Thrust Reverser

A thrust reverser is a mechanism built into a jet engine that redirects some or all of its exhaust flow forward instead of backward, using the engine's own thrust to help slow an aircraft after landing rather than relying on brakes alone. The devices, in forms such as clamshell doors, bucket-type reversers and cascade vanes that redirect fan air, became standard equipment on commercial jet airliners from the late 1950s and 1960s onward as jet engines replaced propeller engines on passenger aircraft. The source consulted for this entry names no single inventor or exact origin date for the thrust reverser as a general technology, so none is recorded here; different manufacturers developed their own reverser designs for their own engines.