News: A380 Flies With Synthetic Liquid Fuel During 3 Hour Flight

Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and Shell have successfully tested an alternative fuel in an A380 with a synthetic liquid fuel process from Gas To Liquid (GTL) on a three hour flight between UK and Toulouse, France. The A380 was powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, used Shell GTL jet fuel for the flight.

The trial is part of Airbus's studies into alternative fuels, with the airframer having announced the GTL project at last year's Dubai air show in conjunction with a team that includes Shell, Qatar Airways and Rolls-Royce.

Airbus president and CEO Tom Enders says. "Our alternative fuels roadmap requires innovation, diversity of ideas and options that need to be explored.

According to Sebastien Remy, head of Airbus SAS's alternative fuel program, “the GTL used on Friday was no cleaner in CO2 (carbon dioxide) terms than regular fuel but it had local air quality benefits because it produces no sulphur.” The fuel used for the test was a mix of 60% standard jet kerosene (JET-A) and 40% GTL.

The A380's used this fuel in one of its four engines. The A380 was a perfect candidate since it has segregated fuel tanks and four engines.

Remy also said “GTL was the first step to developing BTL (biomass-to-liquid) fuel, which can use anything from wood chips to crops.”

Source Non-Mobile: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/..
Source Non-Mobile: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/..

Tags: Airplanes, Flying, Green, Products
Technorati Tags: Airplanes, Flying, Green, Products