It is undoubtedly true that aviation has come a long way since the Wright brothers first took to the sky over a century ago. In such a small period of time, air travel has gone from wood built, propeller driven aircraft, to high tech composite built, jet powered aircraft. To the layman or your average airline passenger, the way a jet engine works is most likely a mystery to them when actually, the concept is quite simple. The typical jet engine revolves around the general concept of intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust to create a force called thrust. To understand the concept behind intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust, you have to understand what these actions are producing in the end, which is thrust. Thrust is the forward motion that pushes the plane and engine. One of Sir Isaac Newton's laws states that for "every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." The propulsion of the engine uses this principle. .
Before delving forward into how each stage of the engine works, here is the general concept of what a jet engine exactly does: The engine firsts sucks in a large quantity of air via large fan blades. As the air travels further into the engine, it is compressed and then is then mixed with jet fuel and ignited. The super heated air is then pushed backward out of the engine. This is what causes the plane to move forward. The first stage is called intake. The first component on almost every type of jet engine that you see on typical airliners is the fan section. These fans have one job and that is to intake large volumes of air. They are generally very large and spin quite fast which allows them pull in the large amounts of air that is needed for the engine to create enough thrust. As the air is being pulled in by the fan, it is directed two ways: Most of the air actually bypasses the engine section altogether and is pushed out the back. The other portion of air is then directed into the next component which is called the compressor.
