Comments on: Navy Launches Green Hornet

By: roland

roland — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:25:18 +0000

Aside from green energy , I think it would be cool if we make/modify the hornets engine the same speed capacity as the F-22 and F-23.

By: elgatoso

elgatoso — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:28:15 +0000

it is time for a all nuclear navy

By: kurtis

kurtis — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:33:29 +0000

umm if u think going green is girly-man engineering then you got issues

By: kurtis

kurtis — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:30:42 +0000

sup dude

By: kurtis

kurtis — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:28:59 +0000

omg! im a crazy beast

By: kurtis

kurtis — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:26:52 +0000

Deltaflot i like my french fires i hope it does smell like french fires

By: J.Baldwin

J.Baldwin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:40:33 +0000

It always take people with vision to drag the nay sayer into a better approach. Seems like some in this forum would still perfer a coal burning navy.

By: Davidatp

Davidatp — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:37:26 +0000

It’s been a long time coming. Glad to see the Navy is leading the way as usual…

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:56:01 +0000

Survivalists, off gridders, patriots in America are in grave need of super-insulation, information technologies and applications! We wish to conserve oil, feed the nation, this way! Can the U.S. Navy Labs help us out! We appreciated the short blurb ( clandestine) depleted Uranium batteries and the fantastic light weight 400 hz super-generators by the “Patriot” in your name! Can’t find the site on Google anymore! Howcum? Please “dribble down” any technologies that can help save oil and make for better support for you by survivors, off-gridders as we stand tall for you and your work!

By: F/18 mech

F/18 mech — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:39:43 +0000

Great to try new methods, especially with the savings of 127,000 barrels per year. When they start favoring contracts for “energy efficiency” however, that becomes scary. If this process slows our logistics speed, it will have a ripple affect on our maintenance turnaround. This would be fine for a “rag” squadron, but I find it unlikely our sea squadrons/battlegroups will transition as fast as the author is contending.

By: jimbo

jimbo — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:19:16 +0000

Well i think this was thought up way before obama’s administration.. well atleast on the air force side… been in the works for years! i suspect the navy side has been working on this for awile too, atleast planning it.….

By: Drake1

Drake1 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:37:24 +0000

I think the Obama Administration wants to use the military as test bed for this technology, with an eye for touting various prototypes produced from it, (such as the green Hornet) to push for domestic adoption of similar technologies. If it actually works, I’m all for it, but you can’t deny the political component of this initiative.

By: jimbo

jimbo — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:26:10 +0000

I think the military wants to be more intedepenant from foreign oil.. and i think this is the right step.

Ya i wondered about the smell myself… haha i actually like the smell of jet fuel in the morngin though.. ahha

By: Deltaflot

Deltaflot — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:55:04 +0000

So does this mean that F-18 exhaust will smell like french fries like the exhaust from some of these biodiesel cars running around As stated before, if it doesn’t hurt the military’s mission, than I all for it.

By: Curt

Curt — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:24:41 +0000

Not a lot new here, just repackaged info. Couple of things,
– Change to the legacy F-18s is to fly higher in controlled airspace. No change in the aircraft, merely changing equipment to make the FAA (and equivilent civilian air control agencies) happy. The plane could always fly that high, it just couldn’t regularly use the airspace. This was announced months ago.

- Ditto new anti-fouling paint. Its being tested now and was announced months ago. Good antifouling paint helps in a variety of ways beyond fuel savings (more speed, less cleaning, potentially longer time between docking, potentially lower noise) and the Navy has been updating its materials for litterally its entire existance.

- Stern flaps have been studied for years. Issue has always been that the hassle of stern flaps (more hydraulics, more complexity when docking, weights at the extreme end of the ship, etc), vastly outweigh the fuel savings that are only derived at higher speeds (stern flaps are used to reduce squatting). When you add the cost of retro-fitting, not sure it will make sense.

@Alex,
I don’t envision the Navy hauling biofuels (or synthetic fuels for that matter) all the way around the world to run the fleet unless they absolutely have too. Most of the fuel is going to be sourced somewhere nearby if possible, it is a lot cheaper that way. We would need a lot more tankers than we have now for that.

@atacms
The biofuels the USN and USAF has been testing in jet engines will work fine in Army vehicles with no changes. It is basically just a different mix that is still JetA1/JP5/JP8. When the navy speaks of hybrid drive, they are talking integrated electric drive (DDG1000) or slow speed electric drive (LHD7). No batteries or other super high tech stuff, only better efficiency from your normal engines that will use “biofuel” that looks just like DFM or JP5.

@Drake1
No ethanol here, they are using a biodiesel like product mixed with JET A1. JP5 and JP8 is basically Jet A1 with some additives.

By: roland

roland — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:05:08 +0000

I think its cool. This is a step forward to green energy.

GO NAVY!

By: Daniel Russ

Daniel Russ — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:20:33 +0000

If using less fuel to do the same job is girl-man, then I’m all for it.

That said, there is nothing girly man about green energy. It’s intelligent.

Respectfully,

Daniel Russ
Civilianmilitaryintelligencegroup.com

By: Drake1

Drake1 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:32:00 +0000

The Navy conducted the initial tests yesterday of a biofuel powered engine for a new F/A-18 “Green Hornet,”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
More ethanol subsidies coming right up.

The Navy also plans to convert its fleet of 50,000 commercial vehicles at its many bases to electric and hybrid power by 2015. By 2020, half of all the service’s shore-based installation energy use will be powered by alternative fuels as well as solar, wind and geothermal sources.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Are renewable truly ready for the military? This stuff still isn’t ready for the challenge on the mainland, and we are already forcing it on the military, becuase the military has to follow orders, whether it works or not.

By: protobeast

protobeast — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:29:03 +0000

As long as it doesn’t affect the lethal efficiency of our military at all, I suppose the fuel efficiency pursuit is ok. But buying into the green movement smacks of girly-man engineering.

By: alex

alex — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:58:03 +0000

This is a great way to make our military much more lethal and effective. I don’t really care what guise they do this under, but having an energy independent navy (and military for that matter) gives us an enormous advantage in any conflict. Not only that, but the technologies that defense contractors will develop to be used in these ships, jets and vehicles will find their way into the commercial industry as well.