Fast Green Raptor

Posted 18 March 2011

TAGS:

Photo by Kevin North

A US Air Force F-22 Raptor was successfully flown at supercruise speeds on 18 March 2011 fueled by a 50–50 blend of conventional petroleum-based JP-8 and biofuel derived from camelina, a weedlike plant not used for food. The flight occurred at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California. During the flight, the Raptor reached speeds of Mach 1.5 and an altitude of 40,000 feet. The test flight was the capstone of a series of ground and flight test events with the Raptor using the biofuel blend that were conducted by members of the 411th Flight Test Squadron in mid-March. The Air Force selected the F-22 as the pathfinder for the biofuel blend flight test for all fighter aircraft.

Comments

U-2 Articles
U-2 News
U-2 Video
U-2 Photos

View All Articles

U-2 Anniversary
7/16/2015
For sixty years, the U-2 Dragon Lady has been America's eyes, ears, and nose in the sky. Code One looks back at the U-2 program on the anniversary of its first flight.

U-2 Pilot Describes Earliest Missions
4/30/2015
Vito’s mission took him directly over Moscow and its extensive network of newly built air defenses, which ringed the city in three concentric circles at twenty, forty, and sixty miles from the city center.

Today's U-2 Fleet
9/14/2014
The end of U-2 production in 1989 marked the beginning of a host of evolutionary upgrades.

U-2 Factoids
9/13/2014
Facts, figures, and other essential details about the U-2 Dragon Lady.

Interview With U-2 Stats Keeper
9/12/2014
Reliability maintainability, and supportability lead engineer, tracks statistics for the U-2 program.

U-2 Life Support In Palmdale
9/8/2014
Mark Schroeder has had the responsibility of prepping, maintaining, testing, and inspecting survival equipment for U-2 missions.

U-2 Early History
2/15/2002
The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, though designed and developed in great secrecy in the 1950s, has somehow never fully emerged from the shadows even though it has outlasted one successor, the SR-71 Blackbird.

View All News