The reason jets use kerosene instead of diesel is that diesel freezes
at higher temperatures than kerosene.

New Hampshire trailers and backwoods houses often have a 55-gallon oil
drum on stilts out back. It's filled with kerosene. If you try the
same thing with heating oil, it turns to sludge on some brisk morning,
and the stove goes out. Not every winter, but maybe one in five. That
would suggest 15 below to me. My father-in-law learned the truth of
this when he moved the oil tank outside to make room for a cellar
workshop.

During the great Arab Oil Embargo (1975? whenever) a friend bought a
VW with a diesel engine. He lived farther down the road than we did.
One morning here he comes, pushing the VW, which he rolled into our
drive and hitched the rest of the way to school. It happened several
times that winter, which was a cold one. So I reckon diesel gets
sludgy at an even higher temp than my father-in-law's outside fuel-oil
tank.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

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