How Does a Jet Engine Work? (Fighter Aircraft)

Have you ever wondered how fighter jet aircraft are able to travel at speeds greater than the speed of sound? Aircraft have come a long way since the days of WW1 when bi-planes would use piston engines to power propellers, which produced thrust. In 1928 Frank Whittle wrote his first scientific paper on the Jet Engine. The first aircraft to use a jet engine was the Heinkel He 178 in 1939 (although this was designed by a German engineer, Ernst Heinkel). It has since become the standard propulsion system for all military fighter and transport aircraft around the world. But how exactly does a jet engine work?

Air enters the engine through the intake, which can be seen from the front of the aircraft. Air is sucked in through the compressor. The compressor increases the temperature and pressure of the air. Energy is then added to the air in the combustion chamber, where fuel is burnt. The air temperature increases and the pressure increases rapidly. This rapid increase means the air rushes out the back of the engine, propelling the aircraft forward.

Before the air exits through the rear nozzle, it first passes through the turbine, which extracts some of the energy from the fast moving air. The turbine is connected to the compressor at the front, and is what provides the energy to compress the air in the first place.

An afterburner can also be used for an extra thrust boost. This is where even more fuel is added and burnt at the rear of the engine. The air expands again, boosting the aircraft forward at high speed.

Thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed this video and found it informative. Comment down below for what you would like to see next!

PS. Commercial jet engine video will be coming soon! Please subscribe to be notified :)

[Lozzie]

Just one correction. The engine doesn’t let “air” out the back. It sends out “exhaust gas” which is mainly nitrogen but also CO2 and water vapour (combustion products). There is some excess oxygen but nothing like the amount to term the gas mixture “air”.

[lachlanbell]

I *LOVE* how you included the "Suck-Squeeze-Bang-Blow" on the diagram, for someone who's very familiar with internal combustion engines and a keen interest in the high-tech engineering of high-performance engines, just including those 4 steps as having a direct equivalent within the turbine engine made this a lot easier to grasp intuitively. I'd always assumed that turbine engines must be superior to piston engines because there's no energy lost from the moving parts changing direction of travel with every cycle of rotation, but never knew exactly how they worked until now. I checked out a few short videos like this and have to say this was by far my favourite one, really well explained. I almost did a double-take when I saw your channel is just shy of 600 subscribers, watching the video I just assumed from the quality it must be from a channel with 5-6 figure subs. Awesome job on this my man, keen to check out some of your other content now!

[aurorap]

Thanks HMW, you actually made jet engines sound easy! Keep the videos coming :)

[TheBondy]

Wow!! Thanks so much for this, Hit Me With. The real life examples and analogies really helped me to remember how jet engines work. 🙏🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

[Candle-xzwl]

I love this video my dream is to become a Navy Pilot and I’m joining civilian air patrol to learn more about flying and this video taught me a lot about it. Thank you

[jldude]

It just blows my mind how a series of fan blades can somehow compress air enough to get hot enough to ignite a fuel as thick as JP-8.

[bld_salim]

I absolutely loved the content, well explained, and since I draw alot of fighters, it made me even closer to them as an aviation enthusiast

[colvinator]

Excellent video! Plenty for all learning styles with a sound simple narrative.

[ecobarre]

One question. Does the turbine send back energy to the compressor or did I understand it wrong. Great video very good explanation!

[tacticalepsilon]

Thanks! Always wondered how the afterburners worked.

[MrNanah]

I work on these everyday day and i am still fascinated by how this works, still in awe every time we deliver an engine to the customer.

[andrewschmidt]

So Basically, the difference between a commercial jet engine and a fighter, is the presence of a fan

[cade]

Bro it is a crime that you only have 450+ Subscribers 🔥

[iwanttocomplain]

3:24 “this jet of air pushes the plane forwards’.

It’s actually not the air being expelled that pushes the jet forwards but the process of the hot (high pressure) air being replaced by cooler ambient air at low pressure.

The air escaping a balloon experiences the same effect.

The reason the air is heated is to generate a higher pressure as hot air is more compressed, or of a higher pressure than unheated air.

A jet engine isn’t pulling air through as much as its heating air to generate a cushion of incoming, cooler, low pressure air.

It’s the same concept as the propellor driven plane but the forces affect the inside of the exhaust rather than the inside of the propeller blades.

[petemenhennet]

The analogy of the balloon is misleading: that is the principle of a rocket engine, not a gas turbine. The gases rushing out of the back are not what propels the engine forwards. In fact the greatest contributions to forward thrust are the compressor stages and the combustors. The turbine and the exit nozzle (non-afterburning) are rearward-acting components that push against the desired direction of motion. In total it is the excess of forward-acting gas pressures over rearward-acting gas pressures that produces a net forward thrust.

[diegom]

You mentioned the temp to be higher than the melting point of the metals that make up the engine. What happens is that the fuel air mixture is mixed in such a way as to create a "ball" of fire (called the combustion zone). Only 25% of the air is actually used for propulsion, the other 75% is used to "cool" the engine. So unburned air is placed between this combustion zone and the walls of the engine. In addition the turbine blades are somewhat hollow and air is forced through small holes to keep the blades cooled. This is a delicate process. If too little air is pumped, the blades will melt, if too much air or if the air is delivered with too high of a pressure, the jet of air coming out of those holes will be too far from the surface of the blade and once again, the blade will melt. Engines are a marvel of engineering. Thanks for the video.

[JuliaPT]

Loved the diagram and the explanation. Thank

[thebomber]

You deserve more subs, you are too good!!!

[blindfoldblaster]

Since I am a fighter jet fan (no pun intended), I really enjoyed this video explaining in a very easy way how a turbine works. Also, I really enjoyed the humor attached. New subscriber. Greetings from Mexico

[venkataallampudi]

You haven’t explained what after burner does but I learned a lot