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by Fly Forever on November 24th, 2007
The fear of the fuel itself freezing is never too great of a concern, considering it will never get cold enough to congeal on a flight. The real problem is the very tiny bits of water that unavoidably end up in the fuel and in the fuel tank, which will freeze at 32 degrees just as normal.
In order to prevent ice cystals from clogging or slowing down combustion in the engine, there is a fuel heater. Contrary to what is being stated in previous answers, the fuel tanks do have heaters. I know this for a fact, there is a control in the cockpit for it, all aircraft have them.
I cannot emphasize enough that when I say heater, don't think in terms of a redhot broiler coil that you can cook a pork chop or a chicken breast on. The best comparison I can give is think of a heated seat in a car, you could have a tank of gasoline sitting on it all day long and nothing would happen. Now imagine that this heater only kept the temperature above freezing. This is what the fuel heater does.
A quick note about jet fuel, it's NOT as volatile as everyone thinks, its actually one of the more stable gasoline derivitives.
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