Aircraft parts

A typical fixed-wing aircraft can be divided into the following major parts:

A long cylinder, called a fuselage, usually with tapered or rounded ends to make its shape aerodynamically smooth. The fuselage carries the human flight crew if the aircraft is piloted, the passengers if the aircraft is a passenger aircraft, other cargo or payload, and engines and/or fuel if the aircraft is so equipped. The pilots, who are members of the flight crew, operate the aircraft from a cockpit located at the front or top of the fuselage and equipped with windows, controls, and instruments. Passengers and cargo occupy the remaining available space in the fuselage. Some aircraft may have two fuselages, or additional pods or booms.

A pair of long, narrow, flat, nearly horizontal wings, with an airfoil cross-section shape, used to generate aerodynamic lifting force to support the aircraft in flight by deflecting air downward as the aircraft moves forward. The wings are typically symmetrical about the plane of symmetry (for symmetrical aircraft), and are attached to the fuselage roughly at its midpoint in most cases. The wings also stabilize the aircraft about its roll axis and control its rotation about that axis.

A small wing mounted vertically at the top rear of the fuselage, called a vertical stabilizer. The vertical stabilizer is used to stabilize the aircraft about its yaw axis (the axis in which the aircraft turns from side to side) and to control its rotation along that axis. Some aircraft have multiple vertical stabilizers.

A pair of small horizontal wings used mainly to stabilize the aircraft about its pitch axis (the axis around which the aircraft tilts upward or downward). The horizontal stabilizers are symmetrical and usually mounted near the rear of the fuselage, or at the top of the vertical stabilizer.

One or more aircraft engines, propulsion units that provide thrust to push the aircraft forward through the air. The engine is optional in the case of gliders that are not motor gliders. The most common propulsion units are propellers, powered by reciprocating or turbine engines, and jet engines, which provide thrust directly from the engine and usually also from a large fan mounted within the engine. When the number of engines is even, they are distributed symmetrically about the roll axis of the aircraft, which lies along the plane of symmetry (for symmetrical aircraft); when the number is odd, the odd engine is usually mounted along the centerline of the fuselage.

Landing gear, a set of wheels, skids, or floats (depending on the intended landing surface for the aircraft) that support the aircraft while it is on the ground.

Types of Airplane

Gliders

Gliders or sailplanes are aircraft designed for unpowered flight. Most gliders are intended for use in the sport of gliding and have high aerodynamic efficiency: lift-to-drag ratios may exceed 70 to 1. The energy for sustained gliding flight must be obtained through the skillful exploitation of naturally occurring air movements in the atmosphere. Glider flights of thousands of kilometres at average speeds over two-hundred kilometres per hour have been achieved.

Military gliders have been used in war for delivery of assault troops, and specialized gliders have been used in atmospheric and aerodynamic research. Motor gliders equipped with engines (often retractable), some capable of self-launching, are becoming increasingly common.

Propeller aircraft

Smaller and older propeller aircraft make use of reciprocating internal combustion engines that turns a propeller to create thrust. They are quieter than jet aircraft, but they fly at lower speeds, and have lower load capacity compared to similar sized jet powered aircraft. However, they are significantly cheaper and much more economical than jets, and are generally the best option for people who need to transport a few passengers and/or small amounts of cargo. They are also the aircraft of choice for pilots who wish to own an aircraft.

Turboprop aircraft are a halfway point between propeller and jet: they use a turbine engine similar to a jet to turn propellers. These aircraft are popular with commuter and regional airlines, as they tend to be more economical on shorter journeys.

Jet aircraft

Jet aircraft make use of turbines for the creation of thrust. These engines are much more powerful than a reciprocating engine. As a consequence, they have greater weight capacity and fly faster than propeller driven aircraft. One drawback, however, is that they are noisy; this makes jet aircraft a source of noise pollution. However, turbofan jet engines are quieter, and they have seen widespread usage partly for that reason.

The jet aircraft was developed in England and Germany in 1931. The first jet was the Heinkel He 178, which was tested at Germany's Marienehe Airfield in 1939. In 1943 the Messerschmitt Me 262, the first jet fighter aircraft, went into service in the German Luftwaffe. In the early 1950s, only a few years after the first jet was produced in large numbers, the De Havilland Comet became the world's first jet airliner, but was removed from service due to structural inadequacies discovered after numerous pressurization and depressurization cycles.

Airplanes

A fixed-wing aircraft (commonly called airplane in North America (U.S. and Canada) and aeroplane in Commonwealth countries (other than Canada) and Ireland, from Greek: aéros- "air" and -planos "wandering" — often shortened to just plane in both cases) is a heavier-than-air craft where movement of the wings in relation to the aircraft is not used to generate lift. The term is used to distinguish from rotary-wing aircraft, where the movement of the lift surfaces relative to the aircraft generates lift. A rarer type of aircraft that is neither fixed-wing nor rotary-wing is an ornithopter. A heliplane is both fixed-wing and rotary-wing.

Airplane include a large range of craft from small trainers and recreational aircraft to large airliners and military cargo aircraft. Some aircraft use fixed wings to provide lift only part of the time and may or may not be referred to as fixed-wing.

The term also embraces aircraft with folding wings that are intended to fold when on the ground. This is usually to ease storage or facilitate transport on, for example, a vehicle trailer or the powered lift connecting the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier to its flight deck. It also embraces "variable geometry" aircraft, such as the General Dynamics F-111, Grumman F-14 Tomcat and the Panavia Tornado, which can vary the sweep angle of their wings during flight. There are also rare examples of aircraft which can vary the angle of incidence of their wings in flight, such the F-8 Crusader, which are also considered to be "fixed-wing".