The US Navy is considering camelina, a historic and potentially important oil plant, as the feedstock for their first test of aviation biofuel.

As part of this initiative to move to greener biofuel, North American bio-based products company Sustainable Oils has been awarded a contract to provide 40,000gal of camelina-based jet fuel to the navy.

The US Navy is set to test F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter aircraft with the future-generation biofuel.

Lab analysis of the new fuels will take place at Naval Air Systems Command, where fuel performance testing will be conducted on a bench-mounted Super Hornet F414 engine prior to in-flight testing.