Chapter 7
A da p t i n g A i r O p e r at i o n s
to E n e rg y C h a l l e n g e s
201
Captain Randall Lynch
Let me begin by reminding you of the principal energy challenges that confront naval aviation (Figure 1). I think everyone is
familiar with my first two sub-bullets, which were cited earlier by
Dr. L. Dean Simmons. So, I will call your attention to the third
bullet. Between the year 2000 and the year 2010, the DoD’s petroleum costs more than tripled from $3.6 billion to $13.7 billion.
A native of Huntington Beach, California, Captain Randall J. Lynch
attended the University of California at San Diego under the Naval
Reserve Officers Training Corps and graduated in 1988 with a B.A.
in U.S. history. After flight training in Pensacola, he was designated a
Naval Flight Officer in March 1990 and completed three tours in the
S-3A and S-3B, one as a Junior Officer, one as a Fleet Replacement
Squadron flight instructor, and the third as a department head. After
transition training in the EA-6B, Captain Lynch joined the Garudas
of VAQ-134 as the Executive Officer, where he completed a combat
deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He then led
the Garudas as the Commanding Officer through the transition to the
ICAP II Block III Prowler and a subsequent deployment once again
in support of Enduring Freedom. While attached to the Garudas, the
squadron received the Admiral Arthur B. Radford Award for Tactical
Electronic Warfare Excellence. Captain Lynch’s shore and non-flightrelated assignments include Flag Lieutenant/Aide to the Abraham
Lincoln Battle Group Commander and assignment to the Naval War
College in Newport, Rhode Island, where he graduated with academic
distinction and was selected as the President’s Honor Graduate. He also
served as the Naval and Amphibious Liaison Officer at the Combined
Air Operations Center (CAOC) in Qatar and as a Joint Staff Officer at
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart, Germany. Currently,
Captain Lynch is serving as a Federal Executive Fellow at JHU/APL and
is the Prospective Commanding Officer for Naval Station Great Lakes
in Illinois.
202
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
Over that same period, however, the volume of fuel purchased
increased by only 13%. The difference can be attributed solely to
the increasing cost of fuel. My final sub-bullet points out that 75%
of the energy consumed by the DoD is petroleum based.
Figure 1. Department of the Navy Energy Goals
So, what is the Navy doing in response to these challenges?
The Secretary of the Navy has set two goals. First, he has directed
the Navy to increase use of alternative energy, so that by the year
2020, 50% of total Department of the Navy energy will come
from alternative sources. Second, the Secretary has directed the
Navy to demonstrate an all-green Carrier Strike Group by 2012
and then to deploy that Strike Group by 2016. The aircraft flying
from that Group are to rely on biofuels for at least half of their total
fuel usage.
Overall, the Secretary and the Chief of Naval Operations have
set three energy-related goals for the Navy, namely to:
• Reduce consumption
• Increase efficiency
• Increase use of alternative energy sources
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
203
To provide some perspective on what these goals might mean
for naval aviation, I am going to recall my most recent experience
in Afghanistan (Figure 2). As commanding officer for an expeditionary squadron of EA-6Bs, my job was to provide electronic attack
coverage for U.S. and coalition forces on the ground.
Figure 2. Operational Experience
We typically flew four to six missions per day, and each mission was anywhere from 2.5 to about 6 hours in duration. While
airborne, we were being refueled from tanker aircraft that were
flying out of former Soviet states. We were also receiving fuel from
over-land sources coming in by truck. As you might suspect, that
was the weak link in that chain. If you have read the press in the
last 6 months, you are aware that there have been some real issues
getting fuel into different countries in the Middle East. In some
cases, the host nation has not allowed us to bring the fuel into
country. In other cases, there have been problems at the border
or with terrorists blowing up trucks. As a commanding officer, one
of the things that really got my attention was when I was informed
that the wing had only 8 days’ worth of fuel left at one point in our
deployment. If we ran out of fuel, we were going to have to cease
operations. Luckily, we never got to that point, but there were several occasions when it got very close. The overall national security
implications of such concerns appear obvious.
204
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
Realizing that logistics is still the key to getting any type of fuel
into an expeditionary environment such as Afghanistan, alternative
fuel sources would have given us increased flexibility. We would
have had another source for fuel, which in my view would have
made things a little bit easier for us in our daily planning and operational efforts.
205
Mr. Rick Kamin
My goal today is to provide a brief overview of where the Navy
currently stands in its alternative fuels efforts, what we have learned
from our testing, what we have accomplished, and the direction
for the future. To begin, I will summarize the Navy’s energy goals
(Figure 1).
Let us put those goals into perspective. To get to 50% alternative energy use by 2020, the Navy will need to provide 8 million barrels of alternate-source fuel for use by its aircraft and ships.
From an industry that is starting from scratch, that is a big challenge for the next decade, but the Navy is willing to step up as an
early adopter to work with industry to make that challenge happen.
To meet our near-term goals of demonstrating a Green Strike
Group by 2012 and sailing the Great Green Fleet by 2016, we
need to approve a fuel for those aircraft in that timeframe. So, just
Mr. Rick Kamin received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Lehigh
University. He has 28 years of experience in the area of fuels technology. He currently holds the title of Naval Air Systems Command
Research and Engineering Fellow. His current responsibilities include
the following: Navy Fuels Team Lead responsible for the direction of
all Navy fuel (aircraft, ship, and missile) in-service engineering and
research, development, test, and evaluation programs; Navy Task Force
Energy Fuel Working Group lead responsible for alternative fuel test
and certification; and Navy Task Force Energy Aviation Working Group
co-lead responsible for Navy Aviation Energy Strategy. Mr. Kamin has
authored more than 50 technical reports and articles and holds one
U.S. patent. He is a member of the ASTM Aviation Fuel Subcommittee,
the Coordinating Research Council Aviation Steering Committee, the
International Association for the Stability, Handling and Use of Liquid
Fuels Steering Committee, and the Tri-Service Petroleum, Oil, and
Lubricants Users Group Steering Committee.
206
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
15 months from now we are going to have an operational demonstration of aircraft powered by biofuel. The challenge is to approve
a fuel to make that happen.
Figure 1. Navy Energy Goals
Figure 2. Near-Term Alternatives to Petroleum
What are the near-term alternatives available today? There
are basically two choices (Figure 2). The first converts some raw
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
207
material—whether coal, natural gas, or biomass—to gas, which
is then liquefied into a synthetic crude using what is called the
Fischer–Tropsch (FT) process. That liquid is then refined into finished product. The second choice is to use a hydro-treated renewable source, such as oil-rich plants or algae. This process basically
takes the oils, the lipids, from the plants or algae, converts that oil
into biocrude, takes that biocrude through a refining process, and
turns it into jet fuel or ship fuel.
How does that differ from petroleum? In both cases you end
up with a “crude” that goes through a refinery process so there are
a lot of similarities between the end products that you get from
petroleum, which we have used forever in aviation, and some of
these alternatives. Because the hydro-treated renewables provide
environmental benefits, there is a big push in industry to make this
happen and there is a lot of potential for it to go into use within
naval aviation.
Figure 3. Alternative Fuels Strategy
The challenge comes because naval aviation has been using
liquid hydrocarbon fuels for a very long time. If you look at the
aircraft systems that the Navy plans to employ in the future, it is
clear that we are going to be wedded to liquid hydrocarbons for
the remainder of my lifetime and for the lifetimes of our current
208
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
aircrews. The liquid hydrocarbon fuels that we use today have
always come from petroleum. We have geared all our development and all our designs around petroleum-based liquid hydrocarbon. We cannot change our fuel type drastically now. The systems
that are in place, as well as those that will be coming on in the near
future, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, are going to be with us
for decades. So the key to developing appropriate alternative fuels
is to show that we can have a drop-in replacement, and that is the
challenge (Figure 3).
Figure 4. From Field to Fleet: Certifying Drop-In
Replacements
Drop-in replacement means that we are not going to change
our aircraft weapon systems, we are not going to change our
engines, and we are not going to change our fuel systems. Our
capability for storing and distributing fuel at sea is rather limited,
so we cannot send multiple aviation products through different
lines and different tanks and expect them to be segregated in our
shipboard environment. Thus, the critical path of our strategy is
to demonstrate that these fuels from alternative sources are fully
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
209
drop-in replacements. Drop-in replacement means that the guys
who fly do not know or care where the fuel comes from. They just
want to be sure that we have guaranteed that it will work the same,
whether it comes from petroleum, from algae, or from a plant.
The key to this is a process for demonstrating the required
similarity that extends from the laboratory to the weapon system
(Figure 4). The goal of that process is to show that any fuel produced from sources other than petroleum meet requirements for
100% operations. It starts in the laboratory with specifications and
testable properties that we call fit-for-purpose.
To understand fit-for-purpose, you have to remember that all
of our aviation capability today was designed around petroleumbased liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Many of these aspects are so subtle
that they do not measure them on a day-to-day basis and we have
not included them in our specifications, but they are still important
to our aircraft. That is what fit-for-purpose means. Once we get out
of the laboratory—today’s laboratory tests probably measure some
50–60 different properties related to fuel performance—we go
into performance similarity. Do the materials react the same way,
do the propulsion systems react the same way, and do the auxiliary
power units and the fuel distribution systems react the same way?
That is the next level of testing.
Once we have satisfied that point, we look at the operational
weapon system. Do the aircraft, whether fixed-wing or helicopters, fly exactly the same with these fuels? Again, we have to
meet the requirements of the operational community. We have
to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that when we change
our specification to add a new source of fuel, that that fuel will
operate 100% guaranteed, as petroleum has for decades in the
past. At the last point in the game, after we have proven that the
operational weapon systems work, we get into long-term operability and durability issues. When we start running for hundreds
of hours, do we find any differences that our earlier tests may
have missed?
In the Navy, we call this process a standard work package.
Basically it is our recipe for how to test and approve a fuel. Granted,
210
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
they are works in progress, they are constantly changing, and they
are constantly being modified as we learn more and more about
these fuels, but they are doing the job in providing a systematic,
dedicated approach to proving 100% compatibility.
Where do we stand today? Hydro-treated renewable fuels
have been through the laboratory and they have been through
component and propulsion system tests for naval aircraft. And we
have made the proof of concept by flying successfully two different aircraft—the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, also known as the
Green Hornet, and the MH-60 helicopter. In the case of the Super
Hornet, we flew 16 flights lasting a total of 17 flight hours across
the entire flight envelope of that aircraft. At the conclusion of the
flight test program, Lieutenant Commander Tom Weaver, our lead
pilot, basically said that he could not tell the difference in the fuel
(Figure 5).
Figure 5. Flight Tests: Demonstrating Operational Equivalence
About 6 months later, we tried the 50/50 fuel in our helicopter
community. Although we did not accomplish as many flights, the
impact was the same. We know we have success when the operator community tells us things are looking good and that they do
not see any difference. That is the challenge; that is the goal of the
alternate fuels program for aviation.
Where are we going from here? We have a number of demos
lined up over the next year looking at different parts of the fuel
system and different propulsion systems—old and new (Figure 6).
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
211
We intend to get buy-in in different communities, including those
associated with the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned system. Again,
we are trying to build confidence by demonstrating that the fuels
that pass our laboratory tests actually work in operational conditions. All of this is leading up to changing our specifications and
moving to the Carrier Strike Group demonstration in 2012.
Figure 6. 50/50 Hydrotreated Renewable JP-5 (HRJ5) Flight
Demonstration Plan
Still, 8 million barrels of fuel is a lot of fuel and 10 years is a
short period of time. In our view, hydro-treated renewable sources
are part of the answer. However, people have come up with a
lot of great ideas for making fuel from things that we have never
thought of. Some of the pathways we are just looking at are synthetic biology, alcohol oligomerization, and pyrolysis technologies
that are being developed today (Figure 7). We may well want to
look at some of these technologies in the future, with the idea of
increasing the supply pool of fuels and reducing our dependence
on petroleum. The fact that many of these fuels will be more environmentally friendly than using petroleum will help ensure that at
the end of the day, we meet the Secretary’s goals for energy, security, and environmental stewardship.
212
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
Figure 7. Potential Future Fuels
213
Mr. William Voorhees
I am here to talk about the role of technology in enhancing
energy security both over the near term and into the future. Thanks
to the emphasis provided by Navy leadership, it has been much
easier to get some traction on energy-related efforts in the science
and technology arena.
As several speakers have noted, the Secretary of the Navy has
set three energy-related goals for the Department. My presentation
will describe the potential role of technology in supporting each of
those three goals.
Mr. William Voorhees graduated from Lehigh University with a B.S. in
mechanical engineering in 1985. He is currently the head of the Naval
Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Propulsion and Power Technology
Office and is responsible for the planning, execution, development,
demonstration, and transition of propulsion- and power-related technologies for all Navy and Marine Corps air vehicles, both present
and future. He is also the Deputy Program Manager for the Variable
Cycle Advanced Technology propulsion system demonstration effort.
Mr. Voorhees’s other duties include an active role on the NAVAIR
Science and Technology Leadership Team, which guides the Naval
Aviation Enterprise Science and Technology Strategic Planning efforts.
Prior to his current position, he was the Air Vehicles Technology Team
Lead and the Execution Co-Lead/Propulsion Team Lead for the RATTLRS
flight demonstration program. With more than 25 years of experience
in propulsion and power science and technology, he has also held
the positions of Deputy Program Manager for the international X-31
VECTOR Flight Demonstration Program, Navy Lead for Fighter/Attack
Demonstrator Engines, and Navy Lead for Propulsion Environmental
Team and has participated in numerous other propulsion-related technical management and execution projects. He is a graduate of the Navy
Senior Executive Management Development Program and has received
the Meritorious Civilian Service Award.
214
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
We saw the F/A-18 Green Hornet; Rick just finished talking
about that. While we want the alternate fuels to be drop-in, we also
have to ensure that they provide the same performance and have
the same safety and reliability that we get with our current fuels.
As we go to even more exotic fuel formulations, we want to make
sure that we have the technology in place to burn those fuels safely
and reliably, as well as the ability to stretch the spec envelope to
start making sure we can use fuels that are on the edge of what we
would currently consider within spec today.
We are also using advanced materials in our latest aircraft
designs, and we will continue to look at their use for future systems
(Figure 1). Included in these are lightweight composites, which are
key to getting weight out of the aircraft and achieving desired mission fuel burn reductions. In addition to the advanced materials,
we are exploring things like low-drag coatings, which are paints
you can put on an aircraft that reduce the drag, allowing you to be
more efficient in cruise regimes of flight.
Figure 1. Use of Advanced Materials
Our emerging aircraft systems are also benefiting from
advances in propulsion that were started prior to the establishment
of Task Force Energy (Figure 2). In the past, however, most of these
efficiency benefits were really secondary to the primary goal of the
Advanced Development Program, which was usually the development of some new type of operational capability. In some cases,
by developing that advanced capability, we have also been able to
increase efficiency, and we are seeing the benefits of that today.
As the Vice Chief of Naval Operations indicated this morning, as
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
215
efficiency becomes more important, we may see Key Performance
Parameters (KPPs) or Key System Attributes (KSAs) emerge for
future weapons procurements, which will put additional emphasis
on things like specific fuel-reduction efforts.
Figure 2. The GE-38 Engine Will Provide Fuel Economy
We will hear more from our next speaker about how optimized
simulator usage can reduce flying hours required to train our pilots.
Technology can also contribute there by providing advanced modeling techniques, which make the simulation more realistic and
more useful to the pilots.
Enhanced mission planning capabilities offer yet another way
to improve both capability and efficiency. We want to help our
future mission planners by asking: how do you fly the aircraft
throughout the whole mission? How do you optimize the way you
fly or operate the aircraft? Fairly simple changes can yield major
reductions in fuel burn. We are also looking at how to model the
aircraft as a system—not just the engine, but the whole electrical,
thermal, and propulsion systems. How do you optimize aircraft
operation over the entire flight regime and then take advantage of
that in your missions?
We are also trying to identify the leap-ahead technologies that
will be coming down the pipe for next-generation naval aircraft.
216
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
One of these is called variable-cycle engine technology. Basically,
it allows you to adjust the bypass ratio of your jet engine appropriately to consume very little fuel while you are in cruise or to enable
high specific thrust when you need it for combat maneuverability
or takeoff. We are looking at the potential for reducing mission
fuel burn by as much as 20% by utilizing variable-cycle technology (Figure 3). If you start looking at the fully integrated system—
engine, propulsion, and thermal management—you can probably
get another 10% efficiency on top of that. So we see this as a key
enabler for the next generation of aircraft systems.
Figure 3. Variable-Cycle Engine Technology Could Reduce
Specific Fuel Consumption up to 20%
Finally, we are building a roadmap that lays out the set of
technologies that will both enable future capability for the Navy
and reduce fuel burn. Some of these are described in the Naval
Aviation Enterprise’s Science and Technology Objectives. [1] With
the increased interest from high-level leadership, we are getting
traction on many of these ideas, so if we stick with it, I think there
is a lot of opportunity for improvement.
REFERENCE
1. Naval Aviation Enterprise, Science and Technology Objectives,
2010,  http://www.public.navy.mil/airfor/nae/Documents/
2010%20STO.pdf.
217
Commander Daniel Orchard-Hays
I am going to spend a few minutes talking about things that we
are doing in the fleet today. Obviously, in the current fiscal environment, one of the things we have been asked to do at the fleet
Commander Daniel Orchard-Hays grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland.
He is a 1995 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy,
New York, where he was commissioned through the Naval Reserve
Officers Training Corps. He earned his Naval Flight Officer wings in
1996 in Pensacola, Florida. After completion of F-14D training with the
VF-101 Grim Reapers in Oceana, Virginia, he was assigned as a Radar
Intercept Officer (RIO) to the VF-31 Tomcatters onboard USS Abraham
Lincoln. He then transitioned to the F/A-18F Super Hornet in Lemoore,
California, where he was assigned as a Weapon System Officer (WSO)
instructor with the VFA-122 Flying Eagles. During this tour, he was
selected to attend TOPGUN and served briefly as the Assistant Forward
Air Controller (Airborne) instructor at Strike Fighter Weapons School
Pacific. Commander Orchard-Hays’s next sea tour was as the WSO
Training Officer with the VFA-2 Bounty Hunters onboard USS Abraham
Lincoln during their first deployment in the F/A-18F. He then spent a
year at the Army Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth,
Kansas, before completing his Department Head tour with the VFA-32
Swordsmen onboard USS Harry S. Truman. He is currently assigned
as the VFA and Non-Combat Expenditure Allocation (NCEA) Readiness
Officer to the Commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic in Norfolk,
Virginia. During his operational tours, Commander Orchard-Hays has
deployed four times in support of Operation Southern Watch, Operation
Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Unified Assistance. His awards include
the Air Medal (Strike Flight), the Navy Commendation Medal, the Joint
Service Achievement Medal, the Navy Achievement Medal, and various
other service awards. Commander Orchard-Hays has a B.S. in aeronautical engineering (space concentration) from RPI and a master of business administration degree from Webster University.
218
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
level is to look at how we are operating to see if there are some
places where we can become very efficient.
Based on that, there are three things in particular that I want
to talk about today: SMART tanking, cold (truck) refueling, and
simulation. Since you are going to hear a lot more about simulation
from Commander Scott Fuller, I will limit myself to providing the
fleet perspective. Then, I will identify some additional things that
we may be able to look at.
Many of you are no doubt aware that naval aviation is currently
undergoing a major recapitalization effort; as one of the results of
that, we have gotten rid of some of our older legacy aircraft. The
S-3 that Captain Randall Lynch flew is gone. That was our primary
refueling aircraft for the last 10 or 15 years; now we rely on the F/A18E/F Super Hornet for that mission. The photo in the upper right
of Figure 1 shows a Super Hornet refueling another Super Hornet.
The advantage of the Super Hornet is that it can carry more fuel
than the S-3. Unfortunately, it burns a lot more as well. So when
we first transitioned about 6 or 7 years ago, we basically stuck with
the same operational model we had used with the S-3s, which is
you launch a tanker aircraft any time you have airplanes flying.
You leave that guy out there burning; he burns a lot of his gas in
the process, and then you hope he has enough fuel left to refill inbound aircraft and then get back on deck.
There are some disadvantages to that. Obviously you are burning fuel, but you also have to put on a lot of fuel tanks to do that.
Although you cannot see it in the top picture, the refueling aircraft
is carrying five fuel tanks—four externals and an Aerial Refueling
Store (ARS) pod. Even when empty, those tanks add weight to the
aircraft. Thus, when an aircraft is carrying them, it is likely that the
pilot will have to get rid of any excess fuel in his plane when he
recovers to ensure that the overall aircraft weight remains below
the carrier’s recovery limit.
As part of the effort, Carrier Air Wing 5, operating out of Japan,
started looking at ways to be more efficient. In particular, their
effort was focused on making Hornet pilots more efficient. Then,
about 2 years ago, Carrier Air Wing 7 proposed an approach that
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
219
we call SMART—that stands for Short-Cycle Mission and Recovery
Tanking. We had to come up with an acronym; otherwise, we
would not be able to remember it!
Essentially what we do is reduce airborne gas. One of the risks
you accept is you do not have to have a tanker airborne all the
time. I will not go into all the operational details, nor will I say
that we are doing this wholesale, because we are not. There are
still times when you need to have a five wet, as we call it, tanker
airborne. But in the bottom picture in Figure 1 you can see a Super
Hornet refueling off of another F/A-18 equipped solely with an
ARS; it is carrying no other external tanks. That approach offers a
number of operational advantages, of which the most significant is
that by dropping all those fuel tanks the pilot can bring more internal weight back to the ship and thereby reduce the amount of fuel
that must be dumped before he recovers.
Figure 1. SMART Tanking
As it turns out, about 10% of our cost of doing business on
the carrier is refueling. So if we can reduce that, which we can,
we can save some money. We have found that we can get a 65%
reduction in the tanker fuel burned by going to SMART. While we
cannot use the SMART approach all of the time, there are significant portions of deployment where you can. And by doing so, we
220
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
can reduce the fuel burned by our tankers by 65%. That translates
roughly to a low single-digit percent increase in our operational
efficiency. We also benefit by not having to bring as much fuel to
re-supply the carrier, and we can use the fuel that we have saved
for other missions.
Air Wing 3 has always utilized this practice, and we have had
portions of other air wings that have tried this and are moving
toward utilizing this approach over the long-term. There are some
cultural challenges to overcome, primarily from senior leadership
because you have to make risk decisions on how often you are
going to have the aircraft airborne with or without fuel available.
The second initiative for improving efficiency looks at how
we do truck refueling at major training installations like Naval Air
Station Lemoore. For those of you who are not familiar with that
base, the airfield was actually laid out very well. Offset runways
enable pilots to minimize their taxi time both for takeoff and recovery, so they burn a lot less fuel.
On the other hand, they have laid hot pit refueling sites at the
throat of every taxiway coming back to the ramp. What that means
is that when an aircraft lands, it goes into the hot pit, and a fuel
hose is hooked up while the jet is turning. After fuel is pumped, the
plane is taxied back to the line. The idea behind this approach was
that it reduced the need to use fuel trucks. With fewer trucks, the
argument went, you need fewer drivers and you could save some
money. Unfortunately, the cost of fuel has increased substantially
since this approach was first devised.
In 2006, staff at Lemoore decided to look at the cost of doing
this in the face of higher fuel costs. They discovered that the aircraft
burns about 70 gallons of fuel during a “hot” refueling cycle. To put
that in perspective, the jet burns about 2000 gallons on a typical
sortie, so about 3% of that (70/2000 × 100%) is lost while sitting in
the hot pit for 18–20 minutes while refueling.
There are a number of ways to deal with this. Pilots could
obviously just shut down their aircraft when they pull into the pits
(Figure 2). But the pilots would not have anything to do at that point,
so they would hop out and you would have to get the maintenance
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
221
folks to tow the aircraft back to the line. After trying that for a while,
we realized that it would probably be smarter just to buy more fuel
trucks. In FY2006—a time when aviation fuel cost a mere 93 cents
per gallon—the Navy saved $1.3 million at Lemoore by adding
more trucks. To gain that savings, they added 1000 additional cold
truck refueling evolutions and eliminated 1000 hot pit refuelings.
Today, JP-5 costs $3.06 per gallon.
Figure 2. Cold (Truck) Refueling
The Navy has the same challenges at Naval Air Station Oceana,
where we are looking at ways to possibly buy more fuel trucks so
that our squadrons do not have to spend as much time running
our engines. While it is probably not a substantial amount of time,
our naval aviators could use the 20 minutes of time that they now
spend sitting in the jet while it is being refueled to do something
more important, like debriefing a student pilot. Obviously, this
should not be the primary driver of why we are doing this, but it is
an added benefit. When aircrew get in the airplane, they want to
fly. They do not want to just sit on the deck.
As I said, I am not going to spend a whole time on simulation because Commander Fuller is going to cover it in detail, but
I do want to describe how the fleet looks at simulation. Recently,
we have been under a lot of pressure to move a larger portion of
222
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
our overall training curriculum into simulators. In Figure 3 I have
listed some of the topics where we currently rely heavily on simulator training. The simulator is excellent for emergency procedures
and flight preparation and great for tactical repetition and mission
rehearsal, and that is primarily what we use it for.
Figure 3. Simulation
One of the things that we have been trying to accomplish for
at least 10 years is to figure out a way to move more of our training
and readiness program into our simulators. We have had limited
success doing that. We need to find the right balance between
training in the aircraft and training in simulators. It is clear that our
aircrews need to fly the airplane to learn some tasks. It is also clear
that you can do some training in a simulator to help prepare you
to actually fly your mission. The question we have not answered—
and it has been asked of us—is: what is the right mix of time in the
airplane and time in the simulator?
We are currently working with CNA to see whether we can
identify appropriate metrics for determining the right way to determine whether reducing flight hours by X and replacing them with
Y simulator hours will allow us to maintain the same capability.
From the fleet’s perspective, before we cut flight hours, we have
to have some sort of methodology to determine whether our
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
223
aviators, who will be receiving more simulator time and less flight
time, will be as competent in the airplane as those who receive
more flight time.
Some of the other energy efficiency initiatives that we are looking at are identified in Figure 4. Let me begin with fueling and defueling practices at our fields. We have found that on some of our
missions, we do not need all the gas that the jet can carry. Taking
advantage of that, however, requires some planning. We do not
necessarily know exactly which airplane we are going to be using;
sometimes an aircraft that we had planned on using is down for
maintenance, and sometimes something fails before we take off.
So, it is not going to be as simple as just putting in the gas that you
need for the mission.
Figure 4. Additional Potential Initiatives
One of the training evolutions where we know we need less
fuel is when we are just practicing landings, or what we call Field
Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP). In other instances, we may have
five fuel tanks on a jet, but we do not need fuel in all of them. We
need to find the balance between totally filling up the jet and only
partially filling it.
The last topic that I will discuss under fueling practices is maintenance. Occasionally we need the airplane to have as little gas as
possible on board so that our maintenance crews can work on it,
particularly when they are working on the fuel tanks.
224
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
As for mission planning, the Super Hornet recently received
certification for Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM),
which allows us to fly that aircraft at altitudes above 29,000 feet
over the United States. As a result, we are able to better optimize
fuel use during cross-country flights, particularly when we are
moving airplanes from one side of the country to the other. We are
also looking at ways to plan our flights better so that we optimize
fuel use.
In the case of external stores, we have a lot of training flights
where we put fuel tanks on our jets. The problem is when you put
tanks on the jet, you create a lot of drag. If you have to go back and
forth across country, you end up burning a lot of additional fuel.
So, we are trying to make sure that we spread out our resources
and truck them back and forth as opposed to putting them on the
airplane and burning extra gas to haul a training missile or fuel tank
from one place to another.
Finally, we have discovered that some of our other aircraft
platforms were not designed with all of the features of the F/A18. The Hornet has minimum startup and shutdown time on the
ground, and there is no need to run the auxiliary power unit (APU)
to do maintenance. Some of our other platforms were not designed
that way, and they have to run the APU to do maintenance. They
are both burning fuel and wearing out important parts. So we are
trying to make sure we have sufficient ground support equipment
to be able to do maintenance on our aircraft without requiring that
they use an APU.
225
Commander Scott Fuller
Simulators have been an integral part of naval aviation since
such flight operations began and seem certain to play an important
role for the foreseeable future. As you can see from Figure 1, naval
Commander Scott Fuller, a native of Lockport, New York, graduated
from the University of Rochester and was commissioned an Ensign
in 1991. Following Flight Training, he was designated a Naval Flight
Officer in 1993. Upon completion of Fleet Replacement Training at VP
30, Commander Fuller reported for his first operational tour with the
War Eagles of VP 16 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida. In 1997,
Commander Fuller returned to VP-30 to serve as a Fleet Replacement
Squadron Instructor. In 1999, Commander Fuller was accepted into the
Training and Administration of Reserve (TAR) Program and reported to
the Reserve Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Training Center (RATCEN)
at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove, Pennsylvania,
where he served as the Training Officer and Director of Training. After
a tour at RATCEN, Commander Fuller reported back to Jacksonville,
Florida, where he served as the Training Officer and Maintenance
Officer for the VP-62 Broadarrows. He served as the Officer-in-Charge
of VP-92 in Brunswick, Maine, from 2005 to 2006. After completion of his Officer-in-Charge tour he reported to CPRW-11, where he
served as the Operational Support Officer and Wing-11 Operations
Officer. Screening for Commander Aviation Command in the spring
of 2007, Commander Fuller reported back to the Broadarrows of
VP-62 and served as their Executive Officer and Commanding Officer.
Following his command tour he reported to Office of the Chief of Naval
Operations Staff in Washington, D.C., where he currently serves as the
Aviation Training Resources Section Head, overseeing Chief of Naval
Air Training Training and Simulation Programs for Naval Aviation.
Commander Fuller’s decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal
(three awards), the Navy Commendation Medal (three awards), and the
Navy Achievement Medal (three awards), as well as other awards.
226
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
aviation’s use of training simulators—or just “trainers” in the Navy
vernacular—continues to evolve. Trainers were initially developed
for use by aviators going through our undergraduate training programs. Because of technological limitations, those systems were
used primarily to review basic aviation fundamentals and to reinforce basic procedures to maximize actual flight training events.
Figure 1. Evolution of Naval Aviation Simulation
As Commander Daniel Orchard-Hays indicated, the Navy
has been looking into incorporating additional simulation into its
overall fleet training plan to ensure that naval aviators receive the
right mix of training while preserving fuel, reducing the flight hours
accumulated on our aircraft, and reducing non-combat expenditures for air-delivered ordnance. We have just completed a thorough analysis of aviation simulators, which we have been briefing
up the command chain within the Pentagon. The overall objective
of the study was to understand the current fidelity of our simulators
today and then look into the future and see what simulators we
need to invest in to gain additional training benefits.
As part of that study, we reviewed the entire training system
selection process that the Navy uses to analyze the skill set
required by our aviators. The bottom line is that we want to make
sure our simulators are developed from the basics—from when a
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
227
prospective aviator enters flight school to start his training, all the
way to when he gets to his fleet aircraft. We use the phrase “street
to fleet” to characterize this entire training continuum. We begin
by literally taking the person off the street and, through the appropriate training regimen, get him or her into a fleet aircraft. It is a
very long process that is supported by a rigorous analysis program
to ensure that we are meeting training objectives.
Figure 2 depicts the flight training program for the young pilot.
As you can see, it is a mix of aircraft hours and simulator hours.
During the early phases of naval aviator training, you see more
flight hours than you see simulator hours because the trainee has
to get that basic air worthiness, that basic air sense that you just
cannot fully replicate in the trainer. The right mix is something that
we look at frequently. What is that right balance between aircraft,
simulator, and the classroom? Of course, when I say classroom, I
am talking not just stand-up lectures, but computer-based training
as well.
Figure 2. Undergraduate Pilot Training
In the early phase of pilot training, the curriculum focuses on
air worthiness and air sense. During this phase, the prospective
pilot spends more training time in the aircraft than in simulators.
However, simulators are used to teach basic procedures so that
228
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
when the aviator gets into the plane for the first time, they know
where the buttons are, which allows them to focus on flying the
plane.
Because the undergraduate military flight officer, i.e., the
back-seat guy, or officially, the radar intercept officer (RIO), is far
more concerned with learning how to employ the various electronic systems that he will be using, his training can include more
simulation (Figure 3). So you will see we have more simulation
in the pipeline for these aviators, but again, balanced with classroom training and flying the actual aircraft to produce the overall
aviator.
Figure 3. Undergraduate Military Flight Officer Training
Once the aviator gets his wings, we take him to the fleet
replacement squadron, where, for the first time, the prospective
aviator gets to fly the type/model/series aircraft that he or she is
going to be operating in the fleet, whether it is the F/A-18, the
H-60R or H-60S helicopters, or the P-3, which we are changing to
the P-8. While in the fleet replacement squadron (Figure 4), future
pilots get substantial platform-specific training. And, because they
already have the basic flight skills, more of that training can be
conducted using simulators.
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
229
Figure 4. Fleet Replacement Squadron Training
Now we are trying to perfect the aviator’s ability to employ
the aircraft tactically. As a result, you see more weapon system
trainers and more crew coordination elements because you are
not just focusing on flying the plane, but you want to employ it as
a weapon system and take all the people that are on that platform
with you and combine them into a total crew. Thus, we see more
simulators as we move through our pipeline.
Once an aviator graduates and gets through the fleet replacement squadron, he or she goes to the fleet. The fleet uses simulation as part of what is called the training and readiness (T&R)
matrix. The T&R matrix is the set of tasks that an aircrew must
learn in order to be combat ready for deployment anywhere in
the world. On the left-hand side of Figure 5, I have identified the
current percentages of training time that must be done in the aircraft compared to what we can do with simulators. In looking at
these numbers, it is helpful to remember that most of our existing
simulators were built as procedural trainers to train undergraduate
aviators going through the basic pipeline. Since the focus was procedures, really high fidelity was not needed. Moreover, the underlying technology was not nearly as sophisticated as it is now. As
a result, only a relatively small fraction of training is accomplished
230
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
using simulators. As you can see from the data on the right-hand
side of Figure 5, we hope to increase the simulation percentages
substantially in the future.
Figure 5. Fleet Training Accomplished in Simulators
But what we are doing now is we have completed a thorough
analysis and have challenged ourselves to do more simulation and
enhance the simulation experience with upgraded visual displays
and communications capabilities. Now we can ask questions such
as: What is an improved simulation capability going to do for us? Is
it going to save fuel? Is it going to save wear and tear on the aircraft
and help us become more efficient overall?
As the Navy’s Air Boss—the commander of Naval Air Forces—
has pointed out, the skills required of naval aviators differ markedly from those needed by commercial airline pilots. The fact that
airline pilots spend a lot of time flying simulators to maintain their
skills does not mean that naval aviators should be trained in the
same way. The skill set required to fly a modern, high-speed fighter
aircraft is quite complex. Landing on a pitching and rolling aircraft carrier deck at night is a lot more difficult than landing on
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
231
10,000 feet of hard runway at Dulles International Airport. Naval
aviators require substantial flight time to become proficient. It is
important to remember, too, that the pilot flying for United or
American Airlines probably received his basic aviation training in
the military and thus can now concentrate on becoming proficient
with the systems he will use when airborne.
So we have a different mix there that we are constantly evaluating to ensure that we have the right balance. A naval aviator must
be proficient at flying his or her aircraft and getting it back on the
ship even in the most austere conditions. At the same time, an
aircrew can use a simulator to improve their ability to conduct mission planning, so that when they go and fly, the crew only has to
practice the mission once in the air because they rehearsed it 10
times in the simulator. Thus, they are much more efficient. So that
is what we are trying to do. We are trying to see what we can do
with our trainers to get more bang for the buck.
Figure 6. Anticipated Return on Investment by Investing
in Simulation
So far, we have focused on the F/A-18E, F, and G models and
the MH-60 R and S model helicopters. For the near future, these
platforms are going to take up about 78% of our flight hours. And,
because they are going to be around for a considerable amount of
232
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
time, we have taken a look at the trainers—the procedural trainers—that we use for these aircraft. We have asked the fleet—the
people who use them daily—what they wanted us to invest in so
that we can accomplish additional training in our simulators. Some
of the things that they came up with are listed on the right-hand
side of Figure 6.
In summary, the Director of Air Warfare is working with Task
Force Energy to see whether additional investments in simulators
can enhance aircrew training while reducing flight hours and wear
and tear on our aircraft. That is pretty much the bottom line of
what we are trying to do with simulation. We want to be more
efficient; at the same time, we recognize that doing so will involve
some cultural changes. So, we are working on that as well.
Q&
A
Session with THE PANELISTS
week I was attending a conference at the University of
Q: Last
Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs entitled “Empty
Stomachs, Loaded Rifles, Food Scarcity and Global Security.” The conference identified a whole raft of issues contributing to hunger in different parts of the world. There was near-universal perception that using
foodstuffs for biofuels was complete and utter madness. In an era when
population growth is outstripping the world’s capacity for growing food
to feed that population, it is important that we recognize that this perception is bubbling up amongst people. One could argue, therefore, that
reliance on biofuels contributes to instability and thus works against the
strategy of conflict prevention. I would appreciate your perspective on
this important issue.
Mr. Rick K amin: I agree completely that using food crops for
fuel is not an appropriate way of addressing future energy needs.
I think we have learned some of these lessons from our nation’s
experience with using corn to produce ethanol. While I am not
in an official position, I can say that the Navy has been focusing
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
233
a lot of our efforts on things that are sustainable, renewable, and
non-competitive with food crops. In particular, we are looking at
things like algae and camelina that can be grown on fallow land
or that can be used as a rotation crop in between crops of wheat
or corn.
We are also looking at using cellulosic wastes, garbage, or
other types of waste that can be converted into biofuels. At the
same time, we have to recognize that we have got to start somewhere, with what is available, in order to develop the technologies to create biofuels and the necessary processes for evaluating
them, certifying them, and qualifying them for use. So I do not
think anyone is in disagreement that we do not want to be food
competitive; we do not want to look at food crops as our source
for biofuels.
when someone is working up a program, they have
Q: Often
three pillars to worry about—performance, risk, and cost.
In describing the development of alternative fuels, we have heard a lot
about performance and risk, but cost was not discussed. Could you give
us some information on that?
Mr. Rick K amin: Cost is always an issue. When one looks at
fuel alternatives in the military world or in the commercial world
for that matter, cost is important. So, we are doing things to reduce
cost. At this point in the game, costs for alternative fuels are higher
than those for petroleum-based fuels because we are basically
talking about pilot-scale facilities, whether for growing crops, producing algae, or demonstrating the necessary refining capability.
At the same time, it is important to note that what we are doing
is not being done in a vacuum. There are a lot of people beyond
the Navy looking at these issues, and a lot of people are putting in
a lot of effort across the government—especially the Department
of Energy and the Department of Agriculture—and commercial
industry, especially the commercial airlines.
So, a lot of people are addressing the issue of cost. Our
approach is to let the people who are focused on cost and commercialization deal with those issues since they can do so more
efficiently and more productively than we can. What the Navy is
234
Climate and Energy Proceedings 2011
doing is focusing on being an early adopter, setting a demand signal so as to aggressively incentivize those people who are looking
at the cost issues.
said that the Navy’s goal was to demonstrate a strike
Q: You
group fueled from alternative sources by 2012 and to deploy
that strike group by 2016. Is industry up to the challenge of producing
the necessary amount of fuel in those timelines?
Mr. Rick K amin: Yes, all the signals from the industry are that
that demand can be met, both in 2012 and 2016. We are already
seeing procurements on the street because 2012 is not that far
away. As we start moving toward 2016, we will not be the only
people looking for this fuel, and we will not be the only people
setting the demand signal.
you think that the algae source for fuel is going to be a
Q: Do
wave of the future or is it just in the experimental stage right
now? How would you evaluate that?
Mr. Rick K amin: As far as making fuel oils from renewable
sources, algae is likely to be a primary source mainly because the
amount of product per acre used is significantly better than for
any plant crop you can grow. This makes sense, because the algae
basically yield oil without growing the rest of the plant, as is the
case with traditional agricultural crops. So, virtually everyone is
betting on algae as being very successful in the future. There are
people talking about scaling up what used to be 5-acre farms to
50-acre farms to 500-acre farms in the next couple of years. There
are folks growing algae heterotrophically in batch fermenters who
are looking at facilities where they can extend their quantities and
reduce their costs. It is becoming a “chicken-or-the-egg” game of
demand signal versus supply, and that is where the challenge is
going to be. Will the supply and the investment get the technology
commercialized to the point that we will get the demand that we
are looking for? As of today, everything looks very positive.
Chapter 7 Adapting Air Operations to Energy Challenges
235
Coast Guard runs alternative fuels programs out of
Q: The
New London, Connecticut, for both small boats and aviation. Have you looked at or does the panel have knowledge of some of the
promising returns from buterol? It was the fuel that actually fueled the
Spitfires in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Although it was expensive to
make at that time, it now looks promising to us.
Mr. Rick K amin: Buterol, as it is, probably would not work in
our systems because of the type of engines that we use. But there
are people who are looking at alcohol derivatives and who are
developing processes to turn alcohols from various sources into a
kerosene fuel that our gas turbines can operate on.
to the panel that talked about strategic planQ: Iningwantandto link
where we are going to be operating in the future.
Is any concurrent analysis being done with the development of these
alternative fuels with where they would be deployed? Are we going to
be relying on industry in the areas of operation or will we be transporting the fuels? What is the plan for that?
Mr. Rick K amin: There are studies looking at what fuel sources
work best in various areas of the world and what the potentials are
for those sources’ quantities. I know that the Department of Energy
and commercial aviation have been studying that, although their
reports have not been released. Because the Navy is a global force,
we are not going to carry these fuels around with us to the point
they are needed. As I indicated previously, we are specifying that
any biofuels we use be drop-in replacements, which means they
can be intermingled with petroleum-based products as well. So I
do not think there is any intention to haul these fuels around the
world. We need to keep in mind that Americans are not the only
people on the planet who are looking at these types of technologies. There are also people in Europe and other places who are
looking at how to make kerosene-based fuels from the renewable
sources prevalent in their part of the world. So, we hope to be able
to make use of these types of products that are produced in other
parts of the world that meet our specifications.