http://gpbnews.blogspot.com/2008/08/f-15-flies-using-synthetic-fuel.html
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. - History was made at Robins Air Force Base this week as an F-15 Eagle flew at more than twice the speed of sound using a blend of synthetic fuel.
The Aug. 19 flight was the world's first test of a high performance fighter aircraft powered by a 50-50 mix of traditional JP-8 jet fuel and a synthetic using natural gas as a source.
The Air Force already had tested the new blend on a C-17 cargo aircraft and B-52 and B-1 bombers. But Jeff Braun, director of the Air Force's Alternative Fuels Certification Office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, conceded that fighter aircraft offered a much different challenge.
"They are much higher performance and a much more demanding environment," he said during a late afternoon interview.
Braun said the daylong process included a 50-minute ground test Tuesday morning that pushed the aircraft's engines from military power to full afterburner.
"That was just another risk reduction step to prove the aircraft was not leaking fuel and the engines were behaving nominally," he said.
The actual test flight came in the afternoon. "It was a full functional check flight of about 55 minutes," the engineer said, "reaching speeds of Mach 2.2." Mach 2.2 is approximately 1,450 mph.
http://www.military.com/news/article/f15-hits-mach-2-on-synthetic-fuel.html"There was no difference in performance using the JP-8 and synthetic mix," he said describing how the F-15E Strike Eagle performed on a 50-50 blend of a natural gas derived synthetic fuel and standard JP-8 jet fuel.
http://thetension.blogspot.com/2008/08/us-air-force-tests-alternative-jet-fuel.htmlhttp://www.afrc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123112167
