Air Force jet flies on plant oil fuel blend

Government Executive (Peters) -  On Thursday, Air Force Maj. Chris Seager broke a flight barrier of sorts when he piloted an A-10 Thunderbolt jet fueled by a 50-50 blend of camelina plant oil and regular JP-8 jet fuel. "I couldn't tell the difference between [the blended fuel] and regular JP-8," Seager said during a teleconference with reporters following a 50-minute test flight at Florida's Elgin Air Force Base. Service officials will spend the next few weeks pouring over data collected from the test flight to ensure the fuel blend poses no safety or operational problems. If the blend holds up, then they will begin testing it this summer in other aircraft, including F-15 and F-22 jets and the C-17 transport plane.

The Air Force expects to certify all aircraft for using the blend by 2012. The service wants to be able to buy 50 percent of aviation fuel used in the United States from a domestic, renewable alternative-fuel source by 2016...The market for a viable jet fuel from renewable sources is potentially huge. Service officials estimate Air Force jets burn 1.6 billion gallons of fuel in the United States annually. The burn rate grows to 2.4 billion gallons annually when worldwide Air Force missions are counted. And that's only a fraction of the fuel used in commercial aviation, officials said.