Types of aircraft. Aircraft classification

Over the past hundred years, humanity has come up with a wide variety of aircraft. We saw airplanes and helicopters, aircraft with both a propeller and jet propulsion, capable of taking off from land and sea, taking off and landing with a running start and vertically. We saw aircraft of various shapes - without a fuselage, without a tail or wings, with variable geometry, in the shape of a disk, cylinder or cone. We saw unusual hybrids - flying cars and motorcycles, flying boats and even submarines, flying packs and a hybrid of an airplane and a spaceship. Unfortunately, it is simply impossible to give an overview of all unusual aircraft, so we will try to talk about the most unusual and truly unique.

Solar powered planes

Can a plane fly without fuel and almost indefinitely? Maybe modern technologies make it possible to build similar aircraft.

The photo shows the “Solar Impulse” aircraft, built in 2014 in Switzerland. To lighten the weight, the aircraft is made of composite materials, while its mass is 2300 kg with a wingspan of 72 meters. The aircraft is equipped with solar panels located on the wings and powerful batteries that can store energy during the day and maintain flight at night. In 2015-2016, the plane flew around the world, with the longest flight from Japan to the Hawaiian Islands taking more than four days.

Solar Impulse is a manned aircraft, so it still cannot fly for too long. Unmanned aircraft of a similar design do not have such restrictions. Back in 2010, a solar-powered unmanned aircraft, Zephyr, was able to spend 2 weeks in the air, flying at an altitude of more than 20 kilometers. This success led to the development of even more ambitious projects in different countries, including Russia. Such aircraft, potentially capable of staying aloft for months or even years, would be able to perform many of the tasks currently assigned to satellites - observing the weather, conducting research, providing communications and wireless Internet in remote areas.

Testing of the Russian solar-powered drone "Sova"

Muscle planes

Since ancient times, man has thought about flying like birds. Myths arose in which people, attaching wings, rose into the air. True, in practice, all such attempts ended unsuccessfully or simply tragically. But even after man mastered flight with the help of airplanes with powerful engines, people continued to wonder: can a person fly only with the help of his muscle power, using aircraft without engines? There were doubts about this, because the largest flying birds weigh only 15-20 kg.

But enthusiasts took on this task and still achieved success. By using the lightest possible materials, it was possible to create a muscle plane weighing only 30 kg. The first long-term successful flight on such an aircraft was made by cyclist Brian Allen in 1979, flying across the English Channel. He covered a distance of 35 km in 2 hours 49 minutes.

Flight across the English Channel

In 1988, enthusiasts decided to go even further and reproduce in reality the ancient Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus. According to myth, the talented inventor Daedalus escaped from Crete, from the evil ruler Minos, making wings for himself and flying through the air from the island to Greece. A muscle plane was built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Greek cyclist and Greek cycling champion Kanellos Kanellopoulos performed the flight. Despite the doubts of skeptics, the flight was successful; Kanellos covered 116 km in less than 4 hours, reaching a speed of about 30 km/h. True, during landing, a gust of wind broke the wing and the muscle plane fell into the water near the shore. This flight is still a record-breaking one.

Muscle plane "Daedalus"

Video - flight of "Daedalus":

Steam engine airplane

And here is another example showing that if many people, after many attempts, do not succeed, this does not mean that it is impossible. The industry began to use the steam engine back in the 18th century, and at the same time the first attempts were made to adapt it to vehicles. Steam locomotives appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. From the very beginning of the 19th century, attempts were made in different countries to build an aircraft with a steam engine. But nothing worked, the steam planes barely took off from the ground and fell, flying no more than fifty meters.

The Wright brothers designed the first airplane that could actually fly using a lightweight internal combustion engine that ran on kerosene. After this, the belief arose that it was generally impossible to build an airplane with a steam engine, because it was too heavy. After all, in addition to the engine itself, a boiler, a firebox, fuel supplies, and also water were needed.

But in 1933, the Bessler brothers from the USA refuted this belief by building a steam-powered aircraft that flew quite successfully.

Airspeed 2000 - steam engine aircraft

Moreover, this aircraft even had certain advantages over conventional ones, for example, engine power did not decrease with altitude, the aircraft was more reliable and easier to maintain, and the engine was very quiet. But lower efficiency and flight range led to the fact that the steam aircraft remained built in a single copy.

Video - Bessler steam plane:

Hybrid of airplane, helicopter and airship

Airlander 10 is a unique aircraft, built in 2012 in the UK, which combines the features of three main types of aircraft - an airplane, a helicopter and an airship.

The huge hybrid airship has a length of 92 m (the largest aircraft in the world) and a carrying capacity of 10 tons. The helium-filled body creates lift and saves fuel to keep the device in the air. 4 engines allow you to reach speeds of up to 150 km/h. And this aircraft can stay in the air for up to three weeks continuously.

Video - Airlander 10:

Ornithoptera

Balloons, airplanes, helicopters, rockets - almost all aircraft built by man have no analogues in nature. All living creatures that fly, from insects to birds and bats, fly because they flap their wings. It is not surprising that people, even just out of interest, began to try to reproduce the principle of flight that dominates nature. Aircraft of this type began to be called flyers or ornithopters.

Oddly enough, creating ornithopters turned out to be much more difficult than airplanes and helicopters. At the moment, all ornithopters are unmanned and have relatively small sizes.

Here is a video of some ornithopters.

Bird-like ornithopters:

A heavy ornithopter weighing about 30 kg, created by Russian inventors:

The Martin Jetpack was the result of many years of work by Martin Aircraft, led by its founder, engineer Glenn Martin. Jetpack is a device about one and a half meters high and wide and weighing 113 kg. Carbon composites are used to produce the starting material.

The device rises into the air using a 200 hp engine (more than a Honda Accord, for example), which drives two propellers. The pilot, using two levers, can control the aircraft's climb and acceleration. The jetpack can fly non-stop for about 30 minutes, reaching speeds of up to 100 km/h. However, such a unit also consumes much more fuel than a passenger car - about 38 liters per hour. The creators of the device especially emphasize its reliability: the jetpack is equipped with a safety system and a parachute, necessary in the event of an impact during landing or failure of the main engine.

The idea of ​​creating a personal jet device appeared about 80 years ago. The predecessor of the jetpack can be considered the rocket pack, the fuel for which was hydrogen peroxide.

The first devices of this kind, for example, Thomas Moore's jet vest, appeared after World War II and made it possible to lift the pilot above the ground for a few seconds. After this, many years of development began, commissioned by the American armed forces. In April 1961, a week after Yuri Gagarin's flight, pilot Harold Graham made the first ever flight using a personal jet device and spent 13 seconds in the air.

The most successful jetpack model, the Bell Rocket Belt, was invented in 1961. It was assumed that with the help of this device, military commanders would be able to move around the battlefield, spending up to 26 seconds in flight. Later, the military considered the development unprofitable due to high fuel consumption and operational difficulties. Therefore, the device was mainly used in filming films and staging shows, in which unusual flights always caused general delight.

The popularity of the Bell Rocket Belt reached its peak in 1965, when the new Bond film Thunderball was released, in which the famous special agent managed to elude his pursuers from the roof of a castle with the help of such a device. Since then, all sorts of variations of jetpack models have appeared. Soon the first gadget with a real turbojet engine was created - the Jet Flying Belt, which extended the flight to several minutes, but turned out to be extremely bulky and unsafe to use.

The idea of ​​creating his own jetpack came from New Zealander Glenn Martin back in 1981. He also involved his family in the process of creating the device: his wife and two sons. They were the ones who acted as pilots during the first test launches of the device in their family garage. In 1998, Martin Aircraft was founded specifically to develop a new version of the aircraft. Its employees, as well as researchers from the University of Canterbury, helped the inventor achieve the desired result. In 2005, after releasing several trial models, the developers were able to achieve stability of the device during flight - and after 3 years they successfully carried out the first demonstration flight at an air show in the American city of Oshkosh.

At the beginning of 2010, Martin Aircraft announced the release of the first 500 models, each of which will cost the buyer $100,000. The company believes that with increased production and sales, the jetpack will cost approximately the same as an average car. That same year, Time magazine named the Martin Jetpack one of the best inventions of 2010. Starting sales have already begun - according to the developers, the company has already received more than 2,500 requests.

Due to the light weight of the device, a jetpack pilot does not need a license to fly in the United States (conditions may vary in other countries). However, there is a mandatory training course from Martin Aircraft prior to launch.

“If someone thinks they won’t buy a jetpack unless it’s the size of a school backpack, that’s their right,” Martin says. “But you need to understand that then he will not be able to buy a jetpack throughout his life.”

There is no special system for regulating such air transport in the United States yet, however, according to the creators, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is developing a project to introduce 3D highways in the sky based on GPS signals.

Even in ancient times, people dreamed of taking to the air and learning to fly like birds. History has brought to us a lot of evidence of various people’s attempts to make wings and fly. So, in 1020, the English monk Aylmer from Malmesbury, inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus, made artificial wings and jumped from the tower of the local abbey. Having flown a short distance, the monk broke his legs upon landing and wanted to, by improving the design and adding a tail, repeat the flight, but the abbot forbade him to do so. Most of the “inventors” ended up much worse - they crashed to death. And yet, what is the history of aircraft and when did the first successful devices appear that allowed people to take to the air?

The history of flights begins in ancient China. Back in the 3rd-4th centuries BC. e. The Chinese invented the kite. Initially, this device was used to entertain people on various holidays.

Chinese dragon shaped kite

However, kites soon found other uses. For example, fishermen began to use kites to catch fish by tying bait to them; kites were used to exchange signals over long distances; they were even used to deliver messages and scatter leaflets. Of course, the Chinese were also struck by the idea that a large kite could lift a person into the air. Flying a kite was quite risky, but history has preserved evidence of successful flights. The first written mention of such a flight that has come down to us dates back to 559. This year, the cruel Emperor Qi Wenxuandi ordered the launch of his political opponents, condemned to execution, on large kites. One of them managed to fly several kilometers and land safely outside the city.

It is surprising that thousands of years passed before flying hang gliders, i.e., essentially the same simple aircraft without an engine as the Chinese kite, became popular and widespread. One of the enthusiasts of such flights was Otto Lilienthal, who made it at the end of the 19th century. more than 2000 successful flights on gliders of our own design. He used the same materials as the Chinese - wooden rods and silk.

photo - Lilienthal's flights

Unfortunately, one of the flights ended in an accident - a gust of wind overturned the glider and Lilienthal fell, breaking his spine. “Victims are inevitable,” he said about this. But the modern history of hang gliding began only in the 70s of the 20th century. The date of birth of the modern hang glider is considered to be 1971.

Before the advent of airplanes and helicopters, the easiest way to fly was to use lighter-than-air aircraft - balloons and airships. Interestingly, history here again takes us to China. Probably back in the 3rd century. BC e. Aerial lanterns were invented in China. This lantern is a simple rice paper design with a small burner inside.

chinese air lanterns

The Chinese used sky lanterns in ceremonies and as a means of signaling. Thousands of years passed before people started flying in balloons.

The Montgolfier brothers from France are considered the inventors of the hot air balloon. The brothers were guided by not entirely correct ideas - they came up with the idea of ​​​​making an analogue of a cloud and placing it in a bag so that it could lift this bag into the air. For this purpose, they filled their balloons with smoke from burning a mixture of straw and wet wool. However, their approach led to success. The brothers first experimented with small balloons at home, and then staged a large balloon demonstration for the residents of their city of Annone. This happened on June 4, 1783. Soon they learned about the balloon in Paris, and in the fall of the same year the Montgolfier brothers launched their balloons in Versailles. For the first time, they decided to launch passengers in a hot air balloon - they were a sheep, a duck and a rooster. Finally, making sure that a flight in a hot air balloon would not harm a person, on October 19, 1783, people made the first flight in a hot air balloon.

first hot air balloon flight

Balloons had a significant drawback - their flight depended on the direction of the wind, so during the 19th century. Attempts to create a controlled aircraft with an engine did not stop. We tried both options with installing the engine on a balloon, and with installing the engine on a glider. But despite the fact that the idea of ​​controlled flight was proposed shortly after the flight of the first hot air balloon, more than a hundred years passed before controlled flight became a reality. It was only in 1884 that the French Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs were able to build an airship that could move freely in any direction. Their airship had an elongated shape and was equipped with an electric motor powered by batteries.

airship of Renard and Krebs

Attempts to put an engine on a glider and thus invent an airplane did not lead to much success for a long time. Among such attempts was, for example, Mozhaisky’s plane. Mozhaisky, a rear admiral of the Russian fleet, began to invent an airplane back in the 50s of the 19th century. Starting with gliders that were lifted into the air by harnessed horses, Mozhaisky moved on to designing an aircraft with an engine. Unfortunately, the steam engines with which he tried to equip the plane were too heavy and could not keep it in the air, although there is evidence that Mozhaisky’s plane was able to take off for a short time.

Mozhaisky plane (model)

Mozhaisky spent all his money on inventive activities, sold his estate and eventually died of illness in poverty. Russian officials of that time were not interested in Mozhaisky’s ideas and did not finance his work; as a result, the American Wright brothers became the generally recognized inventors of the aircraft. They made their first confirmed flight in 1903, 13 years after Mozhaisky's death.

The first documented flight of an aircraft designed by the Wright brothers took place on December 17, 1903. In this case, the plane was launched using a rail catapult, and the distance it flew was only 30 meters.

first flight of the Wright brothers' airplane

The Wright brothers invented not only the airplane itself, but also a lightweight gasoline engine for it, which became a real breakthrough in aircraft construction. Nevertheless, time passed from the first flight to the active development of aviation. The following year, the Wright brothers, in the presence of journalists, were unable to repeat their success; the plane went into the hangar, and the inventors began constructing a new, more advanced model. The US Military Department was in no hurry to conclude a contract with the Wright brothers, doubting the ability of bicycle mechanics (this was the specialty of the inventors) to construct something worthwhile. In Europe, reports about the flights of the Wright brothers were generally considered a lie. It was only in 1908, after impressive demonstration flights carried out by the inventors both in the USA and in Europe, that opinion changed, and the Wright brothers became not only famous, but also rich.

In 1909, the Russian government finally realized the importance of inventions in the field of aviation. It refused to buy the Wright brothers' plane and decided to create its own plane on its own. The first Russian airplane was built and flown in 1910 by Professor Alexander Kudashev.

People have been obsessed with the idea of ​​taking to the air for centuries. In the myths of almost all nations there are legends about flying animals and people with wings. The earliest known flying machines were wings imitating those of birds. With them, people jumped from towers or tried to soar by falling off a cliff. And although such attempts usually ended tragically, people came up with more and more complex aircraft designs. We will talk about iconic aircraft in our today's review.

1. Bamboo helicopter

One of the world's oldest flying machines, the bamboo helicopter (also known as the bamboo dragonfly or Chinese pinwheel) is a toy that flies upward when its main shaft is quickly spun. Invented in China around 400 BC, the bamboo helicopter consisted of feather blades attached to the end of a bamboo stick.

2. Flying flashlight

A flying lantern is a small balloon made of paper and a wooden frame with a hole in the bottom under which a small fire is lit. It is believed that the Chinese experimented with flying lanterns as early as the 3rd century BC, but traditionally, their invention is attributed to the sage and general Zhuge Liang (181-234 AD).

3. Balloon

The hot air balloon is the first successful technology for human flight on a supporting structure. The first manned flight was carried out by Pilatre de Rosier and the Marquis d'Arlandes in 1783 in Paris in a hot air balloon (tethered) created by the Montgolfier brothers. Modern hot air balloons can fly thousands of kilometers (the longest hot air balloon flight is 7,672 km from Japan to North Canada).

4. Solar balloon

Technically, this type of balloon flies by heating the air inside it using solar radiation. As a rule, such balloons are made of black or dark material. Although they are primarily used in the toy market, some solar balloons are large enough to lift a person into the air.

5. Ornithopter

An ornithopter, which was inspired by the flight of birds, bats and insects, is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Most ornithopters are unmanned, but a few manned ornithopters have also been built. One of the earliest concepts for such a flying machine was developed by Leonardo da Vinci back in the 15th century. In 1894, Otto Lilienthal, a German aviation pioneer, made the first manned flight in history in an ornithopter.

6. Parachute

Made from lightweight, durable fabric (similar to nylon), a parachute is a device that is used to slow an object's movement through the atmosphere. The description of the oldest parachute was found in an anonymous Italian manuscript dating back to 1470. Today, parachutes are used to release a variety of cargo, including people, food, equipment, space capsules, and even bombs.

7. Kite

Originally constructed by stretching silk over a frame of split bamboo, the kite was invented in China in the 5th century BC. Over time, many other cultures adopted this device, and some of them even continued to further improve this simple flying machine. For example, kites capable of carrying humans are believed to have existed in ancient China and Japan.

8. Airship

The airship became the first aircraft capable of controlled takeoff and landing. In the beginning, airships used hydrogen, but due to the high explosiveness of this gas, most airships built after the 1960s began to use helium. The airship may also be powered by engines and contain crew and/or payload in one or more "pods" suspended beneath a gas cylinder.

9. Glider

A glider is a heavier-than-air aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air on its lifting surfaces, i.e. it is independent of the engine. Thus, most gliders do not have an engine, although some paragliders can be equipped with them to extend their flight if necessary.

10. Biplane

A biplane is an aircraft with two fixed wings that are located one above the other. Biplanes have a number of advantages over conventional wing designs (monoplanes): they allow for greater wing area and lift with a smaller wing span. The Wright brothers' biplane became the first aircraft to fly successfully in 1903.

11. Helicopter

A helicopter is a rotary-wing aircraft that can take off and land vertically, hover and fly in any direction. There have been many concepts similar to modern helicopters over the past centuries, but it was not until 1936 that the first working helicopter, the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, was built.

12. Aerocycle

In the 1950s, Lackner Helicopters came up with an unusual aircraft. The HZ-1 Aerocycle was intended to be used by inexperienced pilots as the standard reconnaissance vehicle for the US Army. Although early testing indicated that the vehicle could provide sufficient mobility on the battlefield, more extensive evaluations indicated that it was too difficult for untrained infantrymen to control. As a result, after a couple of accidents, the project was frozen.

13. Kaitun

Kaitun is a hybrid of a kite and a hot air balloon. Its main advantage is that the kite can remain in a fairly stable position above the rope's anchor point, regardless of wind strength, while conventional balloons and kites are less stable.

14. Hang glider

A hang glider is a non-motorized, heavier-than-air aircraft that lacks a tail. Modern hang gliders are made of aluminum alloy or composite materials, and the wing is made of synthetic canvas. These devices have a high lift ratio, which allows pilots to fly for several hours at an altitude of thousands of meters above sea level in updrafts of warm air and perform aerobatic maneuvers.

15. Hybrid airship

A hybrid airship is an aircraft that combines the characteristics of a lighter-than-air vehicle (i.e., airship technology) with the technology of a heavier-than-air vehicle (either a fixed wing or a rotor). Such designs were not put into mass production, but several manned and unmanned prototypes were produced, including the Lockheed Martin P-791, an experimental hybrid airship developed by Lockheed Martin.

16. Airliner

Also known as a jetliner, a jet passenger aircraft is a type of aircraft designed to transport passengers and cargo through the air, propelled by jet engines. These engines allow the aircraft to reach high speeds and generate sufficient thrust to propel a large aircraft. Currently, the Airbus A380 is the world's largest passenger jet airliner with a capacity of up to 853 people.

17. Rocketplane

A rocket plane is an aircraft that uses a rocket engine. Rocket planes can reach much higher speeds than similarly sized jet aircraft. As a rule, their engine runs for no more than a few minutes, after which the plane glides. The rocket plane is suitable for flight at very high altitudes, and it is also capable of much greater acceleration and has a shorter takeoff run.

18. Float seaplane

It is a type of fixed-wing aircraft that can take off from and land on water. The buoyancy of a seaplane is provided by pontoons or floats, which are installed instead of the landing gear under the fuselage. Float planes were widely used before World War II, but were then replaced by helicopters and aircraft operated from aircraft carriers.

19. Flying boat

Another type of seaplane, the flying boat, is a fixed-wing aircraft with a hull shaped to allow it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that it uses a specially designed fuselage that can float. Flying boats were very common in the first half of the 20th century. Like float planes, they were subsequently phased out after World War II.

Also known by other names (such as cargo aircraft, freighter, transport aircraft, or cargo aircraft), a cargo aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted to carry cargo rather than passengers. At the moment, the largest and most payload-carrying aircraft in the world is the An-225, built in 1988.

21. Bomber

A bomber is a combat aircraft designed to attack land and sea targets by dropping bombs, launching torpedoes or launching air-to-ground cruise missiles. There are two types of bombers. Strategic bombers are primarily designed for long-range bombing missions - i.e., attacking strategic targets such as supply bases, bridges, factories, shipyards, etc. Tactical bombers are aimed at countering enemy military activities and supporting offensive operations.

22. Spaceplane

A spaceplane is an aerospace vehicle that is used in the Earth's atmosphere. They can use both rockets and auxiliary conventional jet engines. Today there are five similar devices that have been successfully used: X-15, Space Shuttle, Buran, SpaceShipOne and Boeing X-37.

23. Spaceship

A spaceship is a vehicle designed to fly in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transport of people and cargo.

A space capsule is a special type of spacecraft that has been used in most manned space programs. A manned space capsule must have everything necessary for daily life, including air, water and food. The space capsule also protects astronauts from cold and cosmic radiation.

25. Drone

Officially known as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a drone is often used for missions that are too “dangerous” or simply impossible for humans to fly. Initially they were used mainly for military purposes, but today they can be found literally everywhere.

Man has long dreamed of learning to fly like a bird, and flying machines are exactly what this desire and the scientific and technical vector of human development have led him to. Aircraft are a long branch of evolution and progress, starting with the first unsuccessful attempts to create a muscle plane (like the one with which Icarus failed) and ending with modern Boeings, fighters, bombers, spacecraft - everything that allows us to move, bypassing land and sea. Despite the seemingly unimaginably complex technology behind them, aircraft are for the most part considered a relatively safe and fast means of transportation. Only tragedies that claim the lives of several hundred people at once cause a special resonance. However, a person’s desire is the law, and it is safe to say that he has exceeded the plan to repeat the feat of the birds of this world.

Do you think the flying skateboard (hoverboard) from the movie "Back to the Future" actually exists? This may be a discovery for many, but a fantastic vehicle has long been created and used for flight. It's called Flyboard Air and was invented by. The hoverboard is capable of flying at speeds of up to 280 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 3000 meters. In 2016, Frankie covered 2 kilometers on his board, and now wants to cross the English Channel from France to the UK. Will he succeed?