Apparently this is the handy work of a patriotic farmer cuts this message every year, with the aid of a GPS in his tractor. Should put a smile on the face of the pilots every time they see this one. Pretty cool stuff!
Image Source: Imgur via Reddit
(Source: Washington Post)
For the Defense Department, the largest consumer of energy in the United States, addiction to fuel has greater costs than the roughly $18 billion the agency spent on it last year.
By some estimates, about half of the U.S. military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are related to attacks with improvised explosive devices on convoys, many of which are carrying fuel. As of March 20, 3,426 service members had been killed by hostile fire in Iraq, 1,823 of them victims of IEDs.
“Every time you bring a gallon of fuel forward, you have to send a convoy,” said Alan R. Shaffer, director of defense research and engineering at the Pentagon. “That puts people’s lives at risk.”
Spurred by this grim reality, the Pentagon, which traditionally has not made saving energy much of a priority, has launched initiatives to find alternative fuel sources. The goals include saving money, preserving dwindling natural resources and lessening U.S. dependence on foreign sources.
“The honest-to-God truth, the most compelling reason to do it is it saves lives,” said Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson, director of operations and logistics for the Army. “It takes drivers off the road.”
Other than fueling jet engines, the largest drain on U.S. military fuel supplies comes from running generators at forward operating bases. The Pentagon says that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have required more fuel on a daily basis than any other war in history. Since the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq began in 2001 and 2003, respectively, the amount of oil consumption at forward bases has increased from 50 million gallons to 500 million gallons a year.
To help reduce consumption, the Pentagon is using $300 million of the $7.4 billion it received from the economic stimulus package to accelerate existing programs for developing alternative fuels and saving energy.
The Pentagon is also testing the use of solar and geothermal energy to provide power at installations. The Army, for example, is partnering with a private firm to build an enormous, 500-megawatt solar farm at Fort Irwin, Calif. The farm would supply the 30 to 35 megawatts needed to operate the installation, with the remaining available for sale to the California electrical grid.
About $6 million is aimed at improving a program run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to convert algae into jet propulsion fuel 8, or JP-8, that could power Navy and Air Force aircraft.
Other initiatives include $27 million to develop a hybrid engine the Army could use in tactical vehicles and $2 million to develop highly efficient portable fuel cells that could reduce the battery load carried by infantry soldiers.
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Photo: VirtualSugar@ flickr
(Source: Washington Post)
WASHINGTON — Lying on her chest in a small crawl space, Staff Sgt. Dana Fernkas watches the gray Air Force jet emerge from the clouds and ease up just behind the rear window in the belly of her plane.
While most cargo and passenger planes stay thousands of feet apart in the air, the big KC-10 roared up just below where Fernkas lay, close enough that the wings patch on the other pilot’s jumpsuit was clearly visible. All this while both aircraft raced 300 miles per hour over the Atlantic Ocean.
For gas stations in the sky, this is full-service.
Known as a boom operator, Fernkas controls a long pipe that extends off the back of the plane like a tail. Her aircraft, the size of medium passenger jet, is an aerial refueling tanker known as the KC-135, one of about 450 the Air Force operates. Fuel is stored in the plane’s wings and below the cabin floor. Gassing up a fighter could take just a few minutes. Bigger planes may take up to a half hour.
With a joy stick in one hand and a lever in the other, she “flies” the boom, guiding the tip slowly into a gas nozzle on top of the other plane, a KC-10 that also serves as a tanker, although bigger. Once it slides into place, the boom can deliver a portion of the 200,000 pounds of jet fuel the KC-135 can carry.
“The tanker is key to our entire mission,” said Gen. Arthur Lichte, head of the Air Force command that oversees the KC-135. It gasses up other aircraft in flight, allowing everything from fighter jets to lumbering cargo planes to fly farther than they could on one tank of gas.
The Pentagon has been trying for a decade to build new refueling planes to replace the KC-135, some of which date from mid-1950s, like the one Fernkas flew in. But the effort has been stymied by bitter competition among contractors, heavy pressure from Congress and missteps by the Air Force.
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