Airplane Designations Explained

fighters bombers and attack aircraft are three of the most well-known types of warplanes but did you know that the united states military has an aircraft with a different type of mission for every letter of the english alphabet okay maybe not for every letter it just sounded better that way but it does for most of them for example the letter a designates an attack aircraft like the notorious a-10 warthog but what kind of an aircraft is yeh 60b that designation looks a bit overwhelming but once we fly together through the alphabet and land the designation system you'll be able to decipher the mission of all u.s military aircraft based on those ladders pretty accurately or will you attack aircraft designated with the letter a have the primary role of carrying out air strikes their target is on the ground and they can hit that target with a great degree of precision the a-10 thunderbolt 2 commonly known as warthog may be the only remaining attack aircraft in the u.s military that's the purebred that's because most modern attack aircraft are multi-mission like variations of the f a-18 which can also act as a fighter and even as an aerial tanker on to the bombers designated with the letter b bombers are also designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping bombs or launching torpedoes or cruise missiles there are two major classifications for bombers strategic and tactical strategic bombers like the b-52 are used for destroying the enemy's strategic targets like infrastructure which can the enemy by reducing industrial output b-52s are nicknamed buff which stands for big ugly fat seriously that's what it stands for on the other hand tactical bombers were designed to operate over the battlefield supporting offensive operations and typically near the troops given the nature of their mission strategic bombers are bigger can carry more payload and have longer range compared to tactical bombers the line between tactical bombers and attack aircraft have been blurred over time for example the a6 intruder even though classified as an attack aircraft is considered an attack bomber next up we're going to see i mean the letter c for cargo a cargo aircraft is designed or converted for the carriage of cargo rather than passengers they usually don't have passenger amenities and generally feature one or more large doors for loading cargo their high wing configuration to allow the cargo area to sit near the ground and numerous wheels to allow landing at unprepared locations are some of the visual distinctions of a cargo airplane oh and they're also massive for carrying the cargo of course as well as the pilot's gigantic avocados the c5 galaxy is the largest airplane operated by the us military both ends of the c5 open up for easy loading and unloading and it has 28 wheels to cushion those landings now that we've covered the abc let's take a look at the designation system because we're going to need it soon prior to 1962 different branches of the us military had their own designation systems which was confusing because the same aircraft could have been referred to with different designations by different branches so in 1962 a tri-service aircraft designation system was born to unify the designations it's also sometimes referred to as the mission design series or mds designation and this is how it works every aircraft has a mission which is identified by a letter of the alphabet like attack bomber and cargo that we covered so far then for any of those given mission types for example attack aircraft the major designs would be numbered starting from 1 and going up sequentially like a1 a2 a3 and so on and finally within each design whenever certain variations were developed a letter identifying the series would be added at the end for example a10c designates an aircraft with the mission of attack design number 10 meaning there were nine other designs that existed prior and series c meaning that a10a and a10b variations also existed pretty straightforward right except for this rule was not always followed for example there is no a8 it was simply skipped and for the bombers the so-called sequence jumped from b2 to b21 skipping all the design numbers in between oh and definitely no a13 or b13 or c13 apparently because if you use number 13 something bad will happen come on this is the 21st century and we're still talking about knock on wood we're back so that was the basics of the mds designation system and we're going to build on it as we go through next up is the letter e for special electronic installation or electronic warfare these are airplanes packed with electronics and radars a well-known example is the tactical airborne early warning aircraft e2 hawkeye which has four series e2a to e2d modern airborne early warning systems can detect aircraft from up to 250 miles away flying at an altitude of thirty thousand feet these aircraft can cover an area of one hundred and twenty thousand square miles designated with the letter f are fighters which are fixed wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat the role of the fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battle space that's because dominating the airspace above the battlefield allows bombers an attack aircraft of friendly forces to engage in tactical and strategic bombing of enemy targets fighters are known for their high speed and maneuverability until a few decades ago fighters would engage in what was known as dogfights which were close range battles between fighter aircraft but increasingly greater speeds and longer range weapons have made dogfighting obsolete a well-known fighter aircraft is the f4 phantom used extensively during the vietnam war by the u.s air force navy and marines serving as their principal air superiority fighter but many modern fighter aircraft have secondary capabilities such as ground attack like the f-22 raptor the stealth technology of the f-22 raptor was so advanced that even during its development the u.s congress ensured that the military could not share the f-22 technology with anyone even u.s allies we should also mention the 1983 incident where during a training exercise in israeli air force an f-15 eagle and an a4 skyhawk collided mid-air the a4 pilot was auto-ejected but the f-15 pilot with some difficulty managed to land his aircraft but what he didn't know was that the right wing of the f-15 was ripped off during that collision i know there's going to be a bunch of comments about the giant balls on that pilot but no one ever talks about maintaining them and that's why today's video is sponsored by manscaped bringing the american dream to some of the most neglected extremities of the male homo sapiens in three easy steps step one liberate break the shackles even in the dark of the night and remember all balls were born free step 2 revive bring them back to life and no you don't need to perform cpr on them just use this spray your balls have never been so 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see the designation has two letters k for tanker and c for cargo that's because in the mds designation system the mission is actually split into two categories basic mission and modified mission if an aircraft has a modified mission the letter corresponding to it shows up to the left of the basic mission so in case of kc-135 it's an aircraft with the basic mission of transporting cargo but it has been modified to be used as a tanker hence the letter k now that you know about the basic mission and modified mission you can take a guess what an ef-111 aircraft does it's an f11 fighter that has been modified for electronic warfare and going back to the fa-18 that designation is not following the rules because both f and a are used as basic mission types which is not allowed in the mds system and the slash between the f and a yet that's totally made up too next up is the letter l for laser equipped aircraft now this one is an anomaly because laser equipped doesn't designate a type of mission but a type of equipment it was only introduced to get a special designation for the yal1 airborne laser aircraft so we're just gonna move right along the letter o is for observation especially as it relates to forward air control during the vietnam war bomber jets were needed to provide close air support which meant hitting the enemy forces while the friendly forces were in very close proximity so extreme accuracy was needed the role of the o1 bird dog and o2 skymaster observation airplanes was to mark ground targets using target marking rockets which were then used for directing air strikes p is for patrol specifically maritime patrol which is the active patrol of an area as opposed to using passive monitoring systems during wartime a patrol aircraft is critical for navies to locate enemy forces and during peacetime patrols are important for interdiction of criminal activities and for ensuring legal use of waters the p3 orion is an example of a long-range patrol aircraft which can shut off one or two of its four engines in order to stay aloft for over 10 hours while patrolling the waters the mission of reconnaissance aircraft designated by the letter r is exploration of an area in order to obtain information about enemy forces terrain and other activities aerial reconnaissance is arguably the first military mission ever carried out by an aircraft of course we're talking about the use of balloons by the french in the late 18th century rc-135 is an example of a reconnaissance aircraft based on the c-135 airframe in fact multiple kc-135a tankers were converted into makeshift reconnaissance platforms in 1961. that was done in order for americans to collect intelligence on a soviet union nuclear test known as the tsar bomba where a 100 megaton thermonuclear device was detonated anti-submarine aircraft designated by the letter s have the mission to find track deter and or destroy enemy submarines the s-3b viking had recorders radars and harpoon capability the ys-2g was another anti-submarine aircraft but what does the letter y mean at the beginning of its designation there is an optional prefix for status of an aircraft in the mds designation system and it appears to the left of the mission segments there are a total of six options available for status segments we won't go over all of them as they're not that extensively used but the letter y identifies a prototype aircraft so in our last example the designation ys2g refers to an s2e anti-submarine aircraft which was modified to prototype and test new anti-submarine warfare avionics systems aircraft designated with the letter t are used as trainers the t1a jayhawk is a medium-range twin-engine jet trainer used in the advanced phase of specialized undergraduate pilot training for students selected to fly airlift or tanker aircraft it is also used to support navigator training for the u.s air force navy marine corps and international services tc-130h is an example of a cargo aircraft which is modified to be strictly used for pilot proficiency training [Music] the letter u refers to utility aircraft typically used for transportation of staff mail and operations in support of bases and installations probably the most famous military aircraft designated as a utility aircraft is the u2 spy plane nicknamed dragon lady which is used to collect intelligence and technically speaking should have been designated as a reconnaissance aircraft but at the time there was quite a bit of secrecy around the funding development and testing of this new spy plane so the designation you was deliberately selected for disinformation i guess you is not what you think the final category is for special research or experimental aircraft designated by the letter x these are aircraft intended for testing the latest technologies and new design concepts which is why sometimes they looked quite different from typical airplanes like x29 which had a forward swift wing configuration x31 which had thrust vectoring super maneuverability or the x-45 which is an unmanned combat air vehicle over the years over 70 types of x-planes have been developed in fact the design of many popular military aircraft is rooted in these x-planes for example the x-35 plane led to the production of f-35 lightning 2 and the x-v-15 led to the design of the v-22 osprey tilt rotor the latter v in v22 osprey relates to the aircraft's capability to perform vertical or short takeoff and landing but if we look at the mds designation vertical takeoff is neither a mission type nor a status which brings us to the last segment of the mds designation and that is vehicle type for typical fixed-wing aircraft types no vehicle type is mentioned but gliders are designated as g helicopters as h unmanned aerial vehicles as q space planes as s vital and s stall as v and finally lighter than air aircraft as zed or z if you live in the united states throughout the video we did provide examples of missed designations but probably one of the coolest examples is related to the v-stall capable harrier which should have been designated as av6 but instead was given the designation av8 and what's cool about that is that one theory suggests that the av-8 was chosen because it reads as aviate a designation chosen for pun we should also mention that the designations that we covered were only for the basic mission types there are a few more modified mission types which we left out if you're interested just look up the 1962 tri-service aircraft designation system and now comes the finale to see if we were able to deliver on our promise having gone through the aircraft types and the designation system can you guess what type of aircraft why eh-60b is and what type of mission it's used for we will leave you with a little cheat sheet

Channel: Not What You Think

Views: 1,978,426

Keywords: not what you think, aircraft, airforce, f-18, f-22, f-16, a-10, cargo plane, fighter jet, airplane, bomber, p-8 poseidon, yal-1, c-5, c-17, kc10, kc-45, kc 135, rc-135, MDS designation system, 1962 tri-service designation system, Aircraft naming convention

Id: SUy1asTO4fM

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021