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Aircraft
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image:1er_vol_de_l'_A380.jpg Airbus_A380.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|350px|[[Airbus A380.html" title="Meaning of right|350px|[[Airbus A380">thumb|right|350px|[[Airbus A380">right|350px|[[Airbus A380">thumb|right|350px|[[Airbus A380
An '''aircraft''' is any
machine capable of
Earth's atmosphere atmospheric flight.
Categories and classification
Aircraft fall into two broad categories:
Heavier than air
Heavier than air
aerodynes, including
autogyros,
helicopters and variants, and conventional
fixed-wing aircraft (airplanes or aeroplanes). Fixed-wing aircraft generally use an
internal-combustion engine in the form of a
piston engine (with a
propeller) or a
Turbine turbine engine (
Jet engine jet or
turboprop), to provide
thrust that moves the craft forward through the air. The movement of air over the airfoil produces
lift (force) lift that causes the aircraft to fly. Exceptions include
gliders which have no engines and gain their thrust, initially, from
winches or tugs and then from gravity and thermal currents. For a glider to maintain its forward speed it must descend in relation to the air (but not necessarily in relation to the ground). Helicopters and autogyros use a spinning rotor (a ''rotary wing'') to provide lift; helicopters also use the rotor to provide thrust. The abbreviation
VTOL is applied to aircraft that can take off and land vertically.
STOL stands for Short Take Off and Landing.
Lighter than air
image:yellow.balloon.takesoff.in.bath.arp.jpg thumb|right|200px|A hot air balloon takes off from Royal Victoria Park, Bath, England
Lighter than air aerostats:
hot air balloons and
airships. Aerostats use
buoyancy to float in the air in much the same manner as ships float on the water. In particular, these aircraft use a relatively low density gas such as
helium,
hydrogen or heated air, to displace the air around the craft. The distinction between a balloon and an airship is that an airship has some means of controlling both its forward motion and steering itself, while balloons are carried along with the wind.
Types of aircraft
:''See also:
List of aircraft''
There are several ways to classify aircraft. Below, we describe classifications by design, propulsion and usage.
=By design
=
image:Size-comparison.jpg Howard Hughes.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|350px|A size comparison of some of the largest aircraft in the world. The Airbus A380-800 (largest airliner), the Boeing 747-400 (largest airliner in operation), the Antonov An-225 (aircraft with the greatest payload) and the Hughes H-4 "Spruce Goose" (aircraft with greatest wingspan) designed by the famous [[Howard Hughes.html" title="Meaning of right|350px|A size comparison of some of the largest aircraft in the world. The Airbus A380-800 (largest airliner), the Boeing 747-400 (largest airliner in operation), the Antonov An-225 (aircraft with the greatest payload) and the Hughes H-4 "Spruce Goose" (aircraft with greatest wingspan) designed by the famous [[Howard Hughes">thumb|right|350px|A size comparison of some of the largest aircraft in the world. The Airbus A380-800 (largest airliner), the Boeing 747-400 (largest airliner in operation), the Antonov An-225 (aircraft with the greatest payload) and the Hughes H-4 "Spruce Goose" (aircraft with greatest wingspan) designed by the famous [[Howard Hughes">right|350px|A size comparison of some of the largest aircraft in the world. The Airbus A380-800 (largest airliner), the Boeing 747-400 (largest airliner in operation), the Antonov An-225 (aircraft with the greatest payload) and the Hughes H-4 "Spruce Goose" (aircraft with greatest wingspan) designed by the famous [[Howard Hughes">thumb|right|350px|A size comparison of some of the largest aircraft in the world. The Airbus A380-800 (largest airliner), the Boeing 747-400 (largest airliner in operation), the Antonov An-225 (aircraft with the greatest payload) and the Hughes H-4 "Spruce Goose" (aircraft with greatest wingspan) designed by the famous [[Howard Hughes
A first division by design among aircraft is between lighter-than-air, '''aerostat''', and heavier-than-air aircraft, '''aerodyne'''.
Examples of lighter-than-air aircraft include non-steerable
balloons, such as
hot air balloons and
gas balloons, and steerable
airships (sometimes called dirigible balloons) such as
blimps (that have non-rigid construction) and
rigid airships that have an internal frame. The most successful type of rigid airship was the
Zeppelin. Several accidents, such as the
Hindenburg disaster Hindenburg fire at
Lakehurst, NJ, in
1937 led to the demise of large rigid airships.
In heavier-than-air aircraft, there are two ways to produce lift: aerodynamic lift and engine lift. In the case of aerodynamic lift, the aircraft is kept in the air by wings or rotors (see
aerodynamics). With engine lift, the aircraft defeats gravity by use of
vertical
Examples of engine lift aircraft are
rockets, and
VTOL aircraft such as the
Hawker-Siddeley Harrier.
Among aerodynamically lifted aircraft, most fall in the category of
fixed-wing aircraft, where horizontal airfoils produce
lift (force) lift, by profiting from airflow patterns determined by
Bernoulli's equation and, to some extent, the
Coanda effect.
The forerunner of these type of aircraft is the
Kite flying kite. Kites depend upon the tension between the cord which anchors it to the ground and the force of the
wind currents. Much aerodynamic work was done with kites until test aircraft, wind tunnels and now computer modelling programs became available.
In a "conventional" configuration, the lift surfaces are placed in front of a control surface or
tailplane. The other configuration is the
canard where small horizontal control surfaces are placed forward of the wings, near the nose of the aircraft. Canards are becoming more common as
supersonic aerodynamics grows more mature and because the forward surface contributes lift during straight-and-level flight.
The number of lift surfaces varied in the pre-
1950 period, as
biplanes (two wings) and
triplanes (three wings) were numerous in the early days of aviation. Subsequently most aircraft are
monoplanes. This is principally an improvement in
structures and not aerodynamics.
Other possibilities include the
delta-wing, where lift and horizontal control surfaces are often combined, and the
flying wing, where there is no separate vertical control surface (e.g. the
B-2 Spirit).
A variable geometry ('swing-wing') has also been employed in a few examples of combat aircraft (the
General Dynamics F-111 F-111,
Panavia Tornado,
F-14 Tomcat and
B-1 Lancer, among others).
The
lifting body configuration is where the body itself produce lift. So far the only significant practical application of the lifting body is in the
Space Shuttle, but many aircraft generate lift from nothing other than wings alone.
A second category of aerodynamically lifted aircraft are the
rotary-wing aircraft. Here, the lift is provided by rotating
aerofoils or
rotors. The best-known examples are the
helicopter, the
autogyro and the
tiltrotor aircraft (such as the
V-22 Osprey). Some craft have reaction-powered rotors with gas jets at the tips but most have one or more lift rotors powered from engine-driven shafts.
A further category might encompass the
ground effect wing-in-ground-effect types, for example the Russian
ekranoplan also nicknamed the "Caspian Sea Monster" and
hovercraft; most of the latter employing a skirt and achieving limited ground or water clearance to reduce friction and achieve speeds above those achieved by
boats of similar weight.
A recent innovation is a completely new class of aircraft, the
fan wing. This uses a fixed wing with a forced airflow produced by cylindrical fans mounted above. It is (2005) in development in the
United Kingdom.
And finally the flapping-wing
ornithopter is a category of its own. These designs may have potential but are not yet practical.
=By propulsion
=
Image:Gossamer_Albatross_II.jpg Gossamer_Albatross.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|[[Gossamer Albatross, a
Human-powered transport human powered aircraft.html" title="Meaning of right|250px|[[Gossamer Albatross">thumb|right|250px|[[Gossamer Albatross, a
Human-powered transport human powered aircraft">right|250px|[[Gossamer Albatross">thumb|right|250px|[[Gossamer Albatross, a
Human-powered transport human powered aircraft
Some types of aircraft, such as the balloon or
glider, do not have any propulsion. Balloons drift with the wind, though normally the pilot can control the altitude either by heating the air or by releasing ballast, giving some directional control (since the wind direction changes with altitude). For gliders, takeoff takes place from a high location, or the aircraft is pulled into the air by a ground-based winch or vehicle, or towed aloft by a powered "tug" aircraft.
Airships combine a balloon's
buoyancy with some kind of propulsion, usually
propeller driven.
Until
World War II, the
Internal combustion engine internal combustion piston engine was virtually the only type of propulsion used for powered aircraft. (See also:
Aircraft engine.) The piston engine is still used in the majority of aircraft produced, since it is efficient at the lower altitudes used by small aircraft, but the
radial engine (with the cylinders arranged in a circle around the
crankshaft) has largely given way to the
horizontally-opposed engine (with the cylinders lined up on two sides of the crankshaft). Water cooled
V engines, as used in automobiles, were common in high speed aircraft, until they were replaced by jet and turbine power. Piston engines typically operate using
avgas or regular gasoline, though some new ones are being designed to operate on diesel or jet fuel. Piston engines normally become less efficient above 7,000-8,000 ft (2100-2400 m) above sea level because there is less oxygen available for combustion; to solve that problem, some piston engines have mechanically powered compressors (blowers) or turbine-powered
turbochargers or turbonormalizers that compress the air before feeding it into the engine; these piston engines can often operate efficiently at 20,000 ft (6100 m) above sea level or higher, altitudes that require the use of supplemental oxygen or cabin pressurisation.
During the forties and especially following the
1973 energy crisis, development work was done on propellers with swept tips or even scimitar-shaped blades for use in high-speed commercial and military transports.
Image:WestCoastAirFloatplane.jpg turboprop.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|A [[turboprop-engined
De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter DeHavilland Twin Otter adapted as a
floatplane..html" title="Meaning of right|250px|A [[turboprop">thumb|right|250px|A [[turboprop-engined
De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter DeHavilland Twin Otter adapted as a
floatplane.">right|250px|A [[turboprop">thumb|right|250px|A [[turboprop-engined
De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter DeHavilland Twin Otter adapted as a
floatplane.
Pressurised aircraft, however, are more likely to use the
turbine turbine engine, since it is naturally efficient at higher altitudes and can operate above 40,000 ft. Helicopters also typically use turbine engines. In addition to turbine engines like the
turboprop and
jet engine turbojet, other types of high-altitude, high-performance engines have included the
ramjet and the
pulse jet.
Rocket aircraft have occasionally been experimented with. They are restricted to rather specialised niches, such as
spaceflight, where no oxygen is available for combustion (rockets carry their own oxygen).
=By usage
=
The major distinction in aircraft usage is between
military aviation, which includes all uses of aircraft for military purposes (such as combat, patrolling, search and rescue, reconnaissance, transport, and training), and
civil aviation, which includes all uses of aircraft for non-military purposes.
==Military aircraft
==
Image:4781.jpg Hindustan Aeronautics.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|Prototypes of the [[Hindustan Aeronautics'
Light Combat Aircraft..html" title="Meaning of right|250px|Prototypes of the [[Hindustan Aeronautics">thumb|right|250px|Prototypes of the [[Hindustan Aeronautics'
Light Combat Aircraft.">right|250px|Prototypes of the [[Hindustan Aeronautics">thumb|right|250px|Prototypes of the [[Hindustan Aeronautics'
Light Combat Aircraft.
Combat aircraft like fighters or bombers represent only a minority of the category. Many civil aircraft have been produced in separate models for military use, such as the civil
Douglas DC-3 airliner, which became the military
C-47/C-53/R4D transport in the U.S. military and the "Dakota" in the U.K. and the
Commonwealth. Even the small fabric-covered two-seater
Piper Cub Piper J3 Cub had a military version, the L-4 liaison, observation and trainer aircraft. In the past, gliders and balloons have also been used as military aircraft; for example, balloons were used for observation during the
American Civil War and
World War I, and cargo gliders were used during
World War II to land intruding German troops in a few European countries in the 1940-42 period, while Allied troops used them in landings on
Sicily and
Italy, 1943, and in Western Europe [France and Holland] on
D-Day (the
Normandy 6 June 1944
Operation Overlord invasion) and in
Operation Anvil-Dragoon (1944) and in
Operation Market Garden (1944).
Combat aircraft themselves, though used a handful of times for reconnaissance and
surveillance aircraft surveillance during the
Italo-Turkish War, did not come into widespread use until the
Balkan War when
first air-dropped bomb was invented and widely used by
Bulgarian air force against
Turkey. During
World War I many types of aircraft were adapted for attacking the ground or enemy vehicles/ships/guns/aircraft, and the first aircraft designed as
bombers were born. In order to prevent the enemy from bombing,
fighter aircraft were developed to intercept and shoot down enemy aircraft.
Tanker (aircraft) Tankers were developed after
World War II to refuel other aircraft in mid-air, thus increasing their operational range. By the time of the
Vietnam War,
helicopters had come into widespread military use, especially for transporting, supplying, and supporting ground troops.
==Civil aviation
==
image:heli.g-code.750pix.jpg Bell_206 thumb|right|250px|[[Bell 206|Bell 206B JetRanger III '''
helicopter'''.html" title="Meaning of Bell 206B JetRanger III.html" title="Meaning of thumb|right|250px|[[Bell 206|Bell 206B JetRanger III">thumb|right|250px|[[Bell 206|Bell 206B JetRanger III '''
helicopter'''">Bell 206B JetRanger III.html" title="Meaning of thumb|right|250px|[[Bell 206|Bell 206B JetRanger III">thumb|right|250px|[[Bell 206|Bell 206B JetRanger III '''
helicopter'''
Civil aviation includes both scheduled airline flights and
general aviation, a catch-all covering other kinds of private and commercial use. The vast majority of flights flown around the world each day belong to the general aviation category, ranging from recreational balloon flying to civilian flight training to business trips to firefighting to medevac flights to cargo transportation on
freight aircraft.
Within general aviation, the major distinction is between private flights (where the pilot is not paid for time or expenses) and commercial flights (where the pilot is paid by a customer or employer). Private pilots use aircraft primarily for personal travel, business travel, or recreation. Usually these private pilots own their own aircraft and take out loans from banks or specialized lenders to purchase them. Commercial general aviation pilots use aircraft for a wide range of tasks, such as flight training, pipeline surveying, passenger and freight transport, policing, crop dusting, and medical transport (
medevac). Piston-powered propeller aircraft (single-engine or twin-engine) are especially common for both private and commercial general aviation, but even private pilots occasionally own and operate helicopters like the
Bell 206 Bell JetRanger or turboprops like the
Beechcraft King Air. Business jets are typically flown by commercial pilots, although there is a new generation of small jets arriving soon for private pilots.
See also
{{Aviation portal}}
*
List of aircraft by category
*
List of aircraft by date and usage category
*
List of civil aircraft
*
List of helicopter models
*
List of military aircraft
*
List of notable aircraft
*
List of World War II jet aircraft
*
List of aircraft engines
*
List of aircraft engine manufacturers (alphabetical)
*
List of aviation, aerospace and aeronautical terms
*
Aerial refuelling
*
Aeronautics
*
Aircraft carrier
*
Aircraft spotting
*
Airline call signs
*
Airliner
*
Air safety
*
Aviation
*
Aviophobia (Fear of flying)
*
Contrail
*
First flying machine
*
Flight controls
*
Flight instruments
*
Flight planning
*
Gliding
*
Global warming
*
Lifting body
*
List of early flying machines
*
Model aircraft
*
Noise pollution
*
Richard Pearse
*
Spacecraft propulsion
*
Spacecraft
*
Steam aircraft
*
Successful aircraft types
*
Undercarriage
*
Wright brothers
External links
{{Wiktionary}}
{{commons|Aircraft}}
'''History'''
-
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum - Excellent online collection with a particular focus on history of aircraft and spacecraft
-
Virtual Museum
-
Prehistory of Powered Flight
-
The Evolution of Modern Aircraft (NASA)
-
Aircraft community
'''Information'''
-
Aircraft-Info.net
-
Airliners.net
-
Everything you wanted to know about Aviation — Provided by ''
New Scientist New Scientist''.
-
HomebuiltAircraft.com- Information Portal about Homebuilt Aircraft
-
Airforces
-
Series of Photo Essays on British Aviation
-
Pictures of Aircraft published on
Usenet
'''Patents'''
* US[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=821393.WKU.&OS=PN/821393&RS=PN/821393 821393] -- ''Flying machine'' -- O. & W. Wright
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The classification scheme for this
:Category category is descibed
:WikiProject_Aircraft/Categories here.
Category:Vehicles
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