Special Purpose Aircraft
Sometimes there proves a select aviation requirement for the military that produces specialized aircraft not fitting into any one category.
There are a total of 76 Special Purpose Aircraft in the Military Factory. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order. Flag images indicative of country of origin.
2002
The HH-65 Dolphin replaced the Sikorsky HH-52A Sea Guards then in service with the United States Coast Guard (USCG). The HH-6...
1957
The Alouette II helicopter series is billed as a multi-role, light rotary-wing platform charged with a myriad of duties in bo...
1976
The British-Italian helicopter concern of AgustaWestland developed their AW109 model of 1971 as a commercial-level passenger-...
1917
With production numbering over 6,000 total units, the Airco / de Havilland DH.4 was another one of Geoffrey de Havilland's su...
1978
The Italian Alenia G.222 medium-lift tactical transport was born from a 1962 NATO requirement for a Vertical / Short Take-Off...
1947
The Antonov An-2 is a multi-role light utility biplane initially produced under the Soviet flag. Despite its 1940's pedigree,...
2014
The Antonov An-70 is a Ukrainian transport aircraft - currently in development as of 2012 - intended to replace the aging fle...
1941
The Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle became one of those aircraft designs that evolved into a role not initially envisioned. The...
1927
The Armstrong Whitworth Atlas was designed to replace the aging de Havilland DH.9A biplane of 1918 as well as the Bristol Fig...
1945
The Bachem Ba 349 Natter (translated to "Adder" though also known as the "Viper") was one of the late-war German aircraft ini...
1941
The Beechcraft C-45 was based on the Beech Aircraft Corporation's civilian-minded Model 18 "Twin Beech" series. First flight ...
1962
The Blackburn Buccaneer was a low-level, high-speed, carrier-borne strike aircraft utilized by the British Royal Air Force an...
1983
The 757-series airliner began as a 1970s Boeing endeavor to replace their aging 727 three-engined "trijet" airliner model. Th...
1989
The Boeing E-6 Mercury was original developed for the United States Navy as an airborne command and communications relay plat...
1983
The Boeing Skyfox was a modification program intended to modernized the large fleet of existing Lockheed T-33 "Shooting Star"...
1973
In the early 1970s, the United States Air Force commissioned the Boeing concern to develop and deliver an airborne navigation...
2008
The Bombardier Raytheon Sentinel currently (2013) serves the Royal Air Force (RAF) as its primary Airborne Battlefield and G...
1989
The Britten-Norman Defender is a militarized version of the successful Britten-Norman Islander twin turboprop-powered aircraf...
1951
America's first operational jet-powered fighter became the P-80 Shooting Star of World War 2. The type was a single-engine, s...
1917
In 1911, the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company unveiled their Model D, a biplane aircraft powered by a single Curtiss E-4 e...
1937
The Dornier Do 17 was a medium-class bomber fielded primarily by the German Luftwaffe in the years leading up to World War 2....
2016
To head off the sudden global military need for a modern medium-lift transport system estimated to come within the next ten y...
1944
The Fiseler Fi 103R was, in essence, the piloted form of the successful V-1 rocket that terrorized London citizens throughout...
1937
The seemingly fragile Fieseler Fi 156 Storch(or "Stork") does not seem to have a home in a global conflict as World War 2 was...
1931
The Gee Bee (deriving its name from a shortened form of "Granville Brothers") racers became the unofficial symbol of the "Gol...
1937
While most every aircraft venture usually began with a military requirement or private venture undertaken by a manufacturer f...
1942
Destined never to win beauty contests, the Grumman TBF Avenger series of aircraft would go down as one of the most potent tor...
1942
The He 111 Z (or "Zwilling") was an interesting, albeit bizarre, joining of two He 111 medium bombers (detailed elsewhere on ...
1933
The Heinkel 70 (Blitz) was originally born out of a need for a speedy aeroplane charged with "fast" mail delivery for the Deu...
1942
The Henschel Hs 129 fighter-bomber was built to a 1937 German specification for a twin-engine close-support aircraft with con...
1980
The AH-6/MH-6 "Little Bird" forms an oft-overlook yet wholly vital part of American Special Operations services. This highly ...
1935
The H-1 (also known as the "Hughes 1B") model was the first product of the Hughes Aircraft firm and was intended as a world r...
1958
Charles Kaman (1919 - 2011), an aeronautical engineering student, served as an employee to another fabled helicopter develope...
1994
The Kaman K-MAX is a general purpose, multi-role, all-weather platform certified for long endurance, repeated external medium...
1942
Oft-forgotten, but no less important to the Japanese war effort of World War 2, was the Kyushu K11W Shiragiku ("White Chrysan...
1986
The MC-130 platform has served special forces operations since the Vietnam War and is based on the successful Lockheed C-130 ...
1966
The MC-130 series is represented by the MC-130E Combat Talon I and the MC-130H Combat Talon II systems. Both utilize the huge...
1997
The QF-4 represents a full-size unmanned target drone version of the successful Cold War-era F-4 Phantom II aircraft. QF-4's ...
1934
The high performance, record-setting Messerschmitt Bf 108 "Taifun" ("Typhoon") was born as a racing aircraft under the protot...
1937
In the years leading up to and during World War 2, the Messerschmitt Bf 109 was the principle fighter of the German Luftwaffe...
1941
The Messerschmitt Me 321 "Gigant" ("Giant") was developed as a large cargo hauler to help supplement German airborne troop ac...
1943
No sooner had the Messerschmitt Me 321 unpowered glider entered service that a powered version was being requested by the Ger...
1944
The "parasite" fighter had long held an interest within the minds of aircraft engineers, particularly as new methods of propu...
1973
The famous Mil Mi-24 "Hind" helicopter stemmed from a Soviet Cold-War requirement for a heavily armed and armored transport h...
2014
Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant holds a long-running history of rotary-wing aircraft design and development, its first successful...
1962
The Mil Mi-6 was an inventory stalwart for the Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold War. For a time, the Mi-6 represen...
1945
The Nakajima Ki-115 Tsuguri ("Sword") was a simplistic single-seat, single-engine suicide fighter aircraft development undert...
1942
By 1937, it became apparent to the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) that a more modern replacement for the Nakajima Ki-27 was nee...
1970
As a long time Soviet equipment user, the Chinese were already building the twin-engine Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 "Farmer" jet ...
1996
A product of the Northrop Grumman Corporation, the E-8 "Joint Stars" series of aircraft provides the United States Air Force ...
2015
The MQ-4C "Triton" unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) represents a "navalized" form of the original Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global H...
1955
By the late 1940s, the Swedish Air Force (or "Flygvapnet") was reviewing options in an effort to replace its aging series of ...
2013
The Saab Skeldar is an unarmed rotary-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). It is a relatively new development in the UAV field...
1935
The Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 Pipistrello ("Bat") served primarily with the Regia Aeronautica throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Th...
1967
The HH-3E "Jolly Green Giant" was a specialized development of the original Sikorsky CH-3 transport helicopter. The HH-3E was...
1990
The US Coast Guard's HH-60 "Jayhawk" is based on the hugely successful Sikorsky Aircraft "S-70" rotary-wing model series that...
1954
The Tupolev Tu-16 (codenamed "Badger" by NATO) owed its success story to the Cold War and its own versatility. Throughout its...
1945
The Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka (translated to "Cherry Blossom") was a single-seat, pilot-guided suicide fighter proposed and produced...
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