Colour of Luftwaffe Fuel?

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von hahn

Airman 1st Class
137
20
Aug 2, 2008
JNB
Hi all.

I'm just wondering, what was the colour of the fuel the Luftwaffe used in the FW190A-8s? (I presume it was 100 Octane ).Usually, fuel is dyed to help identify it, but what colour was the fuel used in the FW190s?

Thanks!
vh
 
Hi Von Hahn
I know that the luftwaffe used a synthectic based fuel which was not 100 octane but it limited the performance of there aircraft considerably.
The colour of this fuel I do not know but am curious to find out aswell.
Hope this little bit helps !
straighttj
 
The fuel was of 87 or 96 octan and named C3 for the one of 96 and B4 for 87 octan.I think these were without any colour.
 
Thanks for that info! I know that most fuels today are dyed so you can distinguish them apart, so it's intersting that the Luftwaffe's fuel was colourless.

Thanks!
 
The link I have doesn't work anymore but was of British testing of German fuels. One fuel was green and the other blue.
 
From the notes I have, there were three fuels used for Luftwaffe aircraft with internal combustion engines:

80 Octane: A3 - Light Blue color.
87 Octane: B4 - Dark Blue color.
100 Octane: C3 - Dark Green color.

This was from an old reference that also listed about 10 other fuels used by the luftwaffe, mostly being the "Stoff" fuels for rockets, and diesel fuels.
 
Yep, thems the colours. A3 and C2 are natural, B4 and C3 are synthetic. Germans used motor method for octane rating so C2 and C3 are actually 96 octane, research octane is higher and the sum of the two are divided for pump grade, which means they relate to the first number given in Allied fuels (ie. the 100 in 100/130 avgas for example).
Due to certain additives the German 96 octane performs similarly to 100/130 in the early war and 100/150 by war's end, although the octane ratings don't change for C3 (you'd have to run a captured 109K with the DC motor on 100/150 if you're going to open it right up for example).

On fuel cards for high octane painted to a/c fuselages C2 was sometimes written in the early war (say for an E-4N) whilst 100 was sometimes put on or C3 later, but the actual rating is 96. The fuel card for B4 is always 87 afaik.

AFAIK C2 and C3 are the same colour and rating, but composition is different.

Oh yeah, A-8 invariably used C3 and by that stage it was equivalent to 100/150 according to Crumpp, who has restored an A-8 and can be found around the aviation forums (he's been at LEMB lately).
 
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The octane rating of Allied fuels was at the rich mixture setting while for German fuels it was the lean mixture setting.

100/150 would be 100PN lean mixture and 150PN rich mixture

C3 was pushing 140PN towards war end.

Except for the early models of the BMW 801, all required C3 fuel.

The link now works,
http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/Tom Reels/Linked/A5464/A5464-0638-0654 Item 6A.pdf

Also
Technical Report 145-45 - The Manufacture of Aviation Gasoline in Germany
 

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