Japan Airlines successfully test-flies Boeing 747-300 aircraft with camelina biofuel in one engine

Japan Airlines (JAL), the national airline and flag carrier of Japan, has conducted the world’s first successful test-flight using biofuel made primarily of a non-food crop called camelina on one of the engines of a Boeing 747-300 aircraft.

Japan Airlines, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan, and the largest airline in Asia, conducted the experiment in a joint project with the United States-based Boeing Company and aircraft-engine manufacturer Pratt and Whitney.

In the demonstration flight, which lasted about 90 minutes, one of the Pratt & Whitney engines on the Boeing 747-300 aircraft was powered by biofuel mixed with conventional aviation turbine fuel.

The flight was conducted between Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and an area off Sendai in Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture, at a cruising altitude of about 10,000 metres.

The test flight carried out on January 30, 2009, was the Boeing Company’s fourth project using biofuel.

It was also the first of its kind in Asia and only the fourth of its kind in the world – following the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States. Virgin Atlantic Airways of United Kingdom, Continental Airlines of the United States, and three New Zealand-based airlines have successfully carried out flight tests using biofuel in association with the Boeing Company. Haruka Nishimatsu, president of Japan Airlines, said in a statement that neither the Boeing 747-300 aircraft nor the engine needed any modification for the experimental flight using the biofuel.

“The demonstration flight brings us ever closer to finding a greener alternative to traditional petroleum-based fuel, and when biofuels are produced in sufficient amounts to make them commercially viable, we hope to be one of the first airlines in the world to start powering our aircraft using them,” Nishimatsu added.

The biofuel component of 9,000 liters used by Japan Airlines in one of the engines of the Boeing 747-300 aircraft was a mixture of second-generation biofuel feedstocks, 84% camelina, 15% jatropha, and 1%.

Camelina grows even in poor soil and its oil is normally used in lamps, Japan Airlines said. Since camelina is inedible, its use as jet fuel is unlikely to affect the world’s food market adversely.

An acre of camelina produces 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of seeds and about 100 gallons of camelina oil. The seeds that remain after the crushing process can be used as animal feedstock and as organic matter for biomass facilities, according to experts.