Warbird Information Exchange

Some civilian turbines have avgas listed as an approved ‘emergency fuel’ but it often comes with restrictions on how much can be used in an overhaul interval and sometimes altitude restrictions. I believe the issues are that gasoline doesn’t lubricate the way kerosene does, and the lead in avgas can build up in places they don’t want it to. Perhaps the military just overhauls frequently enough to not care.

As for the Skyknight, wasn’t the navy leery early on about what type of fuel they carried on their aircraft carriers? Something about ‘if you have to be trapped on a ship on fire, you may as well have a preferable kind of fire.’

What really blew my mind was learning that early American ballistic missiles (the Atlas, I think?) were fueled with high octane avgas.

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All Westinghouse engines were capable of operating on AvGas, including the J34 in the Skynight, as well as the J46’s in my F7U-3, however, they required “adjustments” to the fuel controller to accommodate the gasoline. As previously mentioned, the useful life of the engine was also impacted, which in the case of the J46 was already low at 150hrs TBO using jet fuel. Let’s face it, if you can get dirty socks to burn in the combustion chamber, an early generation turbojet will run on it, but it’s hard on the engine, not to mention the socks.....

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Al Casby
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Tiger Tim...
The Navy wanted to get rid of avgas ASAP because it it too volitile.
They have a real fear of ship fires caused by accident or combat damage.
Logistically, I can see them wanting to reduce the number of fuels on a carrier, but I don't believe the SkyKnight was ever the only jet type on a ship.

A related side note...I recently read that before big ship to ship engagements, cruiser captains hated the risk of avgas fires so much they occasionally jettisoned the shipboard observation planes.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Atlas used kerosene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-1) and LOX.