The US Air Force Academy has partnered with the Air Force Research Lab and Cool Clean Technologies, Inc., an Eagan, Minn., company to help develop methods to produce biofuels based on algae oil. “These partnerships provide another superb research thrust for our cadets and the Air Force Academy in an exciting new technology,” said Don Veverka, director of the academy’s Environmental Research Center. Cadets from various disciplines will participate, including involvement in a potential pilot-scale production facility. Academy officials are also in talks with a researcher from Brooklyn University, N.Y., on cooperative research that would entail further investigation of additional algae strains as biofuels. (USAFA release)
A-10 Thunderbolt II attack planes in the Middle East are flying with fresh modifications as the Air Force looks to make the plane more versatile amid America’s ongoing blockade of Iranian ports and a tenuous ceasefire in the U.S. air war against Iran.