Earlier this year, the Navy deployed ships for the first time that ran on a biofuel blend of processed beef fat. Now, biofuels are taking flight on vegetable oils.
The "Green Growler" -- an EA-18G electronic attack jet running on biofuel JP-5 -- made its first flight in September on an advanced biofuel that did not contain petroleum JP-5, according to a Navy release, as part of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus' initiative to get the service running on 50 percent renewable energy by 2020.
"From takeoff to landing, you couldn't tell any difference," said Lt. Cmdr. Bradley Fairfax, project officer and test pilot with Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23, after the first test flight Sept. 1. "The information presented to us in the airplane is pretty simplified but, as far as I could tell, the aircraft flew completely the same as [petroleum-based] JP-5 for the whole flight."
Down on the ground, a flight test engineer used telemetry to verify whether the Growler performed up to snuff on the new fuel.
"What we have seen is that the 100-percent bio-JP-5 appears to be basically transparent,' engineer Mary Picard said in the release. "It looks just like petroleum JP-5 in the airplane. So far, everything looks good and we haven't noticed a difference."
The fuel is designed to be filled directly into aircraft tanks without any modifications to the planes.
This is the fifth blend that Naval Air Systems Command's fuels team has evaluated since Mabus launched his Great Green Fleet initiative in 2009, but this is the first that didn't have to be mixed with all-petroleum JP-5 to work properly.
"We shot for this 100-percent drop-in fuel from the beginning," team lead Rick Kamin said. "We wanted to know if a fully synthetic JP-5 from a non-petroleum source could work in our systems and we proved that it could!"
Unlike the 90-percent petroleum biofuel blend running carrier escort ships, the new jet fuel is made of soy and canola oils that is converted to a synthetic blend that doesn't need to be mixed with petroleum.
An earlier version of this article erroneously stated the renewable fuel was made with beef fat. Vegan pilots, rejoice: No animal products were used in the production of this soy and canola-based fuel.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
