What Letters on Military Aircraft Are Actually Code For

What’s up with those weird letters they put in front of military aircraft names, anyway? Why is there seemingly one for every letter in the alphabet? Check out today's epic new video to break the military code!

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[PeteLehmann]

One thing not mentioned, the "KC" designation of aerial refueling aircraft stands for "Kerosene Cargo".

[MISTERDIEABETIC]

The "SR" in SR-71 stood for "Strategic Reconnaissance" and has been the only plane with the "SR" Designation. It was originally supposed to be "RS" but the press notes sent out when unveiling the aircraft to the public listed it as "SR" instead so it was then changed to reflect this.

[PeteLehmann]

The most "code" like thing about civilian aircraft registration numbers is that you can determine the country of origin (where it's registered, not the airport) by
which single or double letter, or in some cases a letter followed by a number, or vice versa. For instance "N" is an American aircraft, "C" is Canadian, "RA" is Russian, "P4" is Aruba, and "9M" is Malaysia.

[Chisszaru]

In Sweden, J is for interceptors. A is for attack, and S is for observation. J stands for jakt, which means if a plane has the J first, it's role is mainly to be an interceptor. Jakt in Swedish means hunt, and in the Swedish air force, it's for interceptor. The Saab Jas 39 Gripen, or Griffin, is an interceptor, and is really a multirole, but mainly it's an interceptor, then attack, and lastly, spaning, which mean observation in Swedish. That means only A stands for the same thing throughout the world.

[PrezVeto]

Breaking down some well-known example aircrafts' designations at the end would've been helpful to drive it all home, especially the relationship between basic and modifier types.

[theduke]

"oldest still in use"
b52: am i a joke to you?

[Re.Configured]

US does still have gliders, just in a training role only, I.e. he TG-15A.

And yeah it’s true that modern bombers don’t have a modified mission prefix. But past bombers like the B-57 Canberra has several RB-57 and WB-57 variants (the latter of which is used by NASA to this day)

[memelephant]

The Aerial refueling shows a boom stick, which is not flexible. These are used for the Air Force Planes. Navy and Marine planes use the flexible rope and basket, also known as probe and drogue to refuel

[allangibson]

C is also the catch all for military passenger aircraft. The military version of the passenger 707 is C-137.
The USAF also still has gliders in service - the Airforce Academy has a fleet for pilot training (TG-15’s and TG-16’s).
Retired aircraft get a Z prefix like the ZU-7 Piper SuperCub.
Drones date back to before WW2. Marilyn Monroe’s WW2 job was building OQ-2 drones at Radioplane.
The oldest drones in service were the Dehavilland Queen Bee drones (radio controlled Tiger Moths) operated by the Royal Navy. These gave the name to the entire class that included the Fairey Queen, Miles Queen Martinet and Airspeed Queen Wasp (which may also be the origin of the “Q” code letter in US service).

[codykuehner]

A little bit of food for thought for infographics. Would you do a video that goes a little more into depth of what you covered at the beginning of this video? Covering the basics of the basic mission letter is awesome and yall nailed it. I would like to see you cover the other letters and the numbers to show how the other letters combined with the basic letters fine tunes the aircraft designation military wise like the AH-64E.

[fauzirahman]

The C designation might be reserved for cargo and often only carry a small number of passengers, however, the famous C-130 Hercules are quite known for carrying platoons of army personnel, and have also been used to transport refugees or evacuate diplomatic staff in a pinch.

[breadguy]

10:03


i leave these for me when im coming back to this video.

[brianedwards]

On the subject of blimps mistaken for UFOs I have now experienced 3 common illusions mistaken for UFOs. First was a blimp but in my defence it was at night and the blimp was being lit from within. Second was Venus. I quickly worked that out but it looked like it was jelly on a plate, wobbling round. The last was the other night where a plane banked such that the wings were invisible at twilight but I could hear what it was well enough. All I need now is to see a weather balloon. 🤣

[raymondmartin]

Thanks 😊 for this, being a USAF Veteran.

[Rambam]

At my age, it's not often I come across completely new information. But this qualifies. I didn't know any of this stuff.

[coolmichael]

Since most of our military aircraft have it, do a video on the U.S. roundel as well as other nation’s roundel.

[abbadonwilson]

Me again, Are you gonna finish the “ I survived ” Nuclear war? I still say you should write a screenplay.

[ultralaggerREV]

0:41

You seem to forgot the Y designation.
It’s always added in aircraft that are proposed and get to participate in a real-world maiden flight. Stuff like YA-10, YF-23, YF-22, etc.

[Miliradian]

Make sure to use this in the next air combat game you are gonna play!

[spitfire]

The K designation is partly right. Tankers are actually designed KC, including the KC-135, the mostly retired KC-10, and the new KC-46