U S Military aircraft designations U S Air Force designations

The most important series is that of the U.S. Air Force (formally, this was the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1941, then the U.S. Army Air Force and from 1944 onwards it was properly called the U.S. Air Force): a basically simple system consisting of a function letter, a sequence number and possibly additional letters designating variants of the basic design. The following function designators were used (actually, more were in use but I havent come across those on load adjusters so I will not include them in this list): A Attack (light bomber) B Bomber C Cargo G Glider H Helicopter P Pursuit (fighter: the only fighter for which a load adjuster was built was the P-80 T Trainer The B-29 was the 29th bomber type and the C-47 the 47th type of transport plane, with the C-47A and C-47B being variants of this basic design. Originally, designations like B-29 were used for the first variant, B-29A for the second etc. Later, designations like B-52 were used in a generic sense to designate the entire series of B-52 aircraft, and then B-52A was used to designate the first variant. Hence, on most of the load adjusters, we find designations B-29 and B-29A next to each other, whereas on later types, we only find the designation with the sequence letters (like B-52A, B-52G, B-52H). I do not know of any of the generic designations appearing on load adjusters, although this could, in principle, be the case if there are no significant differences in loading scheme between different variants (for example when the only difference between variants would be in the type of engine employed). Sometimes, a prefix letter was used to denote additional functions for a specific variant: RB Reconnaissance version of a bomber EC Electronic reconnaissance version of a transport plane KC Tanker/transport (K for Kerosene) RC Reconnaissance version of a transport plane UC Utility Cargo (light transport) CG Transport Glider CH Transport Helicopter HH Rescue helicopter (H for Help) AT Advanced trainer (e.g. used to train navigators) Other prefix letters were reserved for special purposes: X eXperimental for prototypes Y (letter after X in the alphabet) for pre-production series Z (letter after Y in the alphabet) for obsolete aircraft Very rarely, non-standard prefixes were used, like the LB-30 (a semi military export designation) or the RA-31: an attack plane for restricted use; the Army Air Force didnt consider this aircraft type suitable for combat operations but it was delivered to the Royal Air Force and the Free French Air Force.

A final designator, which is a bit of an odd-guy-out in this series, was the use of the A for Amphibious aircraft (capable of operating both from land and from water), but always in combination with a function prefix. Examples found on load adjusters are the Consolidated OA-10 (O for Observation) and the Grumman SA-16 (S for Search and Rescue): these types are in no way light bombers! The full administrative type designation consisted additionally of a number indicating individual production series, plus finally a two-letter code designating the factory that actually built the airplane. Thus, a particular B-29 could have as its full administrative designation: B-29A-5-BO. I have not come across such complete designations on load adjusters, although I have one load adjuster that shows the two letter code for GR for Grumman: SA-16B-GR.

U.S. Tri-Service Designations

In 1962 this series was continued as Tri-Service designations where all military designations (including the Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard, see below) were homogenized into one series, which was based on the Air Force series, with the addition of a few function designators that had not previously been used by Air Force aircraft: P Patrol U Utility (light transport) In these Tri-Service designations, many number sequences were continued, but in some cases, especially where the numbers had passed the 100 mark, the series was restarted at 1. This explains for example why the C-9 or H-3 were later types than the C-130 or H-53. To make matters even more complex, some series were both continued and restarted: the F-119 was a later fighter aircraft type than the F-16, in this particular case, this was done for security reasons. Restarting at 1 also facilitated the incorporation of the previous Navy designations: P3V became P-3 and F4H became F-4. For some Navy designations where the aircraft had a large similarity with existing Air Force types, existing designation series were continued: the R4Y-1 became the C-131F since existing Air Force variants had already used up the designations C-131A thru C-131E. I have not seen both the old Navy and the new Tri-Service designations for the same aircraft type appear on one and the same load adjuster.

Navy/Marines/Coast Guard designations

The U.S. Navy type designation system was shared with the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Coast Guard. The designations consisted of a function letter, a sequence number with separate sequences per manufacturer (the 1 was not used) and a single letter designating the manufacturer. Variants were designated by a further sequence number. Function letters found on load adjusters are: A Attack (post-WWII designation for types in the original SB category) L gLider LR - tRansport glider H Helicopter HO - Observation helicopter HR - tRansport helicopter (heavy) HS - anti-Submarine helicopter HU - Utility helicopter (light transport) N traiNer SN - advanced trainer (why S?, I dont know) P Patrol PB Patrol Bomber R tRansport JR - utility (light transport; why J?, I dont know) S anti-Submarine SB Scout Bomber TB Torpedo Bomber U Utility (light transport, post-WWII designation) As can be seen, additional function letters sometimes preceded the main function letter, but at other times the reverse was true. Some of the main manufacturer designators as found on load adjusters were: B Beechcraft or Boeing C Curtiss or Cessna D Douglas F Grumman (the G had been used by Great Lakes, a very early aircraft manufacturer) J North American M Martin O Lockheed Q Fairchild S Sikorsky V Lockheed W Waco Y Consolidated (later became Convair) As we see, some letters were shared between manufacturers, but in other cases, one manufacturer used more than one letter (albeit in different factories). The first Douglas transport for the Navy was designated RD, the second R2D etc. Note the omission of the 1 in the first designation: RD instead of R1D what would seem more logical. The R4D was the Navy designation for the Douglas DC-3 (Air Force designation C-47). The Navy always used such

designations generically, not for variants like the Air Force did. Therefore, the first and second variant of the R4D were designated R4D-1 and R4D-2 respectively. Sometimes, an additional letter designated a variant, like in the naval versions of the B-25H and B-25J, which were respectively called PBJ-1H and PBJ-1J, following the variant letters from the Air Force. It is interesting to note that the differences between the PBJ-1H and PBJ-1J were much larger than those between for example the R4D-1 and R4D-2, although this is not properly reflected by the designation itself. The information given so far allows the elimination of an apparent misreading of at least one designation: the Waco LRW is definitely no Long Range Waco as is sometimes believed (the range of a heavy glider like this one is primarily dependent on the altitude at which it is released while some say they flew like bricks anyway), but it is the first transport glider built by Waco that was accepted by the U.S. Navy

U.S. Army
The fourth series of military designations was for the U.S. Army after the Air Force had become independent and was used mostly for small observation type of aircraft and light helicopters. These designations are very similar to those of the Air Force, small differences being for example the inverting of the sequence in the function letters for helicopters: HU instead of UH. I know of no load adjusters for aircraft bearing such Army designations.

Final Remarks on Aircraft Designations

Similar aircraft types could have different missions or be used by more than one service (e.g. Air Force and Navy). This was for example the case for the Beechcraft 18, which in its military versions was known as the C-45, AT-7, AT-11, JRB or SNB, depending on role and service. This explains why one can often find multiple completely different type designations on a load adjuster. Another interesting example is the PBY-5&5A/PB2B-1/OA-10&A: the Catalina amphibian, originally built by Consolidated as the PBY, later built under license by Boeing as the PB2B (Boeing had previously built another airplane in the PB category that had received the designation PBB) and finally OA-10 was the Air Force designation for the Catalina. Sometimes during the production life of an aircraft type, changes were incorporated with significant consequences for the loading. This has led to load adjuster designations like A-20G (with turret) for a variant with a gun turret, a large wing version for the B-26B&C and for the B-17E&F both a modified and a revised version are known to exist in addition to the basic B-17E&F. A final interesting example is the load adjuster for the B-24E&G/B-24D (41-23640&up): 41-23640 is the serial number (tail number) of the aircraft that was the first to be so modified with 41 being the fiscal year of the order and 23640 a sequence number, starting at 1 for each fiscal year.