Identify by airplane characteristics

The L-610 can be regarded as a crossover between a small ATR42 and the L-410. Of the latter, the cockpit windows and single nose wheel seem to be borrowed. (photo WikiMedia/Aldo Bidini)

The world's fastest aircraft for a long time has quite a unique shape: the delta wings blend into the fuselage, giving the latter sharp edges. Furthermore, it has two large jet engines in the wings with big conical shock cones in the inlets and two inward tilted vertical stabilisers on top of the engine nacelles.

The Lockheed Hercules is characterised by its main gear with two large wheels in tandem configuration, retracting in pods at the side of the fuselage. Also typical are the many cockpit windows, even at the feet of the crew. At the back end the fuselage slopes up to allow easy loading and unloading, ending in big trapezium shaped horizontal and vertical stabilisers. 

With regard to other four engined (military) cargo aircraft with high wings and a T-tail the Lockheed Starlifter has a fuselage with a relatively small diameter. The engine nacelles are very similar to those on the Ilyushin 76. The landing main landing gear four wheels on each leg.

The C-5 Galaxy has a typical pear shaped fuselage cross section. Loading is done through the nose, which can be opened up, and rear. Further characteristics of the C-5 are the six wheel main landing gears, four wheels nose gear, lack of winglets, lack of windows in the nose and separate fan exhausts.

Many consider this one of the most beautiful aircraft ever built, at least within the propliner category. With its three fin tail and and dolphin shaped fuselage, and standing high on its landing gear, the Constellation has a very elegant appearance.

The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is more a rocket with wings than an aircraft. The thin, straight, trapezoidal wings with anhedral have a span about half the fuselage length. Other features are the half round air intakes with conical plugs and the T-tail.

It can hardly be difficult for anyone to not recognise the peculiar shape of this aircraft. The F-117 looks like it has been developed for a science fiction movie. However, it is the first military aircraft that has a significant application of stealth technology. This dictates the shape of all outer surfaces.

As a fifth generation fighter the shape that improves the stealth properties is clearly present in the F-35, especially the nose, leading and trailing edges of wings and horizontal stabilisers. Hence it looks much like a smaller, single engine version of the F-22 Raptor. Also the vertical stabilisers are significantly different.

Often confused with the Beech 18 or Barkley-Grow T8P-1 due to its H-tail these Lockheed twins can best be recognised by the cockpit windows. The Electra (Junior) has fewer windows than the Beech 18 and the front windows are in a V-shape when viewed from above. The T8P-1 has only four cockpit windows, while the Lockheed has six, and a fixed gear. The similar shaped but larger Lockheed L-14 and L-18 also have a larger diameter fuselage.