The US Air Force is the government’s largest energy consumer, predominantly driven by fueling some 900 daily air mobility sorties. “We buy about 2.5 billion gallons of fuel every year” and 37 percent is used by Air Mobility Command, Kevin Geiss, energy deputy assistant secretary for the Air Force told an audience at AFA’s Air & Space Conference, Tuesday. Several years ago AMC instituted a “fuel tracker” to record and track the effectiveness of consumption and efficiency efforts. “When we look at the data they provided as compared to 2006, we’ve seen that we’re hauling 27 percent more cargo but only using about three percent more fuel,” said Geiss. AMC is still doubling-down, looking at such things as “advanced cleaning of our aircraft engines, which allows the aircraft to fly cooler at more fuel efficient temperatures and simply paying attention to [payload] center of gravity.”
While the Sentinel ICBM program writ large is undergoing a major restructure due to cost and schedule overages, prime contractor Northrop Grumman is touting progress on milestones with the missile itself.
