Why do aircraft models or names have numbers

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Maybe you asked yourself at some point, because the aircraft models of manufacturers have numbers in their names?

Boeing 717, Airbus A300, Embraer 120, Tupolev Tu-160, Dornier 328, Cessna 172 and thousands more aircraft models, but those numbers next to the manufacturer's mark, what do their names mean?

Everything in aviation is prepared or has a logic, even the name of the planes or rather the model of these. Surely the fictitious model Airbus Plus or Boeing Super would have greater commercial success than Airbus A320neo O Boeing 737 MAX, but there is a reason behind.

aircraft name

From some planes of the First World War the first planes with name and model appeared following the logic Manufacturer + Model number = Aircraft name, like the Junker J 1 or Ryan M-2 or already in World War II the Douglas DC-3.

Boeing

For instance, for the North American manufacturer the current logic of 7X7 was not always used, airplanes like the Boeing existed 307 Stratoliner or the B-17 Flying Fortress was known as a model 299.

For the specific case of Boeing, post ww2, decided to classify their aircraft by type:

• 300 a 400 propeller planes.
• 500 turbine aircraft.
• 600 for rockets and missiles.
• 700 for jet aircraft.

with this logic, The first commercial jet should have been called Boeing 700, but the marketing department recommended that it sounded better to put a 7 in the end, like the agents 007, so the boeing was born 707, from which the Boeing was born 720, but that's another story.

So from the 707 increasing 1 in the middle Boeing models were named from the 707 until the 787.

Airbus

In the case of the main European manufacturer, your logic changes a bit, but still the numbers predominate, For example, Airbus is always accompanied by the letter A before the numbers., like the Airbus A350, almost all aircraft of this manufacturer carry the 3, but why?

This logic follows in all Airbus aircraft from the A300, since its planned capacity was 300 passengers, from then on jumping in series 10 the models were named, minus the A220, who joined from Bombardier.

Embraer

The Brazilian manufacturer always had very particular names for its planes such as Bandeirante, Brasilia, Xingu, Xavante and Tucano, but these were left from the Embraer 135 to enter the concept of families like the rest of the manufacturers and world trend.

The numbering of the models as an example has the logic of 1 (a hallway) and 90 (minimum number of passengers they can carry).

Cessna

In this case there is no greater logic than the 100 upwards to indicate larger and more powerful aircraft such as the Cessna 172 to 180, the last digit being an internal engineering detail with no business sense.

House

In this case, aircraft model planes begin with C-, followed by three numbers:

• C-101 Aviojet “Culopollo”
• C-212 Aviocar
• C-235
• C-295

Where the first number is the number of engines and the next two correspond to the number of passengers it could carry according to the configuration.

Other details

Too, some aircraft have other letters or identifiers in their names such as:

• F for cargo aircraft.
• LR para long range:
• Neo para new engine option.
• Ceo para classic engine option.
• XWB para extra wide body.

Do you know the history of the names and models of aircraft from other manufacturers?

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