Jet fuel is a clear to straw-colored fuel, based on either an unleaded kerosene (Jet A-1), or a naphtha-kerosene blend (Jet B). It is similar to diesel fuel, and can be used in either compression ignition engines or turbine engines.
Jet-A powers modern commercial airlines and is a mix of pure kerosene and anti-freeze and burns at temperatures at or above 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit). Kerosene-based fuels have a much higher flash point than gasoline-based fuels, meaning that they ignite at significantly higher temperatures. It is a high-quality fuel, however, and if it fails the purity and other quality tests for use on jet aircraft, it is sold to other ground-based users with less demanding requirements, like railroad engines.
Read more about this topic: Aviation Fuel
Famous quotes containing the words jet and/or fuel:
“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)