Re: JP-7 - Detailed Research


Message posted by Kurt on August 11, 2009 at 11:30:36 PST:

Your question made me curious so I researched. As stated, JP-7 fuel was developed for the YF-12/A-12/SR-71. It was also used in the related D-21/MD-21 drones. It has no other published applications except recent hypersonic vehicles such as the X-51 and X-43.

According to NASA "The last SR-71 flight was made on Saturday October 9, 1999, at the Edwards AFB air show." (http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/SR-71/HTML/EC91-056FR16.html)

JP-7 is National Stock Number 9130001806385. According to DLA, the last published procurement was issued under contract F4160895D0360 in January 1998 and it was for 105,229 gallons. This could have been a multi-year or multi-line-item contract with only the first increment of 105,229 gals shown in the synopsis. At 6.6 lbs/gal that's 694,511 lbs. The SR-71 holds 80,000-85,000 lbs of fuel so that's really not a lot of flight time.

The SR-71 were supported by dedicated KC-135Q re-fueling tanker aircraft. These aircraft are different from typical tankers in that they segregate the special fuel (JP-7) they offload from the standard fuel (JP-4/5) they consume. The KC-135Q were later re-engined with CFM56s and re-designated KC-135T and were still used to support the SR-71. According to the 2008 Aviation Week World Military Aircraft Inventory, the Air Force presently operates 54 KC-135Ts.

I found an interesting post on Airliners.net dated 2005-04-03. The comment reads "I am a former KC10A pilot who just returned back into the cockpit. I was amazed when I saw the new change to our Air Refueling T.O. There are new procedures for refueling the SR-71. The KC135s also got this change."
(www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/print.main?id=30411)

I don't have access to the T.O. so I can only note that as an unsubstantiated comment.

The DLA's current approved sources for JP-7 are Exxon Mobil Corp and Ashland Oil Inc. Neither of these companies are "boutique refineries" and they are not interested in brewing up few hundred (or thousand) gallons for scramjet experiments. However, if some SR-71s (or something similar requiring JP-7) were still active they would need fuel. That would explain why the stuff is still manufactured.

Now here is an interesting find. Mixed in with a list of DLA solicitations for various fuels and gasses from late last year is a RFI (Request For Information) for JP-7 (http://www.desc.dla.mil/DCM/DCMPage.asp?PageID=178). It's strange that it happens to be the only RFI listed and it doesn't have numbering like typical RFI. I've been involved with DoD work and procurement for almost 30 yrs and have never seen one that looks like that. No solicitation or RFI number means there is no way to easily track it.

I did find one more reference that may provide some illumination. It reads "On Jun 17 2008 the Defense Energy Support Center, put out a request for bids on 110,000GAL of JP-7 fuel that meet the original MIL-DTL-382190 SPECS orginial producers, Ashland, Shell and Monsanto produced the fuel for SAC when the Habu was in service, however under the new bids 100,000GAL go to Edwards AFB while 10,000GAL would go to Wright-Patterson AFB. JP-7 has a fairly short storage period, being vulnerable to bacterical contamination".

The dates are close, but not an exact match, and since I can't find the actual solicitation, this too has to be considered unsubstantiated. However if it is true, that's sure a lot of fuel being delivered to Edwards for a tiny aircraft that's only designed to fly for five minutes!

Finally, if you spend some time on Google researching JP-7 you'll find plenty of recent research activity including government-funded research for coal and bio derived alternatives. Why all the time and money spent for a fuel that's no longer used in any significent quantities?

I suspect that JP-7 is still being made, purchased and used in substantial quantities. The Air Force still maintains the capability to re-fuel with it. The purchases may not be made through the normal DLA Defense Energy Support Center procedures as they do not show up when doing a procurement history query. This has got the smell of black all over it!


In Reply to: JP-7 posted by RG on August 07, 2009 at 13:54:43 PST:

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