The Air Force has ordered its pilots to fly higher and slower in an effort to slash fuel use while still performing the same missions.
The rise in oil prices has added $1 billion to the cost of fueling the Air Force fleet in 2012, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy Kevin Geiss said last month/.../
The Air Force push for fuel efficiency makes sense for both operational and budgetary reasons, said Jan Van Tol, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“If you don’t need to use as much fuel … that eases your operational costs considerably,” he said. “The operational logistics problem is one that the U.S. has always faced because we operate forward so often.”