What are the different types of airplanes?
You may be wondering why there are so many different
types of airplanes out there. What makes them different from each other?
We'll take a quick look at what makes each of the following airplanes
unique:
- Cargo/Transport Airplanes
- Experimental Concept Airplanes
- Fighter/Military Airplanes
- Passenger Airplanes
Cargo/Transport Airplanes
Cargo/transport
airplanes have a lot of room inside them to carry things that would ordinarily
be too large or too heavy to carry on other types of airplanes. Sometimes
these planes carry trucks, packages, construction equipment, or even other
airplanes! Since cargo/transport airplanes are so big they usually have
large, powerful engines to help get themselves off the ground. Because
of their large cargo bays, a few of these planes are a little unusual-looking.
It's no wonder that the "Guppy" and the "Beluga" are
named that way - they look like huge fish! Sometimes private shipping
companies and the postal service use modified passenger jets as cargo
planes. In those cases, most or all of the passenger seats are removed
and large containers full of cargo go in their place. Pictured here are
a Boeing 757 freighter and a Airbus Guppy.
Experimental Concept Airplanes
When engineers are designing
an airplane, they often build one or two full-size airplanes of the design
to see if it flies the way it should. Because the engineers are still
experimenting with the design, these types of airplanes are sometimes
called experimental concept airplanes or prototypes. A specially trained
and very experienced pilot flies these airplanes, and then reports to
the engineers. The research pilot can tell them what he or she thought
were the good and bad features of the airplanes and what needs to be improved.
Many times, experimental concept airplanes are quite unique-looking because
they are trying out a strange, new concept or technological advance. Most
experimental planes, like the X-36 and X-29 pictured here have names starting
with "X" as in eXperimental.
Fighter/Military Airplanes
There are many different
kinds of military airplanes. Transport airplanes carry armies, equipment,
and supplies hundreds of miles to where they are needed. Reconnaissance,
or spy, airplanes fly secret missions to photograph enemy territory. Fighter
airplanes were used for the first time in World War I. Today, most fighters
have advanced computer, navigational, and weapons systems and are able
to maneuver quickly and precisely in case they have to participate in
aerial combat. Some fighters are able to fly at supersonic (faster than
sound) speeds for short periods of time, and other fighters use stealth
technology to make themselves nearly invisible to enemy radar. The first
letter in the name of a military airplane tells us what kind of mission
it flies. For example, the F-16 and F-15 shown here are types of fighters.
Similarly, a B-2 is a bomber, a A-10 is an attack airplane, and a C-7
is a cargo/transport airplane.
Passenger Airplanes
The airplanes most people see most often are
passenger airplanes. These are the type of airplanes that you are more
likely to board at the airport or see or hear flying overhead. The earliest
airliners in the 1950s were very noisy and could not travel very far without
refueling. Today, people use passenger jetliners to travel all over the
world for both business and pleasure. Most jetliners travel at about 600
miles per hour (965 kilometers per hour), and some can carry people and
cargo for over 8,000 miles (12,874 kilometers) non-stop. Some airplane
designers are working on passenger airplanes that carry more than 600
people or fly at supersonic speeds. Right now, the Concorde is the only
supersonic passenger jet, traveling at twice the speed of sound
(1,400 miles per hour or 2,250 kilometers per hour)!
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