The Sukhoi Su-80 (formerly known as the Sukhoi S-80) is a Russian twin-turboprop, twin-boom STOL transport aircraft.

The Su-80 program was supposed to start in the late 1990s, but due to lack of funds, it was postponed for several years. A prototype of the combined Freight/Passenger Su-80GP was built and its first flight was planned for early 1998, but the program was delayed again. The first flight of the prototype was at the 2001 MAKS in Moscow issued Zhukovsky.

On the fourth September 2001, Igor Wotinzew started with the prototype, 82911, on his first flight. In early 2006, the Su-80 entered production in the KnAAPO factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

The first model of the turboprop transporter Sukhoi S-80 was shown at the 46th Paris International Air and Space Show, 2005. The plane is being developed by Sukhoi OKB and the aircraft factory in Komsomolsk/Amur under the "konversija" program. The aircraft is intended to replace the An-24/26, An-28 and Yak-40, and to compete with the Antonov An-38 . The design of the machine is very similar to the Scaled Composites ATTT and the Rockwell OV-10. It has three lift-generating surfaces: the primary wings; two fins at the rear of the fuselage which join the booms to the fuselage; and the horizontal stabilizer which joins the two vertical fins at the rear of the booms. Two General Electric CT7-9B turboprop engines are housed in bays at the front of the tail booms.

The sleek hull offers space for 30 passengers, and a "beaver-tail" cargo ramp is fitted at the rear of the fuselage, which allows for easy loading and unloading of cargo.

Variants

There are two different models of the Su-80. The four pre-series aircraft were of a short-fuselage design, while the fifth, sixth and seventh prototypes were stretched by 1.4 m (4 ft 7 in) allowing an extra row of passenger seats.

S-80PC (Su-80GP)
Combination Passenger and Freight carrier
S-80TC
light military troop transport
S-80A
Air Ambulance
S-80F
Fishery patrol
S-80PT
(patrol transport) for the Russian Border Guards, can be armed with machine guns, light auto-cannon, rockets, bombs, and surveillance devices.
S-80GE
Geological support
Su-80GP-100
Transporter

With development starting in 2000, it made its maiden flight on 19 May 2008 and its first commercial flight on 21 April 2011 with Armavia.

The 46–49 t (101,000–108,000 lb) MTOW plane typically seats 87 to 98 passengers and is powered by two 77–79 kN (17,000–18,000 lbf) PowerJet SaM146 turbofans developed by a joint venture between French Safran and Russian NPO Saturn. By May 2018, 127 were in service and by September the fleet had logged 300,000 revenue flights and 460,000 hours. The plane has recorded three hull loss accidents and 86 deaths as of May 2019.

The five-abreast cross-section is more optimised beyond 70 seats than the four-abreast Bombardier CRJs and Embraer E-Jets but smaller than the six-abreast Airbus A320 and Boeing 737. The SSJ100 typically seats 87 to 98 passengers. In Russia, it replaces the aging Tupolev Tu-134 and Yakovlev Yak-42 aircraft. It competes with the Antonov An-148, Embraer E190 and the Bombardier CRJ1000. It is the first new civil non-amphibious jet aircraft developed in post-Soviet Russia.

In May 2018, ten years after its first flight, the fleet of 127 have logged over 275,000 commercial flights and 420,000 hours.  In September 2018, it had logged over 300,000 revenue flights lasting 460,000 hours.

The last European operator of Sukhoi Superjet 100 has reportedly returned its Russian-made aircraft to the owner. The aircraft manufacturer claims that it “contradicts the reality”. Well, sort of.

CityJet, the last European operator to have Sukhoi Superjet 100 in its fleet, has returned the aircraft to the owner, Vedomosti reported on February 18, 2019. According to the publication, the reason for the decision a huge lack of spare parts, which caused long groundings of the aircraft.

For more information, click here.

The Tugan LJW7 Gannet, also known later as the Wackett Gannet after its designer Lawrence Wackett, was a small twin-engined airliner built by Tugan Aircraft in Australia in the 1930s. It was the first Australian-designed aircraft to enter series production. It was also the first Australian-designed and built aircraft to be taken on strength (put into operational service) by the Royal Australian Air Force.

The Gannet was a strut-braced, high-wing monoplane of conventional design, with twin engines mounted in nacelles on the wings. The undercarriage was of fixed, tailwheel configuration with divided main units. The wings were of wooden construction, skinned in plywood, and the fuselage was built from welded steel covered in fabric. The prototype Gannet underwent flight testing in October 1935, and was destroyed in a crash shortly thereafter. The pilot and passengers perished in the ensuing fire, but despite this, the Gannet entered series production.

The type was operated by Butler Air Transport between Sydney and Broken Hill and at least one flew with Ansett Airways in 1943. RAAF Gannets saw service as survey aircraft between 1935 and 1942 when they were converted into air ambulances for the newly-formed No.2 Air Ambulance Unit. The last RAAF Gannets were scrapped in 1946.

Total number built:   8.

Operators

• Ansett Airways
• Butler Air Transport
• Royal Australian Air Force
• Western and Southern Provincial Airlines

It was the second jet airliner to enter in regular service, behind the British de Havilland Comet, and was the only jetliner operating in the world from 1956 to 1958, when the British jetliner was grounded due to safety matters.

In 1957, Czechoslovak Airlines – ČSA, (now Czech Airlines) became the first airline in the world to fly a route exclusively with jet airliners, using the Tu-104A variant between Prague and Moscow. In civil service, the Tu-104 carried over 90 million passengers with Aeroflot (then the world's largest airline), and a lesser number with ČSA, while it also saw operation with the Soviet Air Force. Its successors included the Tu-124, the Tu-134 and the Tu-154.

The Tu-104 was powered by two Mikulin AM-3 turbojets placed in the wing roots (resembling the configuration of the de Havilland Comet). The crew consisted of five people: two pilots, a navigator (seated in the glazed "bomber" nose), a flight engineer and a radio operator (later eliminated). The airplane raised great curiosity by its lavish "Victorian" interior – so-called by some Western-hemisphere observers – due to the materials used: mahogany, copper and lace.

For more information, including the lengthy list of variants, click here.

It is the world's first and only swept wing turboprop airliner. The aircraft was the largest and fastest passenger plane at that time and also had the longest range, at 10,900 km (6,800 mi). It has held the official title of fastest propeller-driven aircraft since 1960.

Due to its swept wing and powerplant design, the Tu-114 was able to travel at speeds typical of modern jetliners, 880 km/h (550 mph). Although it was able to accommodate 224 passengers, when operated by Aeroflot, it was more common to provide 170 sleeping berths and a dining lounge.

The Tu-114 used the basic wing, empennage, landing gear, and powerplants of the Tu-95 bomber, mated to a totally new pressurized fuselage of much larger diameter. To cope with the increased weight, increased landing flap surface area was required, and the flap chord was increased compared to the bomber's flaps. The wing was mounted low on the fuselage, giving the Tu-114 a much higher stance on its landing gear than the bomber. As a result, a new nose landing gear strut was required, although the main landing gear remained unchanged.

For more details, including world records, variants and operators, click here.

It is the world's most-produced twinjet of its class. The original version featured a glazed-nose design and, like certain other Russian airliners (including its sister model the Tu-154), it can operate from unpaved airfields.

A total of 854 Tu-134s were built of all versions (including test bed examples) with Aeroflot as the largest user; by 1995, the Tu-134 had carried 360 million passengers for that airline.

Design curiosities of the Tu-134 included a sharp wing sweepback of 35 degrees, compared to 25–28 degrees in its counterparts. The engines on early production Tu-134s lacked thrust reversers, which made the aircraft one of the few airliners to use a brake parachute for landing. The majority of onboard electronics operated on direct current. Originally the aircraft had 56 seats in a single class configuration, or 50 seats in a two-class configuration.

In 1968, Tupolev began work on an improved Tu-134 variant with a 72-seat capacity. The fuselage received a 2.1-meter (6 ft 11 in) plug for greater passenger capacity and an auxiliary power unit in the tail. As a result, the maximum range was reduced from 3,100 kilometers to 2,770 kilometers. The upgraded D-30 engines now featured thrust reversers, replacing the parachute. The first Tu-134A, converted from a production Tu-134, flew on 22 April 1969. The first airline flight was on 9 November 1970. An upgraded version, the Tu-134B began production in 1980, with the navigator position abandoned, and seating capacity increased to 96 seats. Efforts subsequently began to develop a Tu-134D with increased engine thrust, but the project was cancelled.

For more details of development and variants, click here.

The Tu-144 is sometimes referred to as the Russian Concorde, or Concordeski.

The Tu-144 was the world's first commercial supersonic transport aircraft with its prototype's maiden flight from Zhukovsky Airport on 31 December 1968, two months before the British-French Concorde. The Tu-144 was a product of the Tupolev Design Bureau, an OKB headed by aeronautics pioneer Aleksey Tupolev, and 16 aircraft were manufactured by the Voronezh Aircraft Production Association in Voronezh. The Tu-144 conducted 102 commercial flights, of which only 55 carried passengers, at an average service altitude of 16,000 metres (52,000 ft) and cruised at a speed of around 2,200 kilometres per hour (1,400 mph) (Mach 2). The Tu-144 first went supersonic on 5 June 1969, four months before Concorde, and on 26 May 1970 became the world's first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.

The Tu-144 suffered from reliability and developmental issues, and with the 1973 Paris Air Show Tu-144 crash, restricted the viability for regular use. The Tu-144 was introduced into passenger service with Aeroflot between Moscow and Almaty on 26 December 1975, but withdrawn less than three years later after a second Tu-144 crashed and retired on 1 June 1978. The Tu-144 remained in commercial service as a cargo aircraft until cancellation of the Tu-144 program in 1983. The Tu-144 was later used by the Soviet space program to train pilots of the Buran spacecraft, and by NASA for supersonic research until 1999. The Tu-144 made its final flight on 26 June 1999 and surviving aircraft were put on display across the world or into storage.

Along with early Tu-134s, the Tu-144 was one of the last commercial aircraft with a braking parachute. The prototypes were also the only passenger jets ever fitted with ejection seats, albeit only for the crew and not the passengers. A total of 16 Tu-144's were built.

For details of the development, design, production and operational history of the Tu-144, click here.

A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian airlines for several decades, it carried half of all passengers flown by Aeroflot and its subsidiaries (137.5 million/year or 243.8 billion passenger km in 1990), remaining the standard domestic-route airliner of Russia and former Soviet states until the mid-2000s. It was exported to 17 non-Russian airlines and used as a head-of-state transport by the air forces of several countries.

With a cruising speed of 850 kilometres per hour (530 mph)[2] the Tu-154 is one of the fastest civilian aircraft in use and has a range of 5,280 kilometres (3,280 mi). Capable of operating from unpaved and gravel airfields with only basic facilities, it was widely used in the extreme Arctic conditions of Russia's northern/eastern regions where other airliners were unable to operate. Originally designed for a 45,000-hour service life (18,000 cycles) but capable of 80,000 hours with upgrades, it was expected to continue in service until 2016, although noise regulations have restricted flights to western Europe and other regions.

For more details of the development and operational history of the Tu-154, click here.

First introduced in 1989, it is intended to be broadly equivalent to the Boeing 757, with slightly lower range and payload, and has competitive performance and fuel efficiency in its class. It was developed for Aeroflot as a replacement for the medium-range Tupolev Tu-154 trijet. The latest version, with significant upgrades and improvements, is the Tu-204SM, which made its maiden flight on 29 December 2010.

The Tu-204 was designed as a family of aircraft incorporating passenger, cargo, combi and quick-change variants. It is powered by either two Aviadvigatel PS-90 or Rolls-Royce RB211 engines. The Tu-204 is produced at two of the largest Russian aircraft manufacturing plants in Ulyanovsk (Tu-204 series) and Kazan (Tu-214).

The Tu-204 cabin is available in several layouts, including the baseline single-class layout seating for 210 passengers and a two- or three-class layout designed for 164–193 passengers. A cargo version of the Tu-204 is being successfully operated by several airlines in Europe and Egypt.

Seating configuration is 3–3 in economy and 2–2 in Business class. The business class cabin has a seat pitch of 810 millimetres (31.9 in). The passenger cabin can be divided into compartments according to class with removable bulkheads and curtains. Compartments are illuminated by reflected light. Overhead bins for passenger baggage and coats are of the closed type. The volume of baggage per passenger is 0.052 cubic metres (1.8 cu ft).

For more details of design, operational history and variants, click here.

Specifications below are for the Tu-204-100 and -120 variants.

The Tu-214 medium to long-range airliner is a development of the Tupolev Tu-204 with higher weight and longer range. The aircraft was designed by Tupolev JSC of Moscow, Russia and is manufactured at the Kazan Aircraft Production Organisation (KAPO) in Tatarstan.

The Tupolev Tu-214 was certified in December 2000 against the Russian AP-25 standards. The aircraft entered service in May 2001 with the Dalavia Airline of Khabarovsk, on scheduled Russian domestic and international routes. The aircraft entered service with the Russia State Transport organisation.

In addition, orders for the aircraft were placed by Transaero (ten ordered, first delivered April 2007), Uralskie Airlines, Atlant-Sojuz and Slovak Airlines (two aircraft).

The aircraft is available as a single-class or two-class passenger airliner, a combination cargo / passenger aircraft and a VIP / VVIP aircraft.

The baseline single-class configuration of the Tu-214 provides 210 passenger seats in a single aisle 3×3 seat arrangement. A two-class arrangement provides 164 seats with 16 business-class seats and 148 economy seats.

The Tu-214C3, the 214 combi passenger-cargo convertible, is for mixed cargo and passenger operation.

Cargo-passenger TU-214 C3

The Cargo-Passenger Tu-214 aircraft can transport up to 164 passengers or 25.2t of cargo in 26 LD3-46 standard containers. The aircraft can be converted by airport ground crew from the passenger version to a mixed cargo / passenger version or to the all-cargo version in, typically, four or five hours.

18 containers can be loaded in the main passenger cabin and eight containers loaded in the cargo compartment.

The aircraft is fitted with a 3,405mm x 2,180mm cargo door and the internal cargo lift for automated loading and unloading of standard containers is installed beneath the cargo hatch.

The cargo containers are delivered by an airport loading system to the rear cargo compartment. The aircraft is equipped with a fully automatic container loading system with manual back-up.

The first eight containers are automatically lifted to the passenger compartment and automatically secured in the designated positions. A further five containers are secured in the cargo compartment. Unloading the containers is carried out in the opposite order.

It holds the distinction of being the first jet-powered passenger liner to be developed and produced in West Germany (the East German Baade 152 being the first German jet airliner), as well as the first German-built civil aircraft to have been manufactured for a decade.

The VFW 614 was originally proposed during the early 1960s as the E.614, which was a concept for a 36–40 seat aircraft by a consortium of West German aircraft companies, who were soon re-organised into Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW). It was originally intended as a Douglas DC-3 replacement; its most distinctive feature was that its engines were mounted in pods on pylons above the wing.

The VFW 614 was produced in small numbers during the early- to mid-1970s by VFW-Fokker, a company resulting from a merger between VFW and the Dutch aircraft company Fokker. However, the program was officially cancelled in 1977, the anticipated sales and thus production having not been achieved.

For details of the design, development and operational history, click here.

The Vanguard was introduced just before the first of the large jet-powered airliners, and was largely ignored by the market. Only 44 were built, ordered by Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) and British European Airways (BEA).

After only about 10 years' service TCA experimentally converted one of its Vanguards to a freighter configuration, calling it the Cargoliner. This was considered successful, and in the early 1970s most were converted to freighters, those from BEA becoming the Merchantman. These freighters remained in service for many years, with the last one not retiring until 1996.

For more information on design, operational history and variants, click here.

The airliner was designed to operate on long-distance routes from the shorter runways of the era and commanded excellent hot and high performance for operations from African airports. The performance of the VC10 was such that it had achieved the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by a subsonic jet airliner of 5 hours and 1 minute, a record that was held for 41 years, until February 2020 where a British Airways Boeing 747 broke the record at 4 hours 56 minutes due to Storm Ciara. Only the supersonic Concorde was faster. The VC10 is often compared to the larger Soviet Ilyushin Il-62, the two types being the only airliners to use a rear-engined quad layout; the smaller business jet Lockheed JetStar also has this engine arrangement.

Although only a relatively small number of VC10s were built, they provided long service with BOAC and other airlines from the 1960s to 1981. They were also used from 1965 as strategic air transports for the Royal Air Force, and ex-passenger models and others were used as aerial refuelling aircraft. The 50th anniversary of the first flight of the prototype VC10, G-ARTA, was celebrated with a "VC10 Retrospective" Symposium and the official opening of a VC10 exhibition at Brooklands Museum on 29 June 2012. The type was retired from RAF service on 20 September 2013. It has been succeeded in the aerial refuelling role by the Airbus Voyager. VC10K3 ZA147 performed the final flight of the type on 25 September 2013.

For details of the development,design,operational history and variants, click here.

Specifications below are for the VC=10 Model 1101.

The Vickers Viastra was an all-metal 12-seat passenger high-wing monoplane, with variants powered by one, two and three engines. Two twin-engined Viastras operated commercially in Australia from 1931-6; another served as a Royal transport.

The Vickers-Wibault construction method was based on the patents of Michel Wibault, who began working with Vickers in 1922. It was a way of producing an all-metal aircraft with an airframe built up from simple, non-machined metal shapes, covered with very thin e.g. 0.016 in (0.4 mm) corrugated light alloy sheets. Skin panels were riveted to each other and to the underlying structure; the skin on the wings was not stressed. Vickers' first experience of the method was with the licence built Wibault Scout. The first Vickers design using this construction was the Vireo and the third, the Viastra, used a blend of Wibault and Vickers construction techniques.

The Viastra was envisaged as a one or three-engined commercial aircraft capable of carrying ten passengers and designed with an eye to operations in countries with poor surface transport facilities. Vickers built several variants, largely similar apart from the engines: ultimately, there were Viastras with one, two and three engines. They were high-wing monoplanes, the wings having constant chord, square tips and a thick Raf 24 section. The wings, like the rest of the aircraft were covered with the corrugated skin and carried balanced ailerons and outboard slots. There was a biplane tail unit with a pair of narrow chord planes, the lower attached to the fuselage underside and the upper mounted clear above. The outboard vertical tail surfaces were again very narrow and served as the main rudders; the single-engined and tri-motor variants also had a small triangular central fin, carrying an auxiliary rudder and supporting the upper horizontal plane. With one exception, the twin-engined Viastras had the central fin and rudder replaced by tubular bracing.

The fuselage had a square cross-section, parallel in the passenger cabin area and narrowing towards the tail. The passenger compartment had six rectangular windows on each side and the crew had an enclosed cabin forward of the wings. Each wing was braced to the lower fuselage with a parallel pair of struts; the forward of these was used to carry a main undercarriage leg with the help of further robust strutting. The two and three-engined Viastras had their outer engines mounted just below the wings. The outer engines were enclosed by a narrow chord Townend ring, but the central engines of the tri-motored and single-engined Viastras were uncowled.

The first Viastra, registered as G-AAUB and powered by three 270 hp (200 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Lynx Major 7-cylinder radial engines first flew on 1 October 1930. It was followed by a pair of Viastra IIs that flew on the Perth-Adelaide route with West Australian Airways from March 1931. One was lost in a landing accident in 1933, but the other continued in service until 1936. They were both configured as twelve seaters and initially powered by a pair of 525 hp (390 kW) Bristol Jupiter XIF radials, although on occasions they flew with one or two Jupiter VIs because the higher rated XIFs proved troublesome. The Australian operation showed that the twin-engined Viastra II was a little underpowered in that it could not hold altitude on only one engine. Vickers confirmed this by replacing the Lynx engines of G-AAUB with Jupiter VIFMs. In this guise it was known as the Viastra VIII. The first of the two West Australian Airways aircraft was briefly converted into a Viastra IX, which had its engines lowered by 15 in (380 mm) before reconversion to a Viastra II. West Australian Airways also ordered a single-engined Viastra, with Jupiter XIF power but the order was cancelled, probably because of the unreliability of that engine, and it remained in the UK.

Variants

Viastra I (Type 160)
Prototype ten-passenger variant with three Armstrong Siddeley Lynx V engines, one built registered G-AUUB later modified as a two-engined Vastra III and later back to three-engines as the Viastra VIII.
Viastra II (Type 198)
12-seater passenger variant for West Australian Airways with two Jupiter XIF engines, two built (Specifications below)
Viastra III (Type 199)
Viastra I converted with two Jaguar VIc engines, later modified back to three-engines as the Viasta VIII.
Viastra VI (Type 203)
Single-engined freighter version powered by a Jupiter XIF: one built but never delivered.
Viastra VIII (Type 220)
Viastra III converted with three Jupiter VIFM
Viastra IX (Type 242)
brief conversion of a Viastra II, with lowered engines
Viastra X (Type 259)
Seven-seat VIP passenger version for the Prince of Wales with two Pegasus radial engines, one built registered G-ACCC.
Wallis-Viastra (Type 256)
new wing, possibly never flown: one built.

Single engine.

Twin Engine

Trimotor

After the Second World War, the Viking was an important airliner with British airlines, pending the development of turboprop aircraft like the Viscount. An experimental airframe was fitted with Rolls-Royce Nene turbojets and first flown in 1948 as the world's first pure jet transport aircraft. Military developments were the Vickers Valetta and the Vickers Varsity.

The first prototype (designated the Type 491 and registered G-AGOK) was built by the Vickers Experimental Department at its wartime Foxwarren dispersal site and was first flown by 'Mutt' Summers at Wisley Airfield on 22 June 1945.[5] This aircraft crashed on 23 April 1946 due to a double engine failure; no fatalities occurred as a result of the crash. Following successful trials of the three prototypes the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) ordered 19 aircraft. The first BOAC aircraft flew on 23 March 1946. The prototypes were then used for trials with the Royal Air Force which led to orders for military versions (the Viking C2 (12 ordered as freighter/transports) and the modified Valetta C1).

The initial 19 production aircraft (later designated the Viking 1A) carried 21 passengers, they had metal fuselages and - except for the wing inboard of the nacelles - fabric-clad geodetic wings and tail units. Following feedback from customers, the next 14 examples, known as the Viking 1, featured stressed-metal wings and tail units. The next variant, the Viking 1B, was 28 in (71 cm) longer, carrying 24 passengers with up-rated Bristol Hercules piston engines, achieved a production run of 115. One of this batch was changed during production to so that it could be fitted with two Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet engines, with its first flight on 6 April 1948.

Production finished in 1948, including 16 for the RAF of which 4 were for the King's Flight, but in 1952 BEA adapted some to a 38-passenger layout, taking the maximum payload up from 5,500–7,200 lb (2,500–3,300 kg). All Vikings featured a tailwheel undercarriage.

The 58th Viking (c/n 158) became the prototype of the military Valetta, of which 262 were produced for the RAF. When production of this strengthened but externally similar type ended in 1952, a flying classroom version with tricycle undercarriage was already being delivered to the Royal Air Force (RAF), called the Varsity. The production of 161 Varsities kept the Hurn works busy until January 1954, and they enjoyed a long service life. Examples are preserved at Brooklands Museum, the Imperial War Museum Duxford and the Newark Air Museum.

Royal Australian Air Force - One Viking C2 in service from 1947 to 1951.
No. 2 Squadron RAAF
No. 34 Squadron RAAF

Vickers Viking with RR Nene jet engines.

Vickers Valetta with strengthened floor and cargo door.

Vickers Varsity with tricycle undercarriage.

The Viscount was a four engined, turbo-prop airliner, initially designed to carry 32 passengers, but development resulted in the final Model 810 carrying up to 75 passengers. The Viscount was well received by the public for its cabin conditions, which included pressurisation, reductions in vibration and noise, and panoramic windows. It became one of the most successful and profitable of the first post-war transport aircraft; 445 Viscounts were built for a range of international customers, including in North America.

In Australia, the Viscount was operated by TAA, Butler Air Transport (an airline servicing NSW and Qld country towns, and acquired by Australian National Airways, which was in turn taken over by Ansetts to form Ansett-ANA). Two Viscounts were also operated by the RAAF No. 34 VIP Squadron.

For more details, click here.

The Vickers Vulcan was a British single-engine biplane airliner of the 1920s built by Vickers Limited at Brooklands Aerodrome, Surrey. It carried eight passengers and a pilot.

The Vickers Vulcan was designed by Rex Pierson of Vickers. It first flew in April 1922 at the hands of chief test pilot, S. Cockerell, at Brooklands Aerodrome in Surrey, UK.

The Vulcan was based on a civil version of the Vimy bomber, but featured many changes, including a much larger, taller fuselage and one, instead of two, Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII engines, the intention being low operating costs. The shape of its fuselage, as well as its flying characteristics, earned it the nickname "Flying Pig". The first delivery took place in August 1922, to Instone Air Line Ltd. Other operators included Imperial Airways and Qantas (however, the latter returned the aircraft as their performance was too poor for the company's needs). The last Vulcan flying was a Type 74 with Imperial Airways. It crashed in July 1928 while on a test flight from Croydon Airport.

Variants
Type 61 - first production version, five built.
Type 63 - cargo version based on the Type 61, one built
Type 68 - proposed colonial variant with an Eagle VIII engine, not built.
Type 74 - upgraded to 450 hp Napier Lion engine, two built       (Specifications below)
Type 86 - proposed all-metal variant with an Eagle VIII engine, not built.

The Vultee V-1 was a 1930s American single-engined airliner built by the Airplane Development Corporation, designed by Gerard Vultee and financed by automobile manufacturer Errett Cord.

The prototype (designated the V-1) was an all-metal low-wing cantilever monoplane with a retractable tailwheel landing gear. It had accommodation for a pilot and six passengers and first flew on February 19, 1933.

The production aircraft were designated the V-1A and had a slightly larger and longer fuselage for two pilots and eight passengers. Production ended in 1936 after 24 aircraft plus the prototype had been built.

A floatplane version, sold to the USSR along a manufacturing license was designated V-1AS and an executive transport version was designated V-1AD (for Deluxe). No production ensued in the USSR.

American Airlines bought at least 13 V-1As and the V-1 prototype (after it had been modified for two pilot operation) and they entered service in 1934. On introduction, they were the fastest commercial airliners of their day. They were used on routes from the Great Lakes to Texas. Bowen Airlines of Texas also operated the type.[3] By 1936, they were sold, having been replaced with twin-engined aircraft when the Bureau of Air Commerce severely limited the use of single engine airliners.

V-1ADs were operated by several private companies or individuals as high-speed executive aircraft. The sole V-1AD Special was used prewar by newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst. It later served airlines in Panama and Nicaragua before returning to the United States postwar.

Seven former American Airlines aircraft, plus eight others were used by the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, with machine guns and under-fuselage bomb racks fitted. Four of the aircraft were captured by the Nationalists.

The V-1 was used in the filming of Jungle Queen (1944) with Clark Gable, and The Tarnished Angels (1957).

The Westland IV and Westland Wessex were British high wing, three-engined light transport aircraft built by Westland Aircraft.

In 1928, Westland began work on a small three-engined airliner, suitable for low volume, "feeder-liner" type operation, as a follow-on to its single-engined Westland Limousine transport. The new type was known as the Limousine IV early in development, which soon became the name Westland IV. The Westland IV was a high-winged monoplane with a mainly wooden structure. The fuselage was of square section and built around spruce longerons and ash frames, with internal wire bracing and fabric covering. The wings had wooden box spars and spruce wing ribs in a Warren girder arrangement, and were braced to the fuselage by streamlined struts. The aircraft had a fixed tailwheel undercarriage.

The Westland IV first flew on 21 February 1929 at which time it was powered by the 95 hp (71 kW) Cirrus engine. This prototype was registered as G-EBXK and was certified for a crew of two and four passengers. The second machine had Hermes engines and a metal rear fuselage. The third machine, G-ABAJ, was modified to take the 105 hp (78 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major engines as well as some other changes and became the prototype Westland Wessex. The two Westland IVs were subsequently converted to Wessexes giving 10 aircraft in total.

Xi'an Aircraft Industry Corporation rolled out its first MA600 turboprop on the 29 June 2008. MA600 made its maiden flight on 10 October 2008. The aircraft is equipped with new avionics, improved passenger cabin and engines with increased thrust when compared to MA60.

Powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127J turboprop engines, it has a 60-passenger capacity.

As of October 2018, over 300 have been ordered.

The trijet maiden flight was made in 1966, and it was in production from 1967 to 1981. Introduced in September 1968, the Yak-40 has been exported since 1970.

The Yak-40 is a low-winged cantilever monoplane with unswept wings, a large T-tail and a retractable tricycle landing gear. The passenger cabin is ahead of the wing, with the short rear fuselage carrying the three turbofan engines, with two engines mounted on short pylons on the side of the fuselage and a third engine in the rear fuselage, with air fed from a dorsal air-intake by an "S-duct", as is an auxiliary power unit, fitted to allow engine start-up without ground support on primitive airfields.[8][9] The three AI-25 engines are two-shaft engines rated at 14.7 kN (3,300 lbf). The engines have no jetpipes, and initially no thrust reversers.

The pressurized fuselage has a diameter of 2.4 metres (94 in). Pilot and co-pilot sit side-by-side in the aircraft's flight deck, while the passenger cabin has a standard layout seating 24 to 27 passengers three-abreast, although 32 passengers can be carried by switching to four-abreast seating. Passengers enter the aircraft via a set of ventral airstairs in the rear fuselage.

The wing is fitted with large trailing-edge slotted flaps, but has no other high-lift devices, relying on the aircraft's low wing loading to give the required short-field take-off and landing performance. The wings join at the aircraft centerline, with the main spar running from wingtip to wingtip The wings house integral fuel tanks with a capacity of 3,800 litres (1,000 US gal; 840 imp gal). The aircraft has a large fin, which is swept back at an angle of 50 degrees to move the tailplane rearwards to compensate for the short rear fuselage. The horizontal tailplane itself is unswept.

The Yak-40 was the first Soviet-built airliner designed to Western airworthiness requirements.

For details of the operational history and 20 variants, click here.

The Yakovlev Yak-42 (Russian: Яковлев Як-42; NATO reporting name: "Clobber") is a 100/120-seat three-engined mid-range passenger jet. It was the first airliner produced in the Soviet Union to be powered by modern high-bypass turbofan engines.

In 1972, the Yakovlev design bureau started work on a short- to medium-range airliner capable of carrying 100–120 passengers. It was intended to be a replacement for the Tupolev Tu-134 jet as well as the Ilyushin Il-18, Antonov An-24 and An-26 turboprop airliners. While the new airliner was required to operate out of relatively small airfields while maintaining good economy, as many Soviet airports had been upgraded to accommodate more advanced aircraft, it did not have to have the same ability to operate from grass strips as Yakovlev's smaller Yak-40. The requirement resulted in the largest, heaviest and most powerful aircraft designed by Yakovlev,[3][4] until the even larger MC-21 took flight in 2017.

The Yak-42 is a low-winged monoplane of all-metal construction, with a design lifespan of 30,000 one-hour flights. It has a pressurised fuselage of circular section, with the cabin designed to carry 120 passengers in six-abreast layout (or 100 passengers for local services with greater space allocated to carry-on luggage and coat stowage). The aircraft is flown by a flight crew of two pilots sitting side by side in a flight deck forward of the cabin. Access is via two airstairs, one in the underside of the rear fuselage, like that of the Yak-40, and one forward of the cabin on the port side. Two holds are located under the cabin, carrying baggage, cargo and mail.

All of the prototypes had main landing gear with two wheels each, with the first serial production aircraft, four main wheels were introduced. The wing layout underwent considerable revision during the design process, with the first prototype being built with a wing sweep of 11 degrees and the second prototype with a sweep of 23 degrees. After evaluation, the greater sweep of the second prototype was chosen for production. Early aircraft had a clean wing leading edge with no control surfaces, and plain trailing edge flaps. This changed in later aircraft, which were fitted with leading edge slats, with the trailing edge flaps slotted.

Two engines were mounted in pods on either side of the rear fuselage, with the third embedded inside the rear fuselage, fed with air via an "S-duct" air inlet. An auxiliary power unit (APU) is also fitted in the rear fuselage. No thrust reversers are fitted. The aircraft has a T-tail, with both the vertical fin and the horizontal surfaces swept.

For more information on the development and operatinal history, plus the 9 variants, click here.