The WWII Liberty Ships utilised a triple-expansion steam engine, fired by bunker fuel. Both the expended steam and the boilers were used to fluidise the fuel to flowable tempertures -- the steam circulating either through or around the feed tanks, and the fuel line itself passing through the boiler and flame trench before final injection.
There are two remaining Liberty Ships in the US -- the John W. Brown in Baltimore, and the Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco.
Pay a visit and one of the engine-room crew can tell you the details.
The generaly kluginess and hackiness of the design instantly brought to mind what many software projects I've worked on might look like if physically instantiated. Though the Liberty Ship design is by far the more robust and useful than most.
And yes, some airplane engines use gas but the majority of them runs something that in constituency is closer to regular diesel than to gas.
Kersone is #1 diesel!
AV gas is another matter entirely but I'm not aware of any jet that would use it, though that might be a fun thing, and given that turbines can run on almost anything combustible it will probably work to some extent but I don't think it will be a happy ending unless the engine is really designed for it.
Btw, this is an interesting start-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESdHyNtHpqs not cold weather but I'd hate to fly that in any conditions.
Still, I imagine that was a "light fire, move away" procedure!
Sure, small ones with piston engines. Sure. Most anything running a turbine uses Jet-A which is closer to kerosene / diesel than gasoline.
If you're leaking fuel you've got bigger problems than how to safely heat up the engine.
(There were some, late in the war, but only just. Otherwise, all aircraft were piston-driven, running avgas, a/k/a petrol / gasoline.)
Afterburner light-ups were limited by the availability of TEB aboard.
Hydrazine + nitrous oxide could be fine though, but better check first before use. ;-)