Jump to content

Amo Aero

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    438

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Amo Aero

    How many different aircraft have been designed since the beginning of flight?

    in Aviation Chat

    Posted

    On 4/9/2022 at 1:14 AM, Swamp Donkey said:

    It’s a commercial database and includes both civil and military. Worth noting that the total number of types does NOT include sub-variants, so, for example, the Boeing 747 is listed in the total as just that, not a 100,200,300,400,800. Does that make sense, had a bit of a late night!

     

    SD

    Yes, that does make sense. Thank you for the additional information.

    How many different aircraft have been designed since the beginning of flight?

    in Aviation Chat

    Posted

    “Does your question include all aircraft designed and built everywhere on Earth? I ask because there have been some one-off designs that were built in other countries that are not known for making aircraft…”

     

    Of course, why wouldn’t it be? It looks like a real airplane to me. Just because it’s a one off from a country that doesn’t have a well known or prolific aviation industry doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be counted.

     

    I used to get a number of different aviation magazines, and many of them had a regular column along the lines of “Identity Unknown”, or “ID X”, or something to that effect where readers would send in pictures of obscure aircraft asking for help in identifying them. Sometimes the aircraft would remain a mystery, but very often someone would eventually ID it. After years of reading those magazines and seeing those columns it seems to me that there were far more aircraft designs than is generally considered. 

     

     

    • Like 1

    How many different aircraft have been designed since the beginning of flight?

    in Aviation Chat

    Posted

    15 hours ago, Nachtwulf said:

    I'm not entirely sure but I believe all of them have been designed.:tomato:

    Yes, the reason why I said “designed” is because when putting that question to Google the answer was usually on the number produced/manufactured. When inquiring about “types”, the answer given would be along the lines of missions or purposes intended. It was difficult to come up with search parameters that would yield a pertinent answer

    • Like 1

    How many different aircraft have been designed since the beginning of flight?

    in Aviation Chat

    Posted

    Yes, one could go down a rabbit hole making distinctions about variants (such as a Spitfire I being very different from a Spitfire XXIV). Or do you count aircraft that never flew, or only existed as a full scale mock up. One could argue about those things forever. That is why there can never really be a definitive answer to the question. Still, in rough terms, someone at some time must have made an educated guess as to how many different types of aircraft existed. Surely it has been excess of several thousand. More than 10 thousand? Over a hundred thousand? It’s a question that’s been on my mind for years, and I can’t recall ever seeing even any speculation on that number.

    How many different aircraft have been designed since the beginning of flight?

    in Aviation Chat

    Posted

    This is a question I’ve mulled over for many years and have never found a satisfactory answer. I have tried every way I could think of to frame the question to yield a useful result from Google, but inevitably the answers come back on total numbers of aircraft manufactured. Even those numbers vary so wildly I have to wonder if they were just pulled from a hat.

     

    I’m looking for an answer to the number of unique aircraft designs—example, Cessna 172 is 1 unique aircraft design, a Spitfire is 1 unique aircraft design, a 747 is 1 unique aircraft design. Yes, I know there were many different subtypes, but the question is difficult enough without taking that into consideration! Just perusing through the aviation books in my not remotely comprehensive library leads me to believe the number of unique aircraft designs throughout aviation history must easily number in the thousands at least, if not in the tens of thousands and perhaps more. 

     

    So, has anyone ever seen or heard an estimate of the number of different aircraft designs that have existed? I’m sure there is no definitive answer, but surely someone, somewhere, at some time must have made an educated guess?

×
×
  • Create New...