When the six F/A-18 Hornets in the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team thrill the crowds at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Air Expo in Maryland this weekend, they'll be soaring on biofuel.
Each of the six Hornets will be powered by a 50/50-blend of jet fuel and camelina-based biofuel, according to a Navy press release.
Camelina is a high-oil flowering plant grown in rotation on land used for wheat and on land too marginal for food production, according to Sustainable Oils, the company providing it to the military. Sustainable Oils says camelina can also reduce carbon emissions by 80% over jet fuel.
The camelina mix has been successfully tested in several military aircraft, including the Air Force's A-10 Thunderbolt, F-15 Eagle, F-22 Raptor and C-17 Globemaster, as well as the Navy F/A-18. Two Air Force F-16s from the Thunderbirds demonstration team flew with the mix during a performance in May, the service and Sustainable Fuels said.
"This will be the first time an entire unit has flown on a biofuel mix," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in the Navy release. "Changing the kinds of fuels we use and the way we use them is critical to assuring the Navy and Marine Corps remain the most formidable expeditionary fighting force the world has ever known."
By 2016, the Navy plans to deploy the Great Green Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike group powered entirely by non-fossil fuels, Mabus has said.
@fordman.. and they took out the stuff that suppose to lubricate the cylyinders & valves also
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Jet engines don't have cylinders.
Ahh fo Have a good to have good eyes my son is selling concessions at the michigan game in the stands and i seen him
"I seen him?"" Good lord, what a dumb, illiterate redneck.
@callmeishmael: 'what a dumb, illiterate redneck.'
what an azzhole..
Gung hoe,daddy. Can you lend me the car and spot me 50 bucks?
It's still a waste of taxpayer money.. errrr waste of money we borrow from China.
Drakorex1 are you there I need to ask you something??
By 2016, the Navy plans to deploy the Great Green Fleet-> i always thought after the repeal of dont ask dont tell..they would launch the pink fleet...
dumba**.
@callmeishmael: you can have that one lol
I can't wait to hear you sing after you get your butt kicked by someone out of that pink fleet of yours.
@Buzzkill yea yo what is it man? whats up?
what the heck is an ishmeal?
He's the narrator in Herman Melville's MOBY DICK. You have to actually read a book to learn that stuff.
what the heck is an ishmael?
Its a subtroll named Donna!
Ooh donna. Ohh donna.
really what a tard! keep on truckin man!
idiotic liberalism....I bet the fuel cost more energy to make it than it actually produces. Welcome to Obama fairyland
@jj: you would support oil as what we should do? Use more of it? Totally depend on it from afar?
Are you daft? Do you not agree we should do whatever we can, despite the cost, to get ourselves out of the arab games? Alternative energy is what we should be looking in to. What else is there?
And how is that liberal of me? Needing oil has something to do with right or left? You got it all wrong.. Do it again..
The navy,as we all know, is a secret bastion of liberal tree hugging hippies. Yessireebob! Commie pinkos over there. Every one of them. If they were *real* americans they'd insist on giving money to Canadian oil companies. Or Saudi oil companies. Or Venezualan oil companies. That's the American way after all!
righton sakemwakemsnakemsmakem
thats right!