(Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) Ross McCurdy, a science teacher from Ponaganset High School in Glocester, Rhode Island, has flown to Santa Monica, California, and back in a 1980 diesel-powered Cessna 182 owned by a New Jersey flying club using a 50-50 mix of Jet A and Camelina plant-seed oil, also known as the Siberian oilseed. There was little danger; even United Airlines uses a 70-30 biofuel mix (30 percent biofuel) on its flights from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
McCurdy had his 12-year-old son, Aedan, along for the flight and was joined by other pilots. One of those helped McCurdy with Aspen avionics installed in 2014 in the aircraft that was converted to SMA diesel power in 2009 by the Paramus Flying Club in Caldwell, New Jersey. It uses a 230-horsepower SMA SR305 diesel engine. The fuel meets ASTM standards for aviation use and was provided by the U.S. Air Force. McCurdy returned to North Central State Airport in Providence, Rhode Island, April 25 following 50 hours of flight in 10 days, consuming nearly 600 gallons of fuel. READ MORE and MORE (Valley Breeze) and MORE
Excerpt from Valley Breeze: McCurdy, who holds a commercial pilot’s license and instrument rating, said that the biofuel performed perfectly in the SMA aviation diesel engine. The longest non-stop stretch of flying was 750 nautical miles – 5 hours and 17 minutes – from the Grand Prairie Municipal Airport in Texas to the Moraine Airpark in Ohio.
…
“The trip was superb,” Schenck (co-pilot and Cumberland resident Alex Schenck) said, adding that the airplane performed “with no indication that we were using any sort of fuel outside of the typical JET-A.”
The flight demonstrates that there are “green” solutions to flying. “Now the challenge is to find a way to increase overall adoption,” he told The Observer in an email.
…
Aedan also had the chance to talk with elementary and middle school students in Arizona and answer their questions.
Without giving details, McCurdy said that his next project is an “around the world” flight using aviation biofuel. READ MORE