Shock wave: Camelina biofuels break sound barrier in Navy F-18 trial Jim Lane | April 23, 2010 | 4 Comments 21 Share The Navy celebrates Earth Day by showcasing a supersonic flight test of the "Green Hornet," an F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter jet powered by a 50/50 biofuel blend. In Washington, the Navy celebrated Earth Day April 22 by showcasing a flight test of the “Green Hornet,” an F/A-18 Super Hornet multirole fighter jet powered by a a 50/50 blend of conventional jet fuel and camelina aviation biofuel. The test, conducted at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland drew hundreds of onlookers, including Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who has made the exploration and adoption of alternative fuels a priority for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Among the onlookers, Scott Johnson, general manager of Sustainable Oils, which produced the camelina. “It was awesome to watch camelina biofuel break the sound barrier,” after watching the takeoff at the airbase and seeing the remainder of the flight via the Navy’s in-flight video feed.
Photos and video from the flight
Video of the flight is available here. Photos from the event are available here.
The Defense Energy Support Center, which oversees procurement of biofuel for the Navy, recently awarded a $2.7 million contract to Sustainable Oils of Seattle and Bozeman, Mont., for 40,000 gallons of camelina-based fuel. The Navy’s ultimate goal is to develop protocols to certify alternative fuels for use in its aircraft and ships.
Sustainable Oils has partnered with Honeywell’s UOP to hydrotreat the oil and produce in-spec aviation fuel. UOP and Sustainable Oils were among those named 2009's Biofuels Companies of the Year by Biofuels Digest for their achievements in aviation biofuels development.
“Our mission today and for the rest of the flight tests is to confirm that the fuel makes no difference in performance across the Super Hornet’s entire flight envelope, from subsonic to supersonic operations,” said Mark Swierczek, Naval Air Systems Command propulsion flight test engineer. “Preliminary results show there was no difference in engine ops attributable to the biofuel. Engine performance is normal and as expected.”
Mabus observed the flight and tracked its data from a Project Engineering Station at the air station’s Atlantic Test Range. After the jet landed, he met the pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Tom Weaver, of Billerica, Mass.
“These flight tests are part of an extensive test and evaluation process that started last fall,” said Rick Kamin, the Navy’s Fuels team lead. “The fuel’s chemical and physical properties were first analyzed in the lab, followed by component and engine performance testing – and now in a series of flight tests covering the entire flight envelope of the Super Hornet – including supersonic operations.”
Technical performance
According to Kamin, final approval and certification for the camelina-based biofuel could take an additional six to nine months after flight test April 22. The Earth Day flight test is one of 15 planned test flights requiring approximately 23 flight-hours to complete, starting in mid-April 2010 and completing by mid-June 2010. The Earth Day flight lasted about 45 minutes. Once successfully demonstrated on the F/A-18 F414 engine, the Navy will expand its certification efforts to other Navy and Marine Corps aircraft and Navy tactical systems.
“The alternative fuels test program is a significant milestone in the certification and ultimate operational use of biofuels by the Navy and Marine Corps,” said Secretary Mabus. It’s important to emphasize, especially on Earth Day, the Navy’s commitment to reducing dependence on foreign oil as well as safeguarding our environment. Our Navy, alongside industry, the other services and federal agency partners, will continue to be an early adopter of alternative energy sources.”
“The aircraft flew exactly as we expected- no surprises,” said Weaver, F/A-18 project officer for Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 and pilot for the Earth Day flight test. “The fuel works so well, all I needed to do was just fly the plane.”
Reality check on camelina
“I want to accentuate that camellia is a crop, and needs to be grown, and its not a weed that can be just grown anywhere” cautioned Johnson, who helms the Sustainable Oils program of seed production and contracted farming, noting that the company is contracting for 10,000 acres of production this year (an 80 percent lift over 2009's 5700 acres). “what’s great about the Navy program is that farmers need to see a market, because there is risk in any new crop, and it resonates with farmers to see the Navy prepared to reduce that risk.”
Commenting on the rapid growth of acreage from a small base, Johnson said “we are seeing the market change pretty rapidly, but we are still at 15 sections of land.” The major camellia biofuels program in place now is the planned 100 Mgy plant that will be constructed at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Washgington, and Johnson said that the Sustainable Oils is “confident that we will be the majority supplier to that business. But the industry and farmers are still learning how to produce it.”
Johnson also discussed with the Digest what it takes to solve the chicken-and-egg problem in developing new biofuel crops, where farmers want to see the orders before planting, and the market wants to see crops before placing the orders. “It really starts with making sure that you have a credible story throughout the value chain,” and taking as much volatility and risk out of the process for customers for seeds and customers for fuel. “You also have to provide the case for a reasonable return on investment, and be able to demonstrate the market — that the elevator that was filled is now empty, the the feed you produced is now being fed to animals, that the crusher is producing oil that is going somewhere.”
Though cautious on the speed of scale up, Johnson is bullish about the long-term prospects for farmer adoption and production. “Camelina will continue to provide an option to farmers in dry land wheat production, who simply do not have a lot of options, and are having to rotate to fallow right now, and now have the option to rotate to camelina.”
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