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Air Force testing alternative fuels on C-17

From Globemaster to Greenmaster? Just because you’re a “weapons system” doesn’t mean you can’t be earth-friendly.

Air Mobility Command is beginning tests to certify the C-17 Globemaster III to fly using an alternative fuel mix that burns cleaner, officials said.

In August, the B-52 Stratofortress was certified to fly on the mix, which blends JP-8 with a synthetic fuel made from carbon-based materials, including coal or natural gas.

“The C-17 tests will be important because it’s a newer aircraft with newer materials and systems,” said Dr. Don Erbschloe, AMC’s chief scientist. “Our goal is to have a standard protocol — a methodology to establish a military standard for the fuel. [The C-17 tests] will validate the methodology we’ll use to certify other aircraft.”

The process used to make the alternative fuel was developed in the 1920s by German chemists Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch at the Kaiser Wilhem Institute.

Erbschloe said the process “starts with carbon-based ‘feedstock’ — this could be coal, natural gas or any other carbon-based material. Ultimately, it could be bio-mass or even trash.”

The first step is to produce “synthesis gas” or “syngas,” he said, which is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

Eventually you get an “organic soup” that is much like petroleum, he said, but which has the potential to burn cleaner than JP-8.

The Air Force plans to have all its aircraft certified to use the fuel blend by 2011.