The Royal Air Force has achieved a significant milestone by successfully conducting the first air-to-air refuelling mission utilising a blend of sustainable aviation fuel and conventional jet fuel.
The mission involved a Typhoon and C-130 Hercules aircraft, which were refuelled by a Voyager.
The Voyager had previously been used in successful initial trials conducted in November 2022, during which it operated on 100% sustainable aviation fuel.
The RAF say here that the leftover fuel from the trial was blended with conventional jet fuel at a ratio of 46-48%. The RAF collaborated with Air BP to re-certify the fuel to ensure it met the necessary standards for a safe and effective mission.
“Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is produced from waste-based sustainable feedstocks, such as used cooking oil, and has been demonstrated to reduce lifecycle carbon emissions by up to 80% compared to conventional jet fuel. Over time, increased use of SAF will help to reduce the RAF’s dependence on global supply chains and fossil fuels, thereby enhancing operational resilience.
To reduce carbon emissions, the RAF is evaluating a range of alternative fuel options, including SAF, to ensure that the United Kingdom remains at the forefront of developing technology. Different approaches will be suitable for different platforms and environments, and a variety of options are being considered to ensure that the RAF has the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances.”
Baroness Goldie, a Defence Minister, was quoted here as saying:
“This is another key achievement in the Royal Air Force’s remarkable progress to increase their use of sustainable fuel. With potential benefits for the environment and operational resilience, this important work alongside expert defence industry and scientific teams in the UK is crucial for the RAF’s future resilience.”
You can read more about this here.
Regardless of your views on climate change, sustainability and whether the military should get involved in that sort of thing, this development will create a more resilient fuel supply and make us less dependent on certain nations and regions which we have a complex relationship with.
Yeah, this is key- achieving less dependence on international supplies of strategic stuff like fuel.
Germany seemlingly tried the same with success some time ago. In 30 years we will see lots of SAF in civilian use – and this fuel stock will also have military relevance, so better to ensure compatibility.
If only the positives are posted it is Propaganda.
What are the cons? engine life cycles, effects on performance , fuel cost, how “sustainability” was calculated, etc…?
And where does the basic raw material come from, yes it’s waste and left overs but the UK imports much of that for our use so perhaps not so great after all for the war fighters and of course can it be obtained when deployed????? How much does it cost to produce too? All good questions me thinks
It’s from your chip shop.
Matt ,expect, ground crew too smell like a Harry Ramsdon employee whilst refuelling,
It comes from all over the place and of course the supply chain and the fuels use tend to be a self influencing cycle which is why it has to be built up slowly. The availability of this fuel is quite restricted presently but these tests will help to expand it as they prove its technical viability. There is additional work going on presently in particular for Skyrora to use solid plastic based waste products for rocket fuel, the company that develops it is presently claiming this fuel has potential for a range of other industrial uses too. How valid that is and when, let alone how green it would be overall is still a matter of testing and conjecture true, but a lot of work in this area is thankfully taking place so that processes that still require a petrochemical like based fuel can be addressed and the damage reduced. Green Hydrogen is starting to become more practical too esp if developments I have read about prove as scalable and effective as they are achieving in the experimental stage.
Sure, while the concept is still being worked through, the local supply chain isn’t going to be built out and it’ll likely come from all over. But it’s a lot better to build up domestic production for processing waste products (once/if proven), than relying on “virgin” stocks of jet fuel from elsewhere. Even if it’s still a blend, because we can’t produce enough domestically, it still means the stuff we have to import goes further.
I think there is that aspect Alex, but also need to work out those factors in 10 years, 20 years and 30 years time. It’s (very) conceivable that the cost and security of fossil based aviation fuel over the lifecycle of current aircraft will become both unsustainable and insecure. Therefore it is right that the technology for a viable alternative is proven now so that the military can switch.
What will be really interesting is how all the diesel engines in service will transition or not. After all, my experience from working with the RN is that it likes diesel because it’s relatively inert. Hence even the generators we were procuring for land had to be diesel so that they could go ‘afloat’.
That’s an interesting point this place is a gem of information you would rarely come across otherwise. Certainly would affect any decision to go with a different technology and the US has long aimed to use a single fuel type on its ships even its America class indeed especially so, so that overall fuel storage can be reduced without damaging operational matters.
We do have indigenous oil production and refining…..although I am sure someone will want to get rid of it on the alter of Net Zero!
Might be good to retain some for national security and resilience?
RR has been doing test work for some time, indeed it has designed its new Pearl engines around moving to this (or similar) sustainable fuels and much of the technology from those new technology engines is being incorporated into its next generation military engines. This is all part of that process of learning both from running new-tech engines on the ground presently and adapting present tech engines to run successfully upon it. The whole point of doing these tests and experiments is precisely so that they can learn about the answers to the very questions you pose. Obviously you can’t answer them until the testing is far more mature as theoretical burn and wear effects tend not to be exact compared to those in representative operational scenarios. So this is a long term learning curve to help in adapting to present engines but even more so developing and building those new tech engines before design decisions are set in concrete. Makes massive sense in this and in strategic matters too as well as overall environmental considerations.
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Fossil fuels are bad for the environment and their supply is very fragile. Pretty much all the good sources are in hotspots or not exactly friendly nations.
So any issues would have to be major for this not to be worth it.
But hey, naysayers and pessimists like you will criticise any attempts at any change. Never a silver lining with you lot.
My question is; what is the other 6% in the mix, additives?
The answer to your question can be found via these two links.
Good Luck!
LINK
LINK
I gave up
SAF is key to replacing “Net Zero” (just an accounting trick to keep the oil wells going a bit longer) with actual zero.
There is simply too much carbon trapped below ground for us to handle even if we turned every field into a forest.
If we pull it all out we’ll kill ourselves so it has to come from elsewhere.
I don’t necessarily agree with your view of net zero. It is a step in the process and negligible emission levels should certainly be manageable. That said, your comment stands out as the most salient. It is that simple. We must untie the codependency of economic output to oil production no matter how much of a paradigm shift it appears to be or how much it pisses off the Russians et al.
Ah but that’s not how carbon credits are used: not to manage negligible emissions but to hide a continuing rise in emissions.
Also I’d point out that the credits must come from somewhere, and so far that means taking fertile land and promising not to use it forever and instead let it become wild forest, which is a trick you can’t pull forever.
Eventually we’ll be stuck choosing between food and the forests and there will be no way back for us. The only way to avoid this is to leave the carbon trapped in the ground.
How exactly does this new fuel result in 80 % less carbon dioxide ? Surely the burning of any carbon-based fuel produces carbon dioxide ?
I think I’m missing something here. Very happy to be corrected.
SAF is a blend of renewable fuels, the carbon is being taken from the air in the first place rather than dug out of the ground so its net 80% less carbon emissions rather than gross.
Sorry what ? Are you saying that if trees (for example) were used to burn for fuel (in some sort of steam punk stylee) that the carbon dioxide the burning produced wouldnt be added to the air…it would surely?
Its the same carbon dioxide that the tree removed from the air when growing that you are returning when you burn it, its a balanced cycle. When you use coal and oil whose carbon has been permanently locked away for millions of years however you are adding carbon to the air that has not been there in previous human existence.
I think the RAF and their controlling politicians need to concentrate their efforts on getting those Hawks fixed; pilot training underway; those Typhoons,fixed we are told are waiting parts from Germany, instead of virtue signalling to the world their eco-credentials. I want a RAF that can shoot down anyone attacking us and that can bomb the crap out of any enemy. I.E do it’s job.
Pretty sure the RAF is capable of doing more than one thing at a time 🥱
This isn’t about ‘virtue-signalling’ it’s about
• reducing the damage done to the climate, and ultimately the U.K., by our military using carbon-based fuels
• giving us greater fuel resilience and independence from other nations (ask the Germans how begging dependent on Russian gas has worked for them)
Man made climate change is a myth. Now I accept man maybe making things worse. I do not know for sure unlike those who sell you this climate change never admit they could be wrong. Always question those who do that. But one proven fact remains. The Earth has cooled and warmed prior to homo sapiens. History has proven the species that adapts survives. We need to adapt rather than trying to change, what we probably cannot change. RAF needs to be ready big time because they deter aggression. You will not be worrying about climate change if those Russian nukes it us.
“Man made climate change is a myth.”
So says you and anyone else who feels it’s too inconvenient to make any changes. Thankfully actual experts know that it’s, sadly, all too real.
Steve R you have been brain washed mate. I am not having ago at experts, but given the number of Covid deaths and still counting we need to get experts in prospective. So for instance one scientist, reported in the BBC of all places, calculated man’s contributed to carbon was 0.4%.! If true I doubt that makes a difference to the overall picture and therefore the RAF contribution .00000…%. RAF needs to spend it’s restricted funds on its core task, namely defending this realm.
so one scientist said a comment that supports your view and that’s it. Just simply ignore all the others who don’t say that!
Even if true; how do you know 0.4% doesn’t have a significant effect on climate? Everything’s a delicate balance and it doesn’t necessarily take much to have a significant effect. It’s still billions of tons of CO2 and other gases that get pumped into the air.
And you say about the RAF’s contribution to it, and yes it’s infinitesimally small, but they all add up. If every organisation or even country decided their contribution to CO2 levels was too small to worry about and not to change anything, they add up to a massive amount.
I’d rather err on the side of caution: best-case scenario is that if you were right on man-made climate change being a myth (you’re wrong), then we’ve developed cheaper, cleaner sources of energy for the future. Even if you were right, there is only so much oil underground and under the sea; it’ll run out eventually – at our current usage I’d be surprised if there’s much left in 100 years. So best start developing alternatives now rather than waiting for the inevitable crisis when it starts running out.
And where was it said that the fuel was more expensive or diverting funds away from other RAF duties? That Typhoon was going to be fuelled and flown either way.
There is more than one scientist that disagrees with you on climate change. Sciencetists have even questioned the fact that the planet is warming based on the way data was collected in the 19th and early 20th century. I am not saying I disagree or agree with that or the 0.4%. I admit I do not know. So please tell me with supporting facts how much carbon is removed from the atmosphere, in the UK, by moss plants etc. I doubt you can. Until we know that as a fact I cannot accept the RAF should be spending it’s limited funds on fuel and research which is going to be more expensive, all these green energies are, check your own energy bill. 30 years ago we were told oil would run out in 50 years. Little sign of that at the moment. I agree man should minimize it’s pollution, but we have to be realistic no one is prepared to go hungry or freeze. Decisions should not be made on a political fashion or based on simple understandings, but verifiable facts.
Again, it doesn’t say anything in the article that this fuel costs more than ordinary jet fuel. For all we know it could cost the same or less.
Regardless of when oil will run out it’s a finite resource and will run out. I think it’s better to be proactive and look for alternatives now than to wait until oil starts running out, the global cost skyrockets and everyone is competing for a dwindling resource. Again, it will eventually run out.
“Experts”
Can’t you use your brain?
How is it possible to prove human induced climate change when climate always have been changing and you have no reliable historical information and have no way to weight factors or even know how many there are?
It is multi-generational power struggle/fashion/religion replacement/existential significant, not science.
Climate have planetary factors, solar factors, moon factors, universe factors(cosmic rays for example), cloud formation, winds, climate accumulation, geography, ex: are the effects Sahara desert existence cumulative? CO2 already have been higher and was colder etc etc…all of this for +-1ºC differences.
👍🏻
I would ask you to prove your statement. Carbon causing warming has been proven in the lab not in the real environment. Secondly the planet has cold and warmed prior to man. Dinosaurs produced a lot of carbon and scientists speculate that this is and the meteorite cased their extinction. Now I pause a question is the Apex creature meant to produce carbon as part of nature’s balance ? Could removing carbon be the wrong thing to do ? After all no carbon and there is no life on this planet. But to get back to the original point. The amount of CO2 produced by the RAF is a spit in the ocean and they should be better spending their resources on training pilots etc etc.
I ask you to prove yours, first.
If I’m wrong (as well as the vast majority of the scientific community) then no harm, no foul.
If you’re wrong, then keeping going the way we are will lead towards disaster.
What other apex creature has ever produced carbon in the sheer quantities that we have? None. And the effort isn’t to get rid of all carbon in the atmosphere but to reduce the excess carbon created by humans, which is leading to global warming whether or not you like it or not.
“The amount of CO2 produced by the RAF is a spit in the ocean and they should be better spending their resources on training pilots etc etc.”
All those little spits add up. People say the same about the UK; why should we focus on it when we produce only about 1% of the world’s emissions. Well, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia etc all each account for around 1% as well: they all add up.
And as I have already said, repeatedly, do we know that this fuel is more expensive than ordinary jet fuel? Might this be something that, if mass-produced, will turn out to be cheaper than oil? Might it actually save the RAF money?
Or – here’s a thought – an alternative to oil in case either prices go up to ridiculous amounts to make it unaffordable, or through global events e.g. war we lose our access to the amount of jet fuel we need. Even if we don’t use it regularly, having an alternative to hand in an emergency situation, that we know works, could be the difference between our aircraft flying or staying on the ground.
Thankfully not everyone is as close-minded as you.
I find the people who say
“man made climate change is a myth”
also generally claim:
• Corvid-19 is just a cold/ doesn’t exist/ caused by 5G
• the vaccine is a ruse by the NWO/WEF for genocidal depopulation
• aircraft condensation trails are actually ’chemtrails’ for climate change or mind-control
• NATO provoked the war in Ukraine, and Putin is really a pacifist
• that illegal migrants should be machine-gunned in The Channel
• support either the far-right or far-left (they have no policy differences)
Optional further beliefs include:
• 9/11 was a false flag attack
• the moon landings are fake
• the earth is flat
You missed the one about the Jewish Space Lasers.
I thought I’d leave out the really outrageously daft ones 😏
First of all I do not prescribe to any of the statements you have. I stated one fact in my comments that the earth has cooled and warmed. You state no facts. You do not deny that statement. More importantly you do not tell me how much carbon is consumed by plants, moss, etc etc in the UK To be fair you cannot because no one knows. It’s like experts are for example looking at bank account claiming they know how much is in it ; they know only how much is going in, but not what is coming out. Do one thing for me and indeed your planet apply logic to experts and then ask questions. The worst thing that can happen is you might look a little foolish.
That’s a relief, you’re not totally signed up to the tin-foil hatter brigade yet then.
No you stated that “made made climate change is a myth.” Something you have failed to prove. The simple fact is that the fast body of scientific evidence collected over the last 25 years all points towards a warming climate due to human industrialisation.
I at no point denied that the atmosphere and climate has naturally changed over the lifetime of the earth. There were periods when these would have not been supportive of human or mammalian life.
However, historically the earth should be naturally moving towards a cooling period, whereas it is warming up at a pace not previously recorded.
Science cannot prove 100% that climate-warming is man-made. But it’s been proven beyond reasonable doubt, that it is most probably man-made. This the precautionary principle dictates that action should be taken to reduce our impact.
To use your ridiculous bank account metaphor. I don’t need to know either what is going into it going out of the account. All I need to now is that the bank is telling me that the balance is getting worse every month to know I’m in trouble.
So it is with the atmosphere. Regardless of what carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere of pulled from it, the danger is due to the fact these are not in balance and the level of carbon dioxide present is increasing yearly.
You appear to doubt ‘the experts’ as you keep referring to them. Please do enlighten us with details of your academic and scientific qualifications and experience in this area.
We know doubt will continue to disagree. But you state that historically we should be moving to a cooler period in the earths natural cycle. But you are simply wrong. One the main factors that dictates climate change is the tilt of the earth. It tilts at 22% to 24%. The more it tilts the more heat enters at the poles. At the moment it’s at 23.8 degrees. So near maximum and therefore it’s warming the planet. The other major factor is the pull of the gas giants which if in alignment can pull the earth 900k away from the sun that causes cooling. I might be wrong but at the moment there is no alignment. Finally there is another effect and as large part of the Pacific is cooling it indicates that the northern hemisphere (land mass) is presented, more often than the southern ( more cooling water) when it’s at its nearest eplictical orbit of the sun. That will change naturally.
And you are simply stupid.
Jupiter (due to its mass) and Venus (due to its proximity) have a small subtle affect on the earths climate every 400,000 years. They make the seasonal difference slightly more extreme.
Nothing to do with alignments, because the earth doesn’t or it the sun. Like the sun and every other planet in the solar system, it orbits the centre of mass of the solar system. (Which due to the sheer mass of the sun, is very close to it.)
The next ice age is due in 50,000 years, which is nothing in terms of earth history. However due to man-made climate change, this is likely to be between 100,000 and 500,000 years later.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2004GC000891
Sadly he is a fully signed up functioning drone. They do not question Daily Mail orthodoxy or think laterally. Scares them too much to think governments might just lie.
Still wacko and unable to tolerate an alternative view? Drone.
Still demolishing the lies of crazed propagandists such as yourself.
Rhymes with banker.
Wrong, I’ve never served in a tank crew.
Avoiding to all peer-reviewed scientific research man-made climate change is very real.
Yes the earths climate has changed over time, there were times in the past for example where human life was impossible. Good luck adapting to that. But the climate doesn’t have to change much to completely wreck our current western lifestyle/ economies.
Do tell how the RAF will stop Russian nukes… Seems you know as little about the military as you do about the climate.
If you don’t buy into the AGM theory but are mainly concerned about the long term reliability of supplies of oil, there is a well proven alternative. Liquefaction of coal, of which UK has vast reserves, was used on a large scale by. Germany in WW2 and produced high quality aviation fuel.
If on the other hand you are primarily worried about man made CO2, what difference do you think the minuscule RAF fleet will make? 2022 saw the biggest annual use of coal globally in history with China,India and Indonesia continuing to build new coal fired power stations.
Just virtue signaling to curry favour with scientifically illiterate politicians. The net zero commitment is a far bigger threat to the UK than Putin’s Russia.
So what you’re saying is don’t bother doing anything because someone is building coal power stations and let the climate change. Don’t worry about the massive costs and damage inflicted on the U.K. by climate-change. Don’t worry about the increased political instability and conflict arising globally due to lost food production, mass human migration, etc…
Yeah, says a lot about both your inability to look past the end of your nose as well your moral character.
Every single bit matters. People say the U.K. only contributed 1% or 2% of carbon emissions. Well if you consider 20 countries with similar carbon footprints then it becomes considerably significant if they all take action or not.
Yeah I hear the China coal power station thing trotted out regularly by far-right fruitcakes. You’re probably completely ignorant of the fact that China produces 48% of the electricity generated by offshore wind power every year, and is installing a further 5GW every 6 months and increasing further. But those facts are inconvenient to your “do nothing because China does nothing” narrative.
The biggest threat to the U.K. is Putin, climate-change, and then followed by science-deniers like yourself. Fortunately despite your large mouths you are actually a very tiny minority.
I don’t think he was saying any of those things.
I think he only stated that last year brought the biggest annual use of Coal and that China , India & Indonesia lead the way in the continued expansion of coal fired power stations.
Do not conflate the rest of the argument:
Is that a fact…or not?
Are we (the West) continuing to buy cheap manufactured goods made with power from coal and endless supply of cheap resource (people) from China.
Should we(The West) do something about that – for example bring manufacturing back in – or put a carbon tax on goods – or not.
In the grand scheme of things they are more pertinent questions methinks rather than trying to fly typhoons using chip fat.
And I think China is a bigger threat to the UK than science deniers but I think you probably already know that….
Under COP climate protocols developing countries are still allowed to use coal etc. this is on the basis developed nations only got there through their historic use of carbon fuels in centuries past…
(I can see the logic in it, and the politics to keep developing nations onboard. But I personally think the situation is too dire to make such concessions.)
You are right about manufacturing. In offshoring manufacturing, we’ve offshored some of our carbon emissions, making it easier for us to achieve net zero. When the essential thing is for the world to reach net zero. The carbon cost of global shipping should be added to commercial shipping, with that we might see more domestic manufacturing.
We still need to do the smaller things, such as ‘flying Typhoons on chip fat’. Commercial aviation is looking to the same solution, at which point you realise it’s not a small impact.
Depends on how you consider risk…
If China invades Taiwan then that’s obviously a huge risk to the U.K. as we face the prospect of a showdown between two nuclear superpowers.
But what’s the probability of this happening?…
But climate-change is 100% certain to happen, and the biggest certainty of the effects is that it will be worse than we expect due to the relative simplicity of our computer models. Aside from direct, obvious impacts – death and damage due to hotter summers and worse flooding in wetter winters – there’s the indirect. As parts of the world currently habitable become uninhabitable we’ll see far greater mass migration. Additionally we are going to failing crops and food shortages globally. The political impacts of these are more difficult to identify.
Risk is all about severity of impact versus probability of occurrence.
With you mate, they’re all out today! I don’t know who could possibly think that 200 years of pumping CO2 into the sky wouldn’t have an affect on the delicate balance of our atmosphere.
Remember the hole in the ozone layer guys? The world stopped using CFCs and the latest research is that it is closing up. Everything we do takes its toll.
I only learned recently that CFCs in addition to destroying the ozone layer also impacted climate change too. Had we not banned them, we’d be looking at an additional 1C rise in average temperature just due to them!
And who do we have to thank for the ban on CFCs? Maggie Thatcher, a politician that didn’t cast an issue of science as a battleground in a political culture-law. Those climate-deniers on the extreme-right could learn from that.
😂
Ah, the the flat-earther is back I see, probably been out burning 5G towers…
It’s one Typhoon, pilot, and ground crew, using up only some of their time. On something that could in the future be the difference between as being able to fly fast jets and not.
So yes, it does matter and no real compromises have to be made.
If we all thought like you, we’d still be stabbing each other with sticks – just sharper ones.
I read somewhere that ammonia can be used as a jet fuel.
Coupling this with new SMR technologies to produce the feedstock and existing well know chemical processes for producing ammonia I can envision us achieving total independence and a guaranteed supply chain with very low carbon.
It could even be transportable or ship based to reduce supply chain lengths. I doubt it would be too difficult to supply our Naval fleet in this fashion, giving them near unlimited endurance, restricted only by food supplies.
High energy density but has to be stored at minus 35 degrees at ambient pressure or zero degrees at high pressure. Either storage method would add considerable weight and complexity to an aircraft.
This is an interesting article on the matter, but they don’t really touch on the storage issues. Sounds like there’ll be a weight overhead involved.
First ammonia-powered jet flight in 2023: A roadmap to clean aviation (newatlas.com)
Ammonia was used as a coolant for various old school missile IR systems……it is not nice to work with!
The silliness of todays world never ceases to amaze. So we have an organization that, on the one hand, is prepared to fight a nuclear war if required but on the other hand, is employing “used cooking oil” to save the planet.
Aye but think of it taking off, spreads the smell of chips over miles so folk run out and buy takeaways as they feel hungry. Always a silver lining for some.
Most sunflower oil comes from the Ukraine and Russia, so from a practical perspective I am not so sure how helpful this is going to be.
UPDATE
“Royal Air Force grounds its entire fleet of fast jet training aircraft due to engine problem
A source on Wednesday claimed the issue involved engine blades wearing out, with the pause set to be another blow for a training programme to deliver fast jet fighter pilots that has already dealt with a series of issues and delays.”
This also does not look good (also from Sky)
Let’s give them a heads-up. That must have gone down well across the pond!
In other news
“Japan and Sweden have signed an agreement that could enable the Scandinavian country to play a role in the new Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).
The two countries signed the ‘Agreement on the Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology’ in late December 2022, about two weeks after GCAP partners – Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom – announced the joint fighter aircraft programme on 9 December.”
The bigger issue is that when you burn this kind of reprocessed garbage you end up with lots of particulates.
Whatever you do the burn chemistry is not quite the same – as it isn’t the same starting compound it never can be.
There is a reasonable piece of Dutch of research, which oddly nobody is interested in funding (wonder why!!) that a ridiculously high % of particulates are of organic origin. You can get this from the isotope ratios. Yup, that is right the green crap in diesel and petrol (less so) is a really big nasty problem. But nobody wants to talk about that. It is also a really big nasty problem as it isn’t really green or CO2 friendly either as it is displacing agricultural use of land and driving food prices up to produce bio ethanol (the petrol crazy additive) and the various oils (the diesel crazy additives).
Particulates are a far more urgent problem than CO2 as particulates are killing people today right now. Remember lockdown and how clean the air smelt and tasted?
Motoring only accounts for 13% of the UKs PM2.5 emissions in the latest government stats. 17% is attributed to residential wood burners, which only 8% of homes have, of which 95% have alternative heating sources … is it any wonder it is organic. That before you come to residential gas burning.
Those stats may well exclude the latest ‘green’ filed fuel blends which are worse.
Ohhh Goodie, sustainable fuel on a nuclear-capable platform. That’s an oxymoron if there ever was.
It strikes me that the RAF’s best efforts to reduce their carbon footprint is by having their Hawk T2s and now Tutors grounded. And then when we have no new pilots, there’ll be no way to fly the other aircraft.