The demonstration flight, which has no passengers, also is the first biofuel test aboard a two-engine commercial plane, Continental said. The two-hour flight, which will return to Intercontinental, will run a series of maneuvers including mid-flight engine shutdown and restart and several accelerations and decelerations, all of which monitored by a Continental engineer riding along.
The biofuel is derived from jatropha plants and algae. Jatropha has been tested elsewhere as aviation fuel, but the carrier said this was a first for algae.
Hats off to Continental...let's hope this is a first step away from foreign oil dependence
B4REAL From United States of America, joined Aug 2003, 2595 posts, RR: 6 Reply 2, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days ago) and read 2273 times:
That is cool! I wish the flight pattern was a little cooler. Something like the Cessna test flight that flew the Cessna logo over the heartland - anyone remember that?
Curious if this changes the takeoff weight for the aircraft.
WesternA318 From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 5395 posts, RR: 25 Reply 3, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 2158 times:
Quoting B4REAL (Reply 2): Something like the Cessna test flight that flew the Cessna logo over the heartland - anyone remember that?
LOL, I can just see the 738 trying to pull off CO's globe logo...
Woohoo! Back to Beirut in Oct '13! (Along with a stop in DOH for 4 days)
Homer71 From United States of America, joined Jul 2001, 2209 posts, RR: 17 Reply 4, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 2106 times:
Quoting Co777er (Reply 1): That's a 73G not a 738. Maybe flightaware is wrong.
The biofuel flight is supposed to be a 738.
Doesn't matter, the local news will butcher it and call it an Airbus...
"On spaceship earth there are no passengers...only crew."
Khobar From United States of America, joined Mar 2006, 2379 posts, RR: 4 Reply 5, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 2097 times:
Quoting Homer71 (Thread starter): Hats off to Continental...let's hope this is a first step away from foreign oil dependence
Where do you suppose all that jahoba oil is going to come from? The US? They grow some here in the SW, but I have doubts they'll produce enough for the entire US industry. Since I don't know, maybe I'm way off base.
On the plus side, at least it isn't using corn or soybeans.
Algae alone is a good source of "oil" -
"The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (40,000 square kilometers), which is a few thousand square miles larger than Maryland, or 1.3 Belgiums. This is less than 1/7th the area of corn harvested in the United States in 2000."
MakeMinesLAX From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 516 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 22 hours ago) and read 2010 times:
Around the time of NZ's similar test flight, I heard mention that Hawai'i might be a candidate for jatropha-growing, since much of its other large-scale agriculture (pineapples, sugar cane) had declined due to foreign competition.
IAHFLYR From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 4723 posts, RR: 25 Reply 7, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 18 hours ago) and read 1869 times:
Quoting Co777er (Reply 1): That's a 73G not a 738. Maybe flightaware is wrong.
The biofuel flight is supposed to be a 738.
It was ship 516 in fact, B738.....somehow it was flight planned wrong! Shocked me to see it show up on the flight plan when inbound to IAH as a B737 not the actual B738 which it was.
Quoting Homer71 (Reply 4): Doesn't matter, the local news will butcher it and call it an Airbus
For once the media had nothing to do with butchering anything, yet!!
Any views shared are strictly my own and do not a represent those of any former employer.
Phatty3374 From United States of America, joined Apr 2005, 136 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 18 hours ago) and read 1779 times:
Quoting Khobar (Reply 5): Where do you suppose all that jahoba oil is going to come from? The US? They grow some here in the SW, but I have doubts they'll produce enough for the entire US industry. Since I don't know, maybe I'm way off base.
On the plus side, at least it isn't using corn or soybeans.
The most beneficial aspect of the jatropha plant is that it can be planted in locations where other crops simply cannot grow as it requires very little water and few nutrients. This means that they would not take up space where food could be planted, and in turn would not raise food prices in the same manner bio-ethanols are currently. Right now, there are several remote communities in several coastal West-African nations that are planting jatropha in wasteland and harvesting it to meet small-scale, local oil needs. Cool stuff!
F9Animal From United States of America, joined Dec 2004, 4739 posts, RR: 30 Reply 10, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 4 days 17 hours ago) and read 1737 times:
Quoting Homer71 (Thread starter): Hats off to Continental...let's hope this is a first step away from foreign oil dependence
Congrats! This is a HUGE stepping stone for all of the industry. I bet you OPEC is just thrilled about this news. I bet they are sitting back, wondering how they can get the price of oil back to $150.... LOL!!!! Eventually, OPEC will be NOPEC.... ROFL!!!! I am a total comedian!
SlimShady From United States of America, joined Dec 2007, 184 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 23 hours ago) and read 1402 times:
I always wondered who foots the bill for this kind of stuff? Does CO donate the aircraft time and crew time, or treat it as a charter and bill someone? After all, they have to pull an aircraft out of service to do this, not jut to fly the route, but I am sure it takes several days to prepare the aircraft and engines technically to handle the new fuel.
Does the biofuel company, Boeing, or CFM pick up part of the bill as well? I cant imagine CO doing this all on thier dime..
Exusair From United States of America, joined Sep 2000, 684 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 20 hours ago) and read 1314 times:
Jatrophra as I understand it, is not a food source for either humans nor animals, and it is a weed that grows under a range of conditions.
Haiti was also mentioned as an area where jatropha is being harvested, and a previous poster also mentioned West Africa, so this is an all around good deal in that exporters are in areas that are inexpensive to operate in and can benefit many who are destitute, and also regreen some areas that have been deforested.
While "jatrophra crude" as it is referred to when it has been refined into a biofuel, is not a silver bullet in itself, when you take into account the other alternative fuels which are being actively developed, it is another building block from which to build alternative, non petroleum based fuel stock from. Liquified coal from Sasol in South Africa has also been widely tested and used as aviation fuel, as well as the tests that Virgin did last year with nut oil.
This is a win - win program for all involved and we will likely see in use not only in aviation applications, but also in diesel powered engines, within the next few years.
SirOmega From United States of America, joined Sep 2005, 735 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (4 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 20 hours ago) and read 1288 times:
Quoting Khobar (Reply 5):
Algae alone is a good source of "oil" -
True, and we wont even need all that much. If (by 2030 or so) we replace about 50% of LDV (passenger cars) in the US with EREVs that can go 40 miles on battery and another 300 miles on fuel (if needed) the amount of land needed drops drastically (we'd reduce LDV fuel demand by 45%). Algae-oil also is easier to refine into diesel.
So we use algae-oil for diesel and aviation, electricity to get our cars most of where they need to go, and switch back to glass bottles and we're off oil! Well its not that easy but you get my point.
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