How we measure
Every number on this site comes from one public file, the FAA Aircraft Characteristics Database, read with the limits of FAA Advisory Circular 150/5300-13B. This page explains how a page is put together, what each measure covers and where it stops.
How to read an aircraft page
The page opens with the type’s strongest facts: ranks at the top or bottom of a peer group, a value that only a few types share, or a dimension that sits close to a Design Group line. Below that the drawing shows the aircraft to scale between the wingspan lines of its group (top view) and against the tail-height lines (side view); the dashed red line is the next group. The large figures beside the drawing are the published wingspan, length and tail height. Sections further down appear only when the file holds data for them.
Source and licence
FAA Aircraft Characteristics Database (ACD), October 2024 release, retrieved 2026-10-28 from faa.gov. The limits come from FAA Advisory Circular 150/5300-13B Airport Design, Change 1 (Tables 1-1 and 1-2: AAC and ADG limits). Both are works of the U.S. Government and in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. Attribution: Aircraft data: U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Characteristics Database (October 2024 release), public domain. Ranks, ratios, margins and comparisons computed by aircraftdimensions.online.
Design Groups and Approach Categories
The Airplane Design Group is set by wingspan or tail height, whichever gives the higher group. The Aircraft Approach Category is set by the reference approach speed at maximum landing weight. The reference speed is a classification input, not an operating speed, and this site never treats it as one.
| Group | Wingspan | Tail height |
|---|---|---|
| Group I | 0 to <49 ft | 0 to <20 ft |
| Group II | 49 to <79 ft | 20 to <30 ft |
| Group III | 79 to <118 ft | 30 to <45 ft |
| Group IV | 118 to <171 ft | 45 to <60 ft |
| Group V | 171 to <214 ft | 60 to <66 ft |
| Group VI | 214 to <262 ft | 66 to <80 ft |
| Category | Reference speed |
|---|---|
| Category A | under 91 kt |
| Category B | 91 to 120 kt |
| Category C | 121 to 140 kt |
| Category D | 141 to 165 kt |
| Category E | 166 kt and above |
What each measure covers
Wingspan is the larger of the two FAA values (with and without winglets or sharklets). Where both exist, a type page shows both. Tail height is measured at operating empty weight, so it can differ slightly from brochure figures. Maximum takeoff weight is the figure for the sub-model the FAA chose for the ICAO designator; one designator can cover several sub-models, such as “Cessna 401/402”. US flight-plan operations are the FY2024 counts in the FAA file’s column TMFS_Operations_FY24 (flights with a US flight plan in the FAA Traffic Flow Management System); they under-count piston aircraft, which often fly without one, and say nothing about traffic elsewhere. US registrations are the registry count printed in the same file (column Registration_Count).
Numbers this site computes
Ranks are always stated with their scope: of all 364 types, within an engine class, an engine count, a Design Group, an Approach Category or a maker. Types without a published value are left out of that rank, and the sentence says so. Wingspan-to-length ratio is wingspan divided by length. Plan box is wingspan times length, the rectangle that encloses the top view. A margin is the distance from a dimension to the nearest Design Group line, or from the reference speed to the nearest category boundary. Closest in size uses the distance between types on the logarithms of wingspan, length and tail height; it ignores shape, wing position and engines. A family is this site’s own lineage grouping of variants, not an FAA field; family pages speak of a length range or spread. A strong fact is a top-or-bottom-five rank in a group of 30 or more types, a top-or-bottom-two rank in a group of 10 to 29, a value held by three types or fewer, a dimension within 1% of a group line, or a reference speed within 1 kt of a category boundary. A type gets its own page only with three strong facts or more.
Checks on the source file
The October 2024 file has 388 rows. Of these, 24 were left out and 364 remain. The rules:
| Rule | Test | Records |
|---|---|---|
| R0 | Manual exclusion: published attribute contradicts the model’s documented configuration (see curation.MANUAL_DROP) | 4 |
| R1 | Core field missing (wingspan, length, tail height, approach speed, AAC, ADG, engine class/count) | 3 |
| R2 | Class other than Fixed-wing/Amphibian (ADG/AAC apply to airplanes) | 0 |
| R3 | Wingspan with winglets smaller than without -> winglet value dropped | 0 |
| R4 | Physical range: wingspan/length 15-300 ft, tail height 4-90 ft, approach speed 35-200 kt, MTOW 500-1,400,000 lb | 0 |
| R5 | Tail height greater than 0.6 x length (no airplane in the set is close; 2nd-highest ratio is 0.47) | 1 |
| R6 | Published ADG differs from the group implied by the published wingspan and tail height -> record dropped (one of the three values is wrong; we cannot tell which) | 9 |
| R7 | Published AAC differs from the category implied by the published approach speed | 1 |
| R8 | Tail height more than 12% from the median of same-family types sharing the same wingspan (>=3 types) | 3 |
| R9 | FAA Parking_Area is not reproduced (within 3%) by the FAA formula from the published wingspan and length -> wingspan or length suspect, record dropped | 3 |
| R10 | MTOW not shown: landing weight above takeoff weight (>1%), or MTOW outside its own ICAO wake category band (Light <= 7,000 kg, Medium 7,000-136,000 kg, Heavy >= 136,000 kg, 2% tolerance) | 12 |
| R11 | MALW not shown: below 50% of MTOW (typing error pattern, e.g. 8,100 for 81,000) | 3 |
| R12 | Gear geometry not shown: wheelbase or cockpit-to-main-gear below 15% of length or above length; main gear width above half the wingspan | 7 |
Records left out: Airbus A330-300 (tail height inconsistent with same-wing siblings); Aero Commander 680FL (ADG inconsistent); Rockwell Commander Turbo 680 (ADG inconsistent); Gulfstream 690 Commander 690 (ADG inconsistent); Allison 36 Turbine Bonanza (manual); Beechcraft 95 Travel Air (ADG inconsistent); Boeing 747-400LCF Dreamlifter (ADG inconsistent); Cessna 207 Stationair 7 (parking area inconsistent); Canadair 41 Tutor (missing core field); HELIO U-10 Super Courier (missing core field); Basler, BT-67 Turbo 67 (ADG inconsistent); Embraer 135BJ Legacy 600 (parking area inconsistent); Embraer ERJ 145 XR (parking area inconsistent); Bombardier BD-700 Global 7500 (AAC inconsistent); Lockheed Jetstar 2/731 (ADG inconsistent); Bombardier Learjet 31 (tail height inconsistent with same-wing siblings); Boeing P-8 Poseidon (ADG inconsistent); Piper PA-16 Clipper (tail height inconsistent with same-wing siblings); Piper Cheyenne 1 (manual); Piper Cheyenne 2 (manual); Stinson 108 Voyager (tail height implausible); Saab 2000 (manual); Fairchild Swearingen SA-226T/TB Merlin 3 (ADG inconsistent); Bell V-22 Osprey (missing core field).
Names and makers
Model names follow the FAA text, cleaned of encoding errors and upper-case damage (for example “Van’s”). Joint FAA maker names are merged: Canadair types appear under Bombardier, and the TBM and TB types appear under “Daher (listed by FAA as Socata)”.
Drawings
The outlines are generic shapes drawn for this site and stretched to each type’s published wingspan, length and tail height. Wing sweep, wing position and engine placement are not in the data, so they are schematic. No manufacturer drawings, photographs, logos or liveries are used.
Units
Conversions: 1 ft = 0.3048 m; 1 lb = 0.45359237 kg; 1 kt = 1.852 km/h. Lengths are rounded to one decimal, weights to whole units.