Scale, sizes and speeds




Sizesedit

The smallest aircraft are toys/recreational items, and even smaller, nano-aircraft.

The largest aircraft by dimensions and volume (as of 2016) is the 302-foot-long (about 95 meters) British Airlander 10, a hybrid blimp, with helicopter and fixed-wing features, and reportedly capable of speeds up to 90 mph (about 150 km/h), and an airborne endurance of two weeks with a payload of up to 22,050 pounds (11 tons).

The largest aircraft by weight and largest regular fixed-wing aircraft ever built, as of 2016update, is the Antonov An-225 Mriya. That Ukrainian-built six-engine Russian transport of the 1980s is 84 meters (276 feet) long, with an 88-meter (289-foot) wingspan. It holds the world payload record, after transporting 428,834 pounds (200 tons) of goods, and has recently flown 100-ton loads commercially. Weighing in between 1.1 and 1.4 million pounds (550–700 tons) maximum loaded weight, it is also the heaviest aircraft built to date. It can cruise at 500 mph.

The largest military airplanes are the Ukrainian/Russian Antonov An-124 Ruslan (world's second-largest airplane, also used as a civilian transport), and American Lockheed C-5 Galaxy transport, weighing, loaded, over 765,000 pounds (over 380 tons). The 8-engine, piston/propeller Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" — an American World War II wooden flying boat transport with a greater wingspan (94 meters / 260 feet) than any current aircraft and a tail height equal to the tallest (Airbus A380-800 at 24.1 meters / 78 feet) — flew only one short hop in the late 1940s and never flew out of ground effect.

The largest civilian airplanes, apart from the above-noted An-225 and An-124, are the Airbus Beluga cargo transport derivative of the Airbus A300 jet airliner, the Boeing Dreamlifter cargo transport derivative of the Boeing 747 jet airliner/transport (the 747-200B was, at its creation in the 1960s, the heaviest aircraft ever built, with a maximum weight of 836,000 pounds (over 400 tons)), and the double-decker Airbus A380 "super-jumbo" jet airliner (the world's largest passenger airliner).

Speedsedit

The fastest recorded powered aircraft flight and fastest recorded aircraft flight of an air-breathing powered aircraft was of the NASA X-43A Pegasus, a scramjet-powered, hypersonic, lifting body experimental research aircraft, at Mach 9.6 (nearly 7,000 mph). The X-43A set that new mark, and broke its own world record of Mach 6.3, nearly 5,000 mph, set in March 2004, on its third and final flight on 16 November 2004.

Prior to the X-43A, the fastest recorded powered airplane flight (and still the record for the fastest manned, powered airplane / fastest manned, non-spacecraft aircraft) was of the North American X-15A-2, rocket-powered airplane at 4,520 mph (7,274 km/h), Mach 6.72, on 3 October 1967. On one flight it reached an altitude of 354,300 feet.

The fastest known, production aircraft (other than rockets and missiles) currently or formerly operational (as of 2016) are:

  • The fastest fixed-wing aircraft, and fastest glider, is the Space Shuttle, a rocket-glider hybrid, which has re-entered the atmosphere as a fixed-wing glider at more than Mach 25 — over 25 times the speed of sound, about 17,000 mph at re-entry to Earth's atmosphere.
  • The fastest military airplane ever built: Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, a U.S. reconnaissance jet fixed-wing aircraft, known to fly beyond Mach 3.3 (about 2,200 mph at cruising altitude). On 28 July 1976, an SR-71 set the record for the fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft with an absolute speed record of 2,193 mph and an absolute altitude record of 85,068 feet. At its retirement in the January 1990, it was the fastest air-breathing aircraft / fastest jet aircraft in the world, a record still standing as of August 2016update.
Note: Some sources refer to the above-mentioned X-15 as the "fastest military airplane" because it was partly a project of the U.S. Navy and Air Force; however, the X-15 was not used in non-experimental actual military operations.
  • The fastest current military aircraft are the Soviet/Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 — capable of Mach 3.2 (2,170 mph), at the expense of engine damage, or Mach 2.83 (1,920 mph) normally — and the Russian Mikoyan MiG-31E (also capable of Mach 2.83 normally). Both are fighter-interceptor jet airplanes, in active operations as of 2016.
  • The fastest civilian airplane ever built, and fastest passenger airliner ever built: the briefly operated Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic jet airliner (Mach 2.35, 1,600 mph, 2,587 km/h), which was believed to cruise at about Mach 2.2. The Tu-144 (officially operated from 1968 to 1978, ending after two crashes of the small fleet) was outlived by its rival, the Concorde (Mach 2.23), a French/British supersonic airliner, known to cruise at Mach 2.02 (1.450 mph, 2,333 kmh at cruising altitude), operating from 1976 until the small Concorde fleet was grounded permanently in 2003, following the crash of one in the early 2000s.
  • The fastest civilian airplane currently flying: the Cessna Citation X, an American business jet, capable of Mach 0.935 (over 600 mph at cruising altitude). Its rival, the American Gulfstream G650 business jet, can reach Mach 0.925
  • The fastest airliner currently flying is the Boeing 747, quoted as being capable of cruising over Mach 0.885 (over 550 mph). Previously, the fastest were the troubled, short-lived Russian (Soviet Union) Tupolev Tu-144 SST (Mach 2.35) and the French/British Concorde (Mach 2.23, normally cruising at Mach 2) . Before them, the Convair 990 Coronado jet airliner of the 1960s flew at over 600 mph.

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