Honda Aircraft Company has become the first twin-turbine very light business jet manufacturer to utilise the HondaJet on a successful test flight running a 100 per cent blend of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).

A production-model HondaJet was fuelled with a mix of Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (HEFA-SPK) and Hydrodeoxygenated Synthetic Aromatic Kerosene (HDO-SAK) fuels and flew over the Greensboro area before successfully landing at the company’s world headquarters at Piedmont Triad International airport in North Carolina. This test flight represents the culmination of significant efforts made by a Honda engineering team, in cooperation with GE Honda Aero, a joint venture between General Electric and Honda that is responsible for the design of the HF120 engines on the HondaJet. Under the joint venture, Honda Aero produces the engine in Burlington, North Carolina.

HondaJet aircraft currently in service have been operated by customers on approved SAF blends of up to 50 per cent. GE Honda Aero successfully completed tests of the HF120 engine on the ground utilising 100 per cent SAF fuel blends in 2022 and 2023, providing an early demonstration of the feasibility of the HondaJet’s recent test flight. A second 100 per cent SAF test was successfully completed in October 2023 at the Research and Development center for aero engines in Japan.

“We are immensely proud of our Honda Aircraft Company engineering team carrying forward our commitment to the future of aviation by demonstrating that the HondaJet is capable of operating on a 100 per cent SAF blend,” says SVP and CCO Amod Kelkar. “This achievement is a step toward aligning our business activities with the global Honda goal of decarbonising our business activities by 2050.”