TEST FLIGHTS of an experimental aircraft fuelled by liquefied natural gas (LNG) have begun in Moscow. The aim of the tests, according to Vladimir Aleksandrovich Andreyev, the aircraft's de signer, is to show that aeroplanes fuelled with the gas can fly from existing airports without the need for special facilities on the ground.
The plane, whose tests began on 14 July at Sheremetyevo airport, is an adapted Tu-155 - a version of Aeroflot's Tu-154 passenger aircraft. Its designers believe that a plane flying on liquefied natural gas, which is largely methane, will save the equivalent of 9 tonnes of kerosene over 2000 kilometres. This will more than compensate for the increase of between 20 and 35 per cent in the cost of handling it on the ground.
The design of the plane is similar to that of a hydrogen-fuelled plane which had its maiden flight last year (Technology, 3 December ...