuel derived from coal.
The 418th Flight Test Squadron here conducted the flight tests Aug. 23 to 27.
The flight was a first for any Department of Defense aircraft where a 50 percent mix of JP-8 was blended with 25 percent renewable biofuel and 25 percent fuel derived from the Fischer-Tropsch process, which is essentially liquified coal or natural gas.
(The success of the biodiesel fuel industry relies heavily on biodiesel testing <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s32Ke2VzrqU>, not only at the production level but at the consumer level, where degraded fuel may cause engine failures. Of major concern to diesel and biodiesel users is the very real possibility that water has contaminated their fuel. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YcczdvPyAk). The potential catastrophic impact of this problem is discussed at length in this video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lh4qhXc_5s&feature=youtube_gdata.
Fleet Fuel's family of inexpensive biodiesel test kits is just a click away on the internet at:
<http://fleetfueltesting.com>)
