At the Eco-Aviation Conference in Washington, Air New Zealand’s Chief Pilot Captain David Morgan announced the company’s findings on a test flight from last December. Powered by a combination of biofuel and jet fuel, the test resulted in a fuel savings of 1.2%. It also cut CO2 emissions by over 60%!
While a 1.2% fuel savings doesn’t seem like much, that is over 1 ton of fuel!
The test was conducted using a commercial 747-400 fitted with Rolls Royce engines. Rolls Royce had certified the fuel — a 50:50 blend of standard Jet A1 fuel and synthetic paraffinic kerosene derived from jatropha oil.
By Dave Tyler •
January 31, 2009
There’s another player in the race to make aviation biofuel: camelina.
A Japan Airlines Boeing 747-300 took off from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Friday, with an engine powered by a biofuel made primarily from camelina, making JAL the first airline to test fly the fuel. The fuel was a mix of camelina (84 percent), jatropha, (16 percent) and algae (less than 1 percent), marking the 1.5 hour flight as the first demonstration flight powered by biofuel made from three feedstocks.
By Nick Chambers •
December 30, 2008
After postponing the flight for about a month, Air New Zealand has become the first airline to test a 50/50 blend of second generation jatropha biodiesel and standard A1 jet fuel in a Boeing 747-400 passenger jet. The company has hailed the test as a milestone for commercial aviation.
The flight lasted two hours and ran one of the plane’s Rolls-Royce engines on the jatropha biodiesel blend. Air New Zealand has previously stated that they want to become the world’s most sustainable airline and hopes that by 2013, 10% of its flights will be powered by biofuel blends such as the jatropha biodiesel blend used in this test flight.
Recently, Virgin Airlines garnered a lot of support and criticism for their announcement that they would be experimenting with biofuels. Now, Air New Zealand has annoucned that it will begin testing a new generation of biofuel this year. With the goal of converting a portion of its domestic fleet to run on the renewable fuel source within five years, the airline will be the first in the world to test a biofuel derived from jatropha, a bush grown in [...]
