The United States military aircraft engine designation system was introduced in 1926, originally for piston engines it was expanded in the 1947 to include a separate system for jet and rocket engines.
A piston engine designation has three separate elements, a type prefix, a number representing engine displacement and a model number.
| H | H engine |
| L | Inline |
| O | Opposed |
| R | Radial |
| V | V engine |
| W | W engine |
| X | X engine |
Some early engines had the type letter prefixed by a modification letter
Letters were used between 1926 and 1933 then suffixes were numerals with odd number for Army and later Air Force engines and even numbers for Navy engines. After 1943 the letters AN were included to indicate the engine met both Army/Air Force and Navy requirements. Some engines fitted with water-injected engines had the W added to the suffix.
For example, the Curtiss V-1150-1 is a Vee-type engine with a displacement of 1150 cubic inches and is an Army model.
A jet engine designation consists of four separate elements in the format TSS-MM-NN where T is the type letter, SS is the sequence number, MM is the manufacturer designation (one or two characters), and NN is the model number:
| A | Adaptive cycle engine |
| J | Turbojet engine |
| T | Turboprop |
| TF or F | Turbofan |
The prefixes X for experimental and Y for service test are used.
| A | Allison Engine Company |
| AC | Allis-Chalmers |
| AJ | Aerojet |
| B | Buick |
| BO | Boeing |
| CW | Curtiss-Wright |
| F | Ford |
| FF | Frederic Flader |
| G | Garrett AiResearch |
| GE | General Electric |
| GN | Giannini |
| K | Kellog |
| L | Lycoming |
| LA | Lockheed |
| LD | Avco Lycoming |
| MA | Marquardt |
| MN | Mensasco |
| NH | Northrop-Hendy |
| OEL | Orenda |
| P | Pratt & Whitney / United Aircraft of Canada |
| R | Fairchild |
| RM | Reaction Motors |
| T | Continental |
| V | Packard |
| W | Wright |
| WE | Westinghouse |
For example, the TF39-GE-1C is a Turbofan built by General Electric and was an Air Force model, which has powered the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy and the Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-414A is a turbofan built by Pratt & Whitney and was a Navy model, which has powered the Grumman F-14A Tomcat.
Have a similar system to jet engines but use three basic types:
| LR | Liquid-fuel |
| PS | Pulsejet |
| RJ | Ramjet |
The prefixes X for experimental and Y for service test are used.
NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc. They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manner in place of the original designations, which either may have been unknown to the Western world at the time or easily confused codes. For example, the Russian bomber jet Tupolev Tu-160 is simply called "Blackjack".
British military aircraft designations are used to refer to aircraft types and variants operated by the armed forces of the United Kingdom.
The Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star is an American subsonic jet trainer. It was produced by Lockheed and made its first flight in 1948. The T-33 was developed from the Lockheed P-80/F-80 starting as TP-80C/TF-80C in development, then designated T-33A. It was used by the U.S. Navy initially as TO-2, then TV-2, and after 1962, T-33B. The last operator of the T-33, the Bolivian Air Force, retired the type in July 2017, after 44 years of service.
The Raytheon T-1 Jayhawk is a twin-engined jet aircraft used by the United States Air Force for advanced pilot training. T-1A students go on to fly airlift and tanker aircraft. The T-400 is a similar version for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.
The Japanese military aircraft designation systems for the Imperial period (pre-1945) had multiple designation systems for each armed service. This led to the Allies' use of code names during World War II, and these code names are still better known in English-language texts than the real Japanese names for the aircraft. A number of different schemes were simultaneously in use.
The Pratt & Whitney JT3D is an early turbofan aircraft engine derived from the Pratt & Whitney JT3C. It was first run in 1958 and was first flown in 1959 under a B-45 Tornado test aircraft. Over 8,000 JT3Ds were produced between 1959 and 1985. Most JT3D engines still in service today are used on military aircraft, where the engine is referred to by its US military designation of TF33.
The Boeing C-135 Stratolifter is a transport aircraft derived from the prototype Boeing 367-80 jet airliner in the early 1950s. It has a narrower fuselage and is shorter than the 707. Boeing gave the aircraft the internal designation of Model 717. Since the first one was built in August 1956, the C-135 and its variants have been a fixture of the United States Air Force.
The Pratt & Whitney TF30 is a military low-bypass turbofan engine originally designed by Pratt & Whitney for the subsonic F6D Missileer fleet defense fighter, but this project was cancelled. It was later adapted with an afterburner for supersonic designs, and in this form it was the world's first production afterburning turbofan, going on to power the F-111 and the F-14A Tomcat, as well as being used in early versions of the A-7 Corsair II without an afterburner. First flight of the TF30 was in 1964 and production continued until 1986.
The Tri-Service aircraft designation system is a unified system introduced in 1962 by the United States Department of Defense for designating all U.S. military aircraft. Previously, the U.S. armed services used separate nomenclature systems.
Joint Regulation 4120.15E: Designating and Naming Military Aerospace Vehicles is the current system for designating all aircraft, helicopters, rockets, missiles, spacecraft, and other aerial vehicles in military use by the United States Armed Forces.
The Dassault Falcon 20 is a French business jet developed and manufactured by Dassault Aviation. The first business jet developed by the firm, it became the first of a family of business jets to be produced under the same name; of these, both the smaller Falcon 10 and the larger trijet Falcon 50 were direct derivatives of the Falcon 20.
The Aichi Kokuki KK AE1A Atsuta was a Japanese licensed version of the German Daimler-Benz DB 601A 12-cylinder liquid-cooled inverted-vee aircraft engine. The Atsuta powered only two models of Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) aircraft in World War II. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) used the same engine to power its Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien fighter. The IJNAS's Atsuta and its IJAAS cousin, the Ha-40 were based on the engine that powered Germany's Messerschmitt Bf 109E fighter.
United Kingdom military aircraft serial numbers are aircraft registration numbers used to identify individual military aircraft in the United Kingdom (UK). All UK military aircraft are allocated and display a unique registration number. A unified registration number system, maintained initially by the Air Ministry (AM), and its successor the Ministry of Defence (MoD), is used for aircraft operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), Fleet Air Arm (FAA), and Army Air Corps (AAC). Military aircraft operated by government agencies and civilian contractors are also assigned registration numbers from this system.
In the United States, all military aircraft display a serial number to identify individual aircraft. These numbers are located on the aircraft tail, so they are sometimes referred to unofficially as "tail numbers". On the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bomber, lacking a tail, the number appears on the nose gear door. Individual agencies have each evolved their own system of serial number identification. Aircraft serials are part of the Aircraft Visual Identification System, which also includes the aircraft's tail code and Modex.
The German Air Ministry had a system for aircraft designation which was an attempt by the aviation authorities of the Third Reich to standardize and produce an identifier for each aircraft design's airframe type produced in Germany. It was in use from 1933 to 1945 though many pre-1933 aircraft were included and the system had changes over those years. As well as aircraft of the Luftwaffe, it covered civilian airliners and sport planes, due to the RLM handing all aviation-related matters in the Third Reich, both civilian and military in nature.
The Mitsubishi Shinten was a two-row, 14-cylinder air-cooled radial engine built by the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) and the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) in the early 1930s. Like many aircraft engines in Japan, there were multiple designations for this engine. The company model designation was A6(7) while it was an experimental engine project. Once accepted, it was known as the "Shinten" or MK1 by the IJNAS, and Ha6 by the IJAAS.
The MIL-STD-1168 is a set of standard codes used to identify munitions. It was designed to replace the previous confusing Ammunition Identification Code (AIC) system used by the US Army Ordnance Department.
Japanese aero-engines for military aircraft were given a wide variety of designations depending on the customer. This led to much confusion, particularly among the Allied forces, where a single engine type could have up to six different designations. This situation emerged because of the almost total lack of co-operation in weapons procurement between the IJAAS and the IJNAS.
