Wide-body
These aircrafts are large in size and designed for medium and long distance flights (some models can fly distances up to 11 000 km). The hull length can reach 70 meters and the width of the cabin can accommodate 7-10 seats in a row. Aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and A380 have two decks. Due to their high cost, the airliners of this group are at the disposal of a relatively small number of airlines.

Narrowbody
This is the largest group, the airliners of which are usually used for routes of short or medium length. The diameter of the fuselage is usually no more than 4 meters. The most famous aircraft in this category is the Boeing 737, to be exact, the 10 types of aircraft belonging to the Boeing 737 family.

Regional and Local.
The former include small aircraft that carry up to 100 passengers for distances not exceeding 2-3 thousand kilometers. It is noteworthy that both turboprop and jet engines can be used. As examples of aircraft from this group we can mention ERJ, ATR, Dash-8 and SAAB.

Local aircrafts overcome at a time route length of not more than 1000 km, the cabin provides a maximum of 20 seats. The most famous manufacturers of these vehicles are Cessna and Beechcraft.

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Classification of military aircraft

Military aircraft, first of all, are required to have a high rate of climb, as well as high speed, altitude and range. Long-range bombers and missile-carrying airplanes for destroying military targets are used for operational air warfare. Tanker aircraft, which have only fuel on board, have the ability to refuel combat aircraft directly in flight. Military aircraft include long-range reconnaissance aircraft with a long range, altitude and speed of flight. Tactical warplanes include fighter aircraft (or fighters), fighter-bombers, light bombers and tactical reconnaissance aircraft. Modern military aircraft are often designed as multi-purpose aircraft, i.e., they are designed for combat use as attack, interceptor, and reconnaissance fighters.

1) Fighter planes (fighters)

A fighter aircraft is a very fast one- or two-seat combat aircraft for destroying (searching for) enemy warplanes, unmanned rockets, etc. All modern fighters, as a drive, are equipped with one or two air-jet engines. Velocity exceeds sonic speed and is currently around 3,500 km/h, near-ground climb rate is over 200 m/s and maximum operating altitude is up to 30,000 m. Armament consists of 2 to 5 fixed automatic cannons (2.0 to 3.7 cm caliber) and ballistic, radio-controlled or homing air-to-air missiles. In addition, for the most part, fighter planes have extensive electronic equipment such as radar, recognition devices, etc.

2) Bomber planes (bombers)

Fighter aircraft are primarily used for defensive missions, while bomber aircraft focus on offensive operations. A bomber is a large, heavy military aircraft with several turbojet engines (jet turbines or turboprop engines). On short runways or when overloaded, bombers are often equipped with auxiliary launch rockets.

Bombers are tasked with attacking distant targets quickly and at high altitude with explosive charges in the form of bombs. Because of the great danger in approaching a target in an enemy area, more and more bombers are upgraded to rocket launchers that launch missiles far away from the target and are remotely controlled until the target is hit, while the bomber itself is outside the area controlled by enemy forces. The takeoff weight of modern bombers reaches 230 tons, and the total thrust is over 50,000 kgf, or accordingly a combined power of about 50,000 hp. The bomb load depends on the tactical radius of action; it amounts without refueling to 16,000 km, with aerial refueling even more. The flight altitude reaches 20,000 m, and the number of crew can be 12 people. The speed of modern bombers exceeds the 2,000 km/h mark; bombers that will have even greater speed are currently being designed. Defensive armament consists of missiles, machine guns and automatic cannons.

3) Reconnaissance aircraft (scouts).

These are multi-seat, lightly armed fighters or bombers (without a bomb load), which are equipped with aerial cameras, radars, often television signal transmission devices, or also shipboard aircraft for aerial reconnaissance, i.e. for reconnaissance of enemy positions, facilities, etc., territory and weather conditions for the benefit of all parts of their own armed forces.

4) Military transport aircraft.

These are large aircrafts which have 2 to 8 engines and a cruising range of 3000 km and more. They are lightly armed or not armed at all and are intended for transportation of supplies for troops (food, fuel, ammunition, weapons as well as guns, tanks, transport vehicles, etc.). Military transport aircrafts are used to land (airdrop) airborne troops, as well as to transport troops during regrouping. The military transport aviation fleet consists of transport aircraft, cargo gliders, and helicopters that are appropriately equipped.

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What are zeppelins and how do they work?
Zeppelins are dirigibles of a rigid system, whose feature is the distribution of carrier gas into separate compartments in a fabric-wrapped metal frame. These highly original devices are named after their creator, the German Count Ferdinand Zeppelin. The realization of the project to build an air balloon began in 1899, and the first flight of the Zeppelin airship “Zeppelin – LZ 1” took place in 1900. After successful tests of the new aircraft, Zeppelin’s airships were used for both military and civilian purposes. Despite its incredible success, the airship era ended as quickly as it began. The main reason for abandoning this means of transportation was the crash of the Zeppelin Hindenburg in 1936, which turned into a real disaster.

Thus, on May 3, the Hindenburg zeppelin left Frankfurt for Lakehurst. It had a total of 97 people on board. On May 6, 1936, upon arriving at the landing site, the airship suddenly caught fire and collapsed to the ground from a height of 180 meters. Despite the fact that the cause of the fire will soon be clarified by a special commission, for people this catastrophe becomes the main reason to stop operating the zeppelins. According to the expert opinion, the fire was caused by a hydrogen leak, which was caused by the rupture of a hydrogen tank when the air vehicle landed.

Zeppelins may return to the skies in the near future
Despite the unexpected sunset of balloon technology that occurred in the early 20th century, nearly 80 years later the giant zeppelins are poised for a comeback. The newest zeppelins will be 10 times bigger than the 800-pound Hindenburg and five times bigger than the Empire State Building. According to the designers of the new balloons, they would do the traditional work of cargo ships, but much faster and with minimal pollution.

Scientists claim that it would take 16 days to circumnavigate the globe in such an airship, carrying around 20,000 tonnes of payload at once, with minimal energy consumption. The newest generation of aircraft will travel on a jet stream, which is a powerful belt of winds that surrounds the Earth. Like 80 years ago, zeppelins will be buoyant thanks to hydrogen, which is 14 times lighter than air. Because of the flammable gas, the newest zeppelins will be fully autonomous, and the loading process will be guided by robotic systems.

Scientists believe that the development of the latest technology will improve the construction of reliable airships and reduce the risk of hydrogen leaks and related fires by several times compared to their predecessors. If so, an era of new vehicles and a boom in transport around the world will soon be upon us. All that remains to be said here is that “all that is new is well forgotten old.

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Classification by size
Basically, helicopters are commonly distinguished by size. Historically, the models are classified according to the volume of combustion engine, electric helicopters are attributed to a particular class on the similarity of geometric dimensions with models in an internal combustion engine, and, above all, the diameter of the main rotor.

Room and micro
Room and micro helicopters are designed to fly in the hall. Theoretically, a room helicopter can fly in the big room of your apartment. But in practice, such flights are very problematic, because you need to have extensive experience piloting to avoid collisions with furniture and walls. Only some models like hirobo “lama” are stable enough to fly around the room, but flying at home and learning to fly at home in a microcopter is a questionable activity. It is difficult and expensive to find a hall for flights, and flights in the street are strongly hampered by the wind, to which small models are mostly exposed.

Microcopter can be divided into three groups:

Toys include almost all micro-rotorcraft sold in the kit “readytofly”. As a rule, these models do not have a total pitch control system and can only perform horizontal figures. For example: Jabo, Hirobo “lama” and their numerous clones. On the Internet there are a lot of resources dedicated to “upgrade” these models aimed at improving the flight characteristics, but dramatically improve their performance without a complete redesign is impossible, but it will be a different model.
Electric micromodels for the gym. Usually they are sold as a kit of parts (KIT). The kit does not include hardware, batteries, gyroscope and other electronics – all must be purchased separately. These models have common pitch control. The collector motor that comes with the kit is usually replaced with a more powerful commutatorless motor. Lightweight lithium-polymer batteries are used. Such a set helicopter is capable of performing many figures of 3D piloting. The most striking representative of this type of models is the Czech company MSComposit – Hornet, as well as its subsequent modifications. Many will say – “yes I flew it at home! Well, I flew too, but it’s hard to call hanging in the middle of the room and spinning on the spot flying. In order to fly it you need at least the size of a school gym, and that’s already a problem. It is possible to fly this helicopter in the street, but in the wind of 2 or more meters per second it turns into an endless struggle with the wind. In any case, such flights can not be called comfortable.
Electric micromodels for the street and helicopters with internal combustion engines of .15 cubic inches.

Class 30
Helicopters in this class have a .3 cubic inch (5.5 cm^3) caliber engine. Often there are 0.32, 0.36 and 0.39 cubic inch engines – all of these engines are installed on the same model, without requiring any upgrades. The rotor diameter of such a model is about 1200 mm.

50 class
Helicopters in this class differ from Class 30 helicopters in engine displacement, gearbox with a different ratio, and rotor size. What does it give? Greater thrust-to-weight ratio and greater stability. The helicopter with the .50 cc engine has excessive power, it is more difficult to “overload” in flight in case of unskillful general pitch operation. Such model can perform some extreme 3D aerobatics figures, e.g. “tic-tac-toe” and some others, which require increased power to perform.

60 – 90 class.
Strictly speaking, these are two different classes. However, similar to the previous class, the 90 class models use the same chassis as the 60 class models, so we will consider them together.

Bigger Models
The 90 class models are not the biggest. There are much larger wind turbines. They are equipped with gasoline and even turbojet engines. Their flying characteristics are worse than the 90 class models. As a rule, the larger models are copies.

Models with an electric motor
Helicopters with electric motor appeared comparatively recently, promptly occupied the empty niche of indoor (hall) models and small models for the street. This is primarily due to the appearance on the market of relatively cheap, light and high-capacity lithium-polymer batteries capable of delivering sufficient current. Electrovertopters of medium (with rotor diameter from 1100mm to 1300mm) and large (with rotor diameter more than 1300mm) class exist, but they are very expensive to repair and because of this are rather uncommon and are still rather exotic.

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