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Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's Second and Third Laws. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction the accelerated mass will cause a proportional but opposite force on that system.

A fixed-wing aircraft generates forward thrust when a spinning propeller moves air, or gases are ejected from a jet engine (or rocket engine), opposite the direction of flight. The forward thrust is proportional to the (mass of the air) multiplied by (average velocity of the airstream). Reverse thrust can be generated to aid braking after landing by reversing the pitch of variable pitch propeller blades, or using a thrust reverser on a jet engine. Rotary wing aircraft and thrust vectoring V/STOL aircraft use engine thrust to support the weight of the aircraft, and vector some of this thrust fore and aft to control forward speed.

A motorboat generates thrust (or reverse thrust) when the propellers are turned to accelerate water backwards (or forwards). The resulting thrust pushes the boat in the equal and opposite direction to the sum of the momentum change in the water flowing through the propeller.

A rocket's mass is propelled forward by a thrust force equal to, and opposite of, the time-rate of momentum change of the exhaust mass accelerated from the combustion chamber through the rocket engine nozzle. This is the exhaust velocity with respect to the rocket, times the time-rate at which the mass is expelled, or in mathematical terms:

where:

T = thrust generated (force),

rate of change of mass with respect to time (fuel burn rate).

v = exhaust velocity.

Of course, for a launch the thrust at lift-off should be more than the weight, and with a fair margin, because a "slow launch" would be very inefficient.

Each of the three Space shuttle main engines can produce a thrust of 1.8 MN, and each of its two Solid Rocket Boosters 14.7 MN, together 34.8 MN. Compare with the mass at lift-off of 2,040,000 kg, hence a weight of 20 MN.

By contrast, the simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) has 24 thrusters of 3.56 N each.

In the air breathing category, the AMT-USA AT-180 jet engine developed for radio-controlled aircraft produce 90 N (20 Lb_f) of thrust.^[1] The GE90-115B engines fitted on the Boeing 777-300ER, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World's Most Powerful Commercial Jet Engine," have a tested thrust of 569 kN (127,900 lb_f).

1. ^ AMT-USA jet engine product information. Retrieved on December 13, 2006.

• Gimballed thrust, the most common thrust system in modern rockets
• Thrust-to-weight ratio
• Thrust vectoring