RAF completes first flight powered by used cooking oil

[cynicalint]

Daily Telegraph has this article, If you can see the comments, they are worth a read...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/18/cooking-oil-could-fuel-fighter-jets-raf-completes-first-net/
RAF Voyager makes milestone 90-minute journey on sustainable aviation fuel, made up of waste-based materials
ByDanielle Sheridan, (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/d/da-de/danielle-sheridan/) DEFENCE EDITOR18 November 2022 • 6:00pm RAF Voyager required no modifications to handle the sustainable aviation fuel CREDIT: RAF/Paul CrouchFighter jets could fly on fuel made from old cooking oil after the Royal Air Force (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/20/raf-spends-30000-e-scooters-replace-bus-bid-go-green/) completed its first net zero flight.

For 90 minutes, the RAF Voyager flew over Oxfordshire powered purely by 100 per cent sustainable aviation fuel.

The flight, which took place on Wednesday and replicated an air-to-air refuelling sortie, was the first time that a military aircraft of its size, or any aircraft in the UK, had completed such a feat.

RAF Voyager required no modifications to handle the sustainable aviation fuel (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/19/guilt-free-flying-government-promises-zero-emission-routes-2030/).

A defence source told The Telegraph that if the RAF could replicate aviation turbine fuel, a form of paraffin that all jet engines run on, “then it could work on future fighter jets”.

“That would be part of the plan for making the RAF carbon neutral in due course,” they added.The RAF Voyager lands at RAF Brize Norton after flying over Oxfordshire powered purely by sustainable aviation fuel CREDIT: Andrew Matthews/PA

The flight took place the day before the Chancellor ignored demands to increase defence spending (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/11/17/defence-spending-will-not-increase-security-review-says-jeremy/) to three per cent of national income by 2030 in the Autumn Statement (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/11/17/key-points-autumn-statement-2022-summary-tax-rises-hunt/).

The RAF has pledged to reach net zero by 2040 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/20/raf-spends-30000-e-scooters-replace-bus-bid-go-green/). However, when asked if uncertainty about defence spending would impact how much money can be poured into the military achieving its green targets, the defence source added: “Now we know that this is a carbon-neutral and green endeavour, we should be putting more money into this kind of research.

“The more who use it means the cost will eventually reduce, so everyone should be looking to participate in these schemes.”

Sustainable aviation fuel (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/14/age-deep-fat-flyer-first-flight-powered-cooking-oil-could-take/) is made from waste-based sustainable feedstocks, such as used cooking oil, and reduces lifecycle carbon emissions on average by up to 80 per cent compared to the conventional jet fuel it replaces. Sustainable aviation fuel is made from waste-based sustainable feedstocks, such as used cooking oil CREDIT: Sharron Floyd/Serco Photo/RAF Brize Norton

The fuel, which is commercially available, presents a challenge of being available in large quantities.

However, the Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for 50 per cent of central government emissions, said that it hoped such trials would stimulate greater demand across the aviation sector, and lead to increased production and reduced costs as a result.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/04/military-aircraft-should-become-net-zero-decade-earlier-planned/), the Chief of the Air Staff, has previously acknowledged he was aware it sounded “crazy” that he is so invested in the environment as head of the RAF.

He said: “Climate change is a transnational challenge that threatens our resilience, our security and our collective prosperity.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2022/11/18/TELEMMGLPICT000316634021_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqjvE9Rr87xStm87qEy nN5NHgVpNmjPUZ1ciwxywzMssg.jpeg?imwidth=480Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, right, welcomed Flight Lieutenant Nick Dehnel, second right, after the test flight CREDIT: Andrew Matthews/PA WireACM Sir Mike said that the way aircraft are powered “will be key” to achieving this goal, adding that the RAF “is already thinking about how we will operate beyond fossil fuels”.

He said: “This exciting trial flight of a Voyager from RAF Brize Norton, powered entirely by sustainable aviation fuel, is an important milestone on that journey, and marks another technological first for the RAF alongside our industry partners.”

Under ACM Sir Mike, Project Astra was set up as an initiative to look at every part of what the RAF does with a view to making it better and more efficient.

In Sep 2021, the RAF spent £30,000 on e-scooters to replace a shuttle bus on an airbase in an effort to go green.

In Nov 2021, the RAF completed the world’s first flight powered by synthetic fuel made from “air and water” (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/17/raf-tests-green-fuel-made-air-water-power-planes-tomorrow/).

Other innovations have included flying an electric aircraft at RAF Cranwell and creating fuel from genetically modified bacteria. The RAF also plans to have its first net-zero airbase by 2025.

Baroness Goldie, a defence minister, said: “Through the RAF’s pioneering spirit, expertise and partnership with UK industry, British science and engineering is leading the way in improving operational resilience and developing future operating capability in a climate-changed world.”

[Ninthace]

If you are downwind, do you suddenly get a yen for a fish supper?

[cynicalint]

If you are downwind, do you suddenly get a yen for a fish supper?
Only at Tokyo! Otherwise master card will suffice....

[ShyTorque]

But has the RAF had its chips?

[cynicalint]

But has the RAF had its chips?
Well, many RAF aircrew choose to buy chip-bag caps. Aircrew are really prescient!

[NutLoose]

I say, are you frying tonight?

[oldpax]

Remember those photos of loads of airmen riding bikes around?Why by electric scooters?Maybe officers only and erks pedal!

[treadigraph]

US Navy should consider using it to fuel their Greyhounds for the COD service.

[ShyTorque]

RAF going green, eh? Maybe next in the ongoing wokeness plan they will replace all those nasty loud munitions with flour bombs.

[ATSA1]

...and there was Me, thinking that the RAF had bigger fish to fry...

[Wensleydale]

The CAS stated that the RAF can now give any enemy a good battering.

[Finningley Boy]

So... does the cooking oil have to have been used already? I mean can you pour a bottle of "Crisp & Dry" straight into the fuel tank? Anyway, more woke nonsense, ER's got Wiggie on the run!:p Seriously though, it would be interesting to see the reaction to these kind of developments from the likes of Just stop Oil!!

FB

[fdr]

RAF going green, eh? Maybe next in the ongoing wokeness plan they will replace all those nasty loud munitions with flour bombs.

beaten to that one by the Isrealis, they dropped paint bombs on the Aswan, cooled heads.

[Wensleydale]

As long as they landed in the right plaice.

[uxb99]

Is this an inevitable attempt to deal with the fact that oil will eventually run out?
If so what is the future for an air force that has to rely on bio-fuels? I can't see a war being fought without oil, well not in it's current form.

[ROC man]

Theres also the strategic side to this. UK refining capacity could be knocked out with about 6 well aimed bombs/missiles/ sabotage groups. We can now make fuel anywhere we choose to put a large mixing tank.

[rattman]

RAF going green, eh? Maybe next in the ongoing wokeness plan they will replace all those nasty loud munitions with flour bombs.
Yeah and maybe stop sexually assaulting other members of the RAF

[Jobza Guddun]

Yeah and maybe stop sexually assaulting other members of the RAF

Well that's the smeghead of the day competition won already.

[Finningley Boy]

Is this an inevitable attempt to deal with the fact that oil will eventually run out?
If so what is the future for an air force that has to rely on bio-fuels? I can't see a war being fought without oil, well not in it's current form.
I think it is driven more by carbon emissions and the need to address this, hence my point about what reaction the various pressure groups, like ER and JSO, will have? If they welcome this, then they're serious about climate change, if they attack this on any grounds, then it is all the more likely their position is much less about countering climate change and saving the planet and far more about radical political change, specifically in western nations, like ours, and severely weakening economies, security and defence postures in order to achieve that. Calls, not entirely unheeded by our government, to pay one trillion pounds or so to developing nations in aid (reparations for the industrial revolution) are a loud hint that its the latter. I see Ed Miliband, not at all surprisingly, is a keen proponent.

FB

[Dan Gerous]

Is there a vegan alternative?

[jolihokistix]

Should give a new meaning to greased Lightning.

[Ninthace]

Is there a vegan alternative?
I though flying on vegetable oil as opposed to long dead swamp life was the vegan alternative. Of course, we would have to exclude all the innocent bugs going through the engines and splattering themselves on the leading edges.

[Geezers of Nazareth]

Do the engines on the A.330s have chip detectors?

[NutLoose]

Does this mean it’s an honorary member of the kipper fleet?

[NutLoose]

As long as they landed in the right plaice.I heard it was a greaser.

[ShyTorque]

Salmon should call a halt to these fish puns.

[treadigraph]

I'm hoping it'll represent a cost saving to the tuna quite a lot.

[Wensleydale]

"We are short of fuel, Skipper"

"OK - put out a Chip Pan call".

[Wensleydale]

Salmon should call a halt to these fish puns.

Get off your Perch.

[NutLoose]

Does this mean the crew are a bunch of faggots?

[NutLoose]

It all sounds good until you realise they can only fly on Frydays.

[ShyTorque]

Poor soles.

[treadigraph]

It all sounds good until you realise they can only fly on Frydays.

Nope, they'll be frying all dace of the week.

[ACW599]

It's no good carping about fish puns, especially since we have such poor atenchun spans.

[I am not Spartacus]

At least the margarine of error is low….

[OxfordGold]

Puts the Ninja Air fryer to shame.

[cynicalint]

Will this bio-fuel power a motor-pike and side-carp?

[NutLoose]

Will this modify pan calls?

[NutLoose]

I do wonder how many sautés a week they will manage.

[NutLoose]

Nope, they'll be frying all dace of the week.

Is this fact or are you just carping on about it!

[cynicalint]

The crews smiles will be so much brighter due to the whiting in the air-conditioning system.

[Flying Binghi]

Hmmm… ‘remains of the day’ comes to mind……

[treadigraph]

They are no longer able to supply Lobster Tornados...

[jolihokistix]

This sounds like a serious case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire er… afterburner’.

[pilotmike]

risky, not using the proper stuff. Skating on thin ice.

[ShyTorque]

Minnows this is just fish pie in the sky.

[Bueno Hombre]

If world human mammal population continues to increase, there will come a time when all available cooking oil will be needed for cooking by Humans for Human Consumption. So, what then?

[Fournierf5]

Salmon should call a halt to these fish puns.

I hake to say so, but you are right. I'm floundering around trying to dredge up anything new . . . drivin' me in seine . . .

[ShyTorque]

I smelt a bleak, cheap skate publicity stunt, just for the wahoo factor of flying in a mackerel sky.

See how I snook those in?

(I knew my “Observer’s Book of Sea Fishes”, a Sunday school prize from 1969, would come in useful again one day…..:cool: ).

[jolihokistix]

Health n Safety will surely mandate large smoke extractor fans.

[treadigraph]

Dare I sneak a Crab joke in?

[ACW599]

Let's face it, this story is a load of old pollocks.

[Art E. Fischler-Reisen]

Let's face it, this story is a load of old pollocks.

I agree, codswallop.

[Coltishall. loved it]

I suppose the Sqn will be closed on Mondays

[Fournierf5]

Let's face it, this story is a load of old pollocks.


. . . so saithe I

[ACW599]

This story's made a bit of a splash but don't tell 'em, Pike.

[Ninthace]

This story's made a bit of a splash but don't tell 'em, Pike.
I think the puns are Brill.

[Finningley Boy]

I think the puns are Brill.
Yes, but there is something fishy about all this.

FB

[DuncanDoenitz]

Obsessed now with trying to think of one. This might kippers up all night.

[treadigraph]

Obsessed now with trying to think of one. This might kippers up all night.

Swett breams Duncan!

[sycamore]

I`m sure `Sharkey` will have something to say....

[NutLoose]

Well the crew have secured their plaice in history.

[NutLoose]

Does burning cooking oil that has been used over and over again qualify as another reheat cycle?

[cynicalint]

wiggy, eel mussel into any old school of thought containing clown-fish who think oily fish are the way to cure the kissing gourami's on the red groupers team.

[tdracer]

risky, not using the proper stuff. Skating on thin ice.
Properly refined, bio jet fuel is nearly indistinguishable from the dead dinosaur-based stuff. While used cooking oil is obviously a very limited supply, there are some very promising carbon-neutral fuels based on oil made from things like algae that can be scalable to supply most if not all aviation needs.
BTW one of the guys I used to play Ultimate Frisbee with drove a VW Diesel powered by used vegetable oil. Rather pleasant smelling exhaust (yes, it did smell a bit like fried potatoes).

[DuncanDoenitz]

Please try to stay on-topic; this is a fish-pun thread. Haddock.

[cynicalint]

Please try to stay on-topic; this is a fish-pun thread. Haddock.
You don't get off the hook that easily!

[sycamore]

Stop carping-on,otherwise the `old trouts`(mods) will reel you in...
(APOLS TO ALL MODS)

[jolihokistix]

Hey, don’t forget us! We get fried too!

The Chicken Co-op.

Motto “We give you wings.”

[ACW599]

With biojet you have to be a dab hand to refuel without spilling it.

[ShyTorque]

Does this turbot charge the engines?


Or just leave them floundering along?

[SimonPaddo]

New rank required: Frying Officer

[ZH875]

There should be a plentiful supply of used chip oil if the Wiggy Brigade of Fitness exempt,very large chip eating, computer whizz kids and drone fliers gain widespread acceptance into the forces

[NutLoose]

Just before take off I bet it was a bit Tench in the cockpit.

[NutLoose]

Asked how much fuel he wanted on board, the Captain was heard to say "fillet"

[treadigraph]

Asked why so much soot was coming out of the back, they said "the fuel is a bit coley"...

[Wensleydale]

Whatever happened to Lard Trenchard?

[NutLoose]

He is still here, if not in spirit at least in sole.

[jolihokistix]

Dual fuel even, just flip the cod lever to oil?

[Finningley Boy]

Anyone recall the old RAF National Service play, "Chips with Everything"

FB

[ShyTorque]

Ide say that some of these puns are getting a little Orfe the mark. Some are quite Ruffe.

[ACW599]

Do aircrew still need a herring test at annual medical?

[jolihokistix]

Yes, a regular medical to maintain pike performance, or you could be left picking up the pisces.

[Jackonicko]

Don't hake the mickey!

[Fournierf5]

Ide say that some of these puns are getting a little Orfe the mark. Some are quite Ruffe.


. . .. Bass ically we've been battered into submission, feelin' quite beluga-euered

[NutLoose]

Don't be Koi about it, tell us what you really think, after all, you all are carping on about it. I bet the thread starter Roe's the day he posted it.

Incidentally in the news today they have fried Sturgeons plans.

[treadigraph]

Incidentally in the news today they have fried Sturgeons plans.
Salmon had to - hope I didn't poach that one...

[ACW599]

I laughed so much at that one, I nearly fell off my perch.

[Finningley Boy]

Well I dare say the Sturgeon will be Ruddy angry having been told to sling 'er 'ook!

FB

Actually is that a hat trick in one short sentence?!?!

[NutLoose]

Absolutely brill attempts so far, though some have been a bit crappie and some just cobbler’s, so Discus it amongst yourselves and see if you can drum up some more…

that’s 5 FB

[BEagle]

Hopefully the fish comedians have now run out of ideas?

Using that fuel in the Voyager raises some questions regarding its use in the AAR role. Have the pods been cleared for this fuel? Or receiver aircraft? If not, how will that alternative fuel be 100% flushed out so that the aircraft can be used in the role for which the RAF intended?

When we first had the VC10K, the pods weren't cleared for JP4 in the US. So on trails back to the UK we had to land at civil airports rather than US military aerodromes. Which must have been expensive, but was much more fun as the local hotels were usually rather better too. Regrettably FRL soon cleared the pods, but it had been fun whilst it lasted!

[NutLoose]

That must plaice a strain on it all Beagle, I did wonder if they would need to flush the system out, it would be ironic if the had to do an Avtur fill it and bin it to accomplish it.

[treadigraph]

Hopefully the fish comedians have now run out of ideas?

Ah, porbeagle, no not quite! Sorry, couldn't resist...

[jolihokistix]

In light of the true meaning, they’ll be happier now to shout “Pan Pan Pan!”

[cynicalint]

Out of the frying pan and into the flyer!

[NutLoose]

Interesting article on how it is collected and made .

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/air-travel/the-smelly-greasy-truth-about-how-sustainable-aviation-fuel-is-made

[Geriaviator]

More than 25 years ago my old friend Tony McGrath, UK manager for Hatz diesels, took me to a go-karting centre which used Hatz silenced 500cc diesel engines fuelled by used cooking oil. The place smelled like a chip shop kitchen but was considered much better than DERV fuelled even with the extractor fans full on. I also tried his diesel motorcycle which ran happily at 1500 rpm, 55 mph and some 300 mpg. But I think it would take rather more oil than all our local chippies could produce in a year to fuel an Atlantic crossing.