A commercial airliner has taken flight with both its engines running on sustainable fuel recycled from waste products, a collaboration between Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and the German space agency.
The plane, an A350, took off from southern France and spent about 30 minutes in the air on three separate occasions in April.
The results look promising, according to a press release.
Toby Wells, head of future fuels at Airbus, said that the particular emissions of the aircraft were much lower when using the 100 percent SAF. The formation of contrails is a big contribution to aviation's climate impact.
The initial results are very promising, but we still have a lot more data to analyze.
100 percent sustainable aviation fuel was used for the jet's fuel. The airline industry only allows planes to use blends made up of 50 percent SAF and conventional jet fuel.
The carbon footprint of SAF is much smaller because it doesn't need fossil fuels to produce it.
The fuel can be made from a variety of waste materials including cooking oil, other waste oils, and even solid waste from homes and businesses.
If relying entirely on SAF is feasible, it is important to get hands-on data.
Steven Le Moing, program manager at Airbus, said in a statement that the only way to gather the full set of emissions data necessary for this program to be successful is to fly an aircraft in real conditions. In-flight testing of the A350 gives it an advantage of being able to detect particulates from behind an aircraft at high altitude.
Rolls-Royce's director of product development said that teams found no engineering obstacle to their engines running on 100 percent SAF.
It is a promising new development that could allow us to greatly reduce the carbon footprint of commercial airliners.
The sustainable air fuel trial is being conducted by Rolls Royce and Airbus.
The World's First US-to-Australia Biofuel Flight was powered by Mustard Seeds.
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