Air Force: how much fuel can it save?

• Position: Washington PULSE - Brief article

As the largest consumer of petroleum products in the U.S. military, the Air Force has been contemplating whether replacing the engines of hundreds of aging airplanes could help curtail fuel costs. A study currently under way at the Air Force Materiel Command is probing the potential payoffs from new engines, and the obvious conclusion is that fuel prices would have to increase substantially more to justify the cost of the new engines, says Gen. Bruce Carlson, AFMC commander. "You can't make a case for converting an old airplane to a new engine for fuel economy. It takes too long to pay it...