For modeling the combustion of aviation fuels, consisting of very complex hydrocarbon mixtures, it is often necessary to use less complex surrogate mixtures. The various surrogates used to represent kerosene and the available kinetic data for the ignition, oxidation, and combustion of kerosene and surrogate mixtures are reviewed. Recent achievements in chemical kinetic modeling of kerosene combustion using model-fuels of variable complexity are also presented. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.