Jet fuel is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is clear to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1 which are produced to a standardized international specification. The only other jet fuel commonly used in civilian turbine-engine powered aviation is Jet B which is used for its enhanced cold-weather performance.
Jet fuel is a mixture of a large number of different hydrocarbons. The range of their sizes (molecular weights or carbon numbers) is restricted by the requirements for the product, for example, the freezing point or smoke point. Kerosene-type jet fuel (including Jet A and Jet A-1) has a carbon number distribution between about 8 and 16 carbon numbers (carbon atoms per molecule); wide-cut or naphtha-type jet fuel (including Jet B), between about 5 and 15 carbon numbers.
Read more about Jet Fuel: History of Jet Fuel, Additives, Water in Jet Fuel, Military Jet Fuels, Piston Engine Use, Synthetic Jet Fuel, Jet Biofuels
Famous quotes containing the words jet and/or fuel:
“I cannot beat off
Invincible modes of the sea, hearing:
Be a man my son by God.
He turned again
To the purring jet yellowing the murder story,
Deaf to the pathos circling in the air.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice,—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe,... if it was dull, it was at least hung true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)