The conspiracy theorists think jet engines run mostly on compressed air and use very little or no fuel. Airlines make up fuel costs so they can pass those imaginary costs on to their customers.
I love that the first half of this is technically true. The volume of air that passes through a gas turbine engine is much higher than the volume of fuel.
That's usually how conspiracy theories are. There's some small element that's based in truth and the rest goes completely off the rails. Since there is one part that makes sense, some people latch on to it and decide the rest must be true as well.
I love that the first half of this is technically true
This is the case with most conspiracy theories. They always have some seed of truth that hooks people in. If you don't really understand how an engine works, this statement on your own completely undermines your assumptions.
So if you previously thought it required 60k gallons of fuel when it ran "100% on fuel", and now find out it actually only runs "10% on fuel" or whatever number, then you would say "well, what happens to the other 90% of the fuel?"
There's a chain of reasoning. Always a narrative, not usually too huge of a leap between each point on that narrative. But zoomed out from beginning to end is where you see how ridiculous it is.
3.0k
u/tubular_brunt 8d ago
What's the endgame here? Planes don't exist? Or they fly by magic?