History of Jet Fuel
Fuel for piston-engine powered aircraft (usually a high-octane gasoline known as avgas) has a low flash point to improve its ignition characteristics. Turbine engines can operate with a wide range of fuels, and jet-aircraft engines typically use fuels with higher flash points, which are less flammable and therefore safer to transport and handle. The first jet fuels were based on kerosene or a gasoline-kerosene mix, and most jet fuels are still kerosene-based. Both British and American standards for jet fuels were first established at the end of World War II. British standards derived from standards for kerosine use for lamps, whereas American standards derived from aviation gasoline practices. Over the subsequent years, details of specifications were adjusted, such as minimum freezing point, to balance performance requirements and availability of fuels. Very low temperature freezing points reduce the availability of fuel. Higher flash point products required for use on aircraft carriers are more expensive to produce. In the United States, ASTM International produces standards for civilian fuel types, and the U.S. Department of Defense produces standards for military use. The British Ministry of Defence establishes standard for both civil and military jet fuels. For reasons of inter-operational ability, British and U.S. military standards are harmonized to a degree. In Russia and former Soviet Union countries, grades of jet fuels are covered by the State Standard (GOST) number, or a Technical Condition (TU) number, with the principal grade available in Russia and members of the CIS being TS-1.
Read more about this topic: JP-5
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, jet and/or fuel:
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“I assure you that in our next class we will concern ourselves solely with the history of Egypt, and not with the more lurid and non-curricular subject of living mummies.”
—Griffin Jay, and Reginald LeBorg. Prof. Norman (Frank Reicher)
“But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellect into wholesome force. Fate is unpenetrated causes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)