Airplane Design Groups I–VI explained, with the types sorted
The FAA sets an aircraft’s Airplane Design Group from its wingspan or its tail height, whichever lands in the higher group. Of the 364 types on this site, 162 are in Group I and only 5 reach Group VI.
The groups come from the FAA advisory circular on airport design, AC 150/5300-13B. Each group is a band of wingspan and a band of tail height. A type whose span falls in one band and whose tail falls in another takes the higher of the two. The site uses the limits exactly as Table 1-2 prints them, and every type page draws them as lines around the aircraft.
The six bands
The bands are uneven. Group I covers every span under 49 ft, which takes in every single-engine piston type in the file (85 of 85); the widest of them is the De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver at 48.0 ft. Group III, from 79 to under 118 ft, is where the narrow-body airliners sit. Groups V and VI hold the wide-body airliners and the largest military types, and Group VI ends at 262 ft, just above the Airbus A380-800 at 261.7 ft.
| Group | Wingspan | Tail height | Types | Median span | Median length | Median tail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group I | 0 to <49 ft | 0 to <20 ft | 162 | 36.8 ft | 28.2 ft | 9.6 ft |
| Group II | 49 to <79 ft | 20 to <30 ft | 77 | 57.0 ft | 55.3 ft | 17.2 ft |
| Group III | 79 to <118 ft | 30 to <45 ft | 77 | 94.2 ft | 103.9 ft | 30.2 ft |
| Group IV | 118 to <171 ft | 45 to <60 ft | 20 | 146.4 ft | 157.2 ft | 48.1 ft |
| Group V | 171 to <214 ft | 60 to <66 ft | 23 | 197.8 ft | 209.1 ft | 57.5 ft |
| Group VI | 214 to <262 ft | 66 to <80 ft | 5 | 235.4 ft | 238.6 ft | 64.6 ft |
Group I holds almost half of the file
The medians show how fast size climbs between groups. The median Group III type has a length of 103.9 ft; the median Group V type is twice as long at 209.1 ft. Tail height climbs more slowly, from a median of 9.6 ft in Group I to 64.6 ft in Group VI.
Which dimension decides
In this file the tail never pushes a type into a higher group than its wings do. For 250 types both dimensions land in the same group; for the other 114 the wingspan sets the group and the tail sits one band lower or more. Not one type is placed by its tail height alone.
| Group | Set by wingspan | Both agree |
|---|---|---|
| Group I | 0 | 162 |
| Group II | 51 | 26 |
| Group III | 38 | 39 |
| Group IV | 8 | 12 |
| Group V | 14 | 9 |
| Group VI | 3 | 2 |
Group I is the tidy case: all 162 types have spans under 49 ft and tails under 20 ft. Group II is the opposite, with 51 of its 77 types placed by span while their tails would still fit Group I. Of those, 22 are jets and 23 turboprops: wide wings on a low airframe.
Close to a line
Because the group follows the larger dimension, the interesting types are the ones that stop just short of a line. In all, 21 types come within 1% of the next group’s wingspan or tail-height line, and 20 more come within 1 to 3%. The table lists the tightest.
| Type | Dimension | Next line | Short by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 737 MAX 7 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.2 ft |
| Boeing 737 MAX 8 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.2 ft |
| Boeing 737 MAX 9 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.2 ft |
| McDonnell Douglas MD-11 | wingspan | 171 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Boeing 767-400 | wingspan | 171 ft | 0.7 ft |
| Airbus A319 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Airbus A319neo | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Airbus A320 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Airbus A320neo | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Airbus A321 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Airbus A321neo | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Douglas DC-6 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.5 ft |
| Boeing 737-600 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.6 ft |
| Boeing 737-700 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.6 ft |
| Boeing 737-800 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.6 ft |
| Boeing 737-900 | wingspan | 118 ft | 0.6 ft |
| Boeing 777-300ER | wingspan | 214 ft | 1.4 ft |
| Boeing C-17 Globemaster III | wingspan | 171 ft | 1.2 ft |
| Airbus A350-900 | wingspan | 214 ft | 1.6 ft |
| Airbus A350-1000 | wingspan | 214 ft | 1.6 ft |
| Boeing 777-200LR / 777F | wingspan | 214 ft | 1.9 ft |
Most of them cluster at 118 ft, the line between Groups III and IV, where every A320 family variant except the A318, the Boeing 737 from the -600 on and the 737 MAX all stop. The next cluster sits at 171 ft, the Group V line, and at 214 ft, the Group VI line, where four wide-bodies stop within 2 ft. The 118-foot line explainer looks at the first cluster in detail.
What sits in each group
The groups also sort the file by kind of aircraft. Group I holds 110 piston types, 19 turboprops and 33 jets, most of them light business jets, trainers and fighters. Group II is mostly jets (43) and turboprops (28), with only six piston types. From Group III up the jets dominate: 57 of the 77 Group III types are jets, and every type in Groups V and VI is one. The largest turboprop in the file, the Airbus A400M Atlas, reaches Group IV; the largest piston type, the Douglas DC-6, stops in Group III.
Weight climbs much faster than size. The median published maximum takeoff weight is 3,825 lb in Group I, 107,500 lb in Group III and 892,871 lb in Group VI. The ranges overlap widely, though: the heaviest Group I type outweighs the lightest Group III type by more than three times.
Reading a type page
On every aircraft page the top view sits between the wingspan lines of its group, with the next group’s line dashed in red, and the side view stands against the tail-height lines. A type that nearly touches the red line is one of the types in the table above. The Design Group pages draw every member of each group at one scale, so the spread inside a band is visible at a glance.
The group is a classification of the published dimensions. It says nothing about any particular airport, and this site does not try to: it only shows where the numbers fall.
Sources: FAA Aircraft Characteristics Database, October 2024 release; FAA Advisory Circular 150/5300-13B, Tables 1-1 and 1-2. Medians, counts and margins computed by this site.