A cargo aircraft (also known as freight aircraft, freighter, airlifter or cargo jet) is a
fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of
cargo rather than
passengers
A passenger (also abbreviated as pax) is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. Th ...
. Such aircraft usually do not incorporate passenger amenities and generally feature one or more large doors for loading cargo. Freighters may be operated by civil passenger or
cargo airline
Cargo airlines (or air freight carriers, and derivatives of these names) are airlines mainly dedicated to the transport of air cargo, cargo by air. Some cargo airlines are divisions or subsidiaries of larger passenger airlines.
In 2018, airline ...
s, by private individuals or by the
armed forces of individual countries.
Aircraft designed for cargo flight usually have features that distinguish them from conventional passenger aircraft: a wide/tall fuselage cross-section, a
high-wing to allow the cargo area to sit near the ground, numerous wheels to allow it to land at unprepared locations, and a high-mounted tail to allow cargo to be driven directly into and off the aircraft.
By 2015, dedicated freighters represent 43% of the 700 billion ATK (available tonne-kilometer) capacity, while 57% is carried in
airliner's cargo holds. Also in 2015, Boeing forecast belly freight to rise to 63% while specialised cargoes would represent 37% of a 1,200 billion ATKs in 2035.
The Cargo Facts Consulting firm forecasts that the global freighter fleet will rise from 1,782 to 2,920 cargo aircraft from 2019 to 2039.
History
Aircraft were put to use carrying cargo in the form of "
air mail" as early as 1911. Although the earliest aircraft were not designed primarily as cargo carriers, by the mid-1920s aircraft manufacturers were designing and building dedicated cargo aircraft.
In the
UK during the early 1920s, the need was recognized for a freighter aircraft to transport troops and material quickly to pacify tribal revolts in the newly occupied territories of the
Middle East. The
Vickers Vernon, a development of the
Vickers Vimy Commercial, entered service with the
Royal Air Force as the first dedicated troop transport in 1921. In February 1923 this was put to use by the
RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
's
Iraq Command who flew nearly 500
Sikh troops from
Kingarban
Kifri District ( ar, قضاء كفري) is one of the six districts of Diyala Governorate in Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a countr ...
to
Kirkuk in the first ever strategic airlift of troops.
Vickers Victoria
The Vickers Type 56 Victoria was a British biplane freighter and troop transport aircraft used by the Royal Air Force. The Victoria flew for the first time in 1922 and was selected for production over the Armstrong Whitworth Awana.
Design and ...
s played an important part in the
Kabul Airlift of November 1928 – February 1929, when they evacuated diplomatic staff and their dependents together with members of the Afghan royal family endangered by a
civil war.
[Andrews and Morgan 1988, pp. 158–159.] The Victorias also helped to pioneer air routes for
Imperial Airways
Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passengers ...
'
Handley Page HP.42 airliners.
[Andrews and Morgan 1988, p. 157.]
The
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
German design, the
Arado Ar 232
The Arado Ar 232 ''Tausendfüßler'' (German: "Millipede"), sometimes also called ''Tatzelwurm'', was a cargo aircraft, designed and built in small numbers by the German firm Arado Flugzeugwerke during World War II. The design introduced, or br ...
was the first purpose-built cargo aircraft. The Ar 232 was intended to supplant the earlier
Junkers Ju 52 freighter conversions, but only a few were built. Most other forces used freighter versions of airliners in the cargo role as well, most notably the
C-47 Skytrain version of the
Douglas DC-3, which served with practically every Allied nation. One important innovation for future cargo aircraft design was introduced in 1939, with the fifth and sixth prototypes of the
Junkers Ju 90
The Junkers Ju 90 was a 40-seat, four-engine airliner developed for and used by Deutsche Luft Hansa shortly before World War II. It was based on the rejected Ju 89 bomber. During the war, the ''Luftwaffe'' impressed them as military transports ...
four-engined military transport aircraft, with the earliest known example of a rear loading ramp. This aircraft, like most of its era, used
tail-dragger landing gear which caused the aircraft to have a decided rearward tilt when landed. These aircraft introduced the ''Trapoklappe'', a powerful ramp/hydraulic lift with a personnel stairway centered between the vehicle trackway ramps, that raised the rear of the aircraft into the air and allowed easy loading. A similar rear loading ramp even appeared in a somewhat different form on the
nosewheel gear-equipped, late WW II era American
Budd RB-1 Conestoga twin-engined cargo aircraft.
Postwar Europe also served to play a major role in the development of the modern air cargo and air freight industry. It is during the
Berlin Airlift at the height of the
Cold War, when a massive mobilization of aircraft was undertaken by the
West to supply
West Berlin with food and supplies, in a virtual around the clock
air bridge, after the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
closed and
blockade
A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force.
A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are leg ...
d Berlin's land links to the west. To rapidly supply the needed numbers of aircraft, many older types, especially the
Douglas C-47 Skytrain, were pressed into service. In operation it was found that it took as long or longer to unload these older designs as the much larger
tricycle landing gear Douglas C-54 Skymaster
The Douglas C-54 Skymaster is a four-engined transport aircraft used by the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and the Korean War. Like the Douglas C-47 Skytrain derived from the DC-3, the C-54 Skymaster was derived from a civilian a ...
which was easier to move about in when landed. The C-47s were quickly removed from service, and from then on flat-decks were a requirement of all new cargo designs.
In the years following the war era a number of new custom-built cargo aircraft were introduced, often including some "experimental" features. For instance, the US's
C-82 Packet
The C-82 Packet is a twin-engine, twin-boom cargo aircraft designed and built by Fairchild Aircraft. It was used briefly by the United States Army Air Forces and the successor United States Air Force following World War II.
Design and developm ...
featured a removable cargo area, while the
C-123 Provider
The Fairchild C-123 Provider is an American military transport aircraft designed by Chase Aircraft and then built by Fairchild Aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. In addition to its USAF service, which included later service with the Air Force Re ...
introduced the now-common rear fuselage/upswept tail shaping to allow for a much larger rear loading ramp. But it was the introduction of the
turboprop that allowed the class to mature, and even one of its earliest examples, the
C-130 Hercules, in the 21st century as the
Lockheed Martin C-130J
The Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. The C-130J is a comprehensive update of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, with new engines, Cockpit, flight deck, and other systems.
The C-130J is the ...
, is still the yardstick against which newer
military transport aircraft
A military transport aircraft, military cargo aircraft or airlifter is a military-owned transport aircraft used to support military operations by airlifting troops and military equipment. Transport aircraft are crucial to maintaining supply ...
designs are measured. Although larger, smaller and faster designs have been proposed for many years, the C-130 continues to improve at a rate that keeps it in production.
"Strategic" cargo aircraft became an important class of their own starting with the
Lockheed C-5 Galaxy in the 1960s and a number of similar Soviet designs from the 70s and 80s, and culminating in the
Antonov An-225
The Antonov An-225 Mriya ( uk, Антонов Ан-225 Мрія, lit=dream' or 'inspiration; NATO reporting name: Cossack) was a strategic airlift cargo aircraft designed and produced by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union.
It was ...
, the world's largest aircraft. These designs offer the ability to carry the heaviest loads, even
main battle tanks, at global ranges. The
Boeing 747 was originally designed to the same specification as the C-5, but later modified as a design that could be offered as either passenger or all-freight versions. The "bump" on the top of the fuselage allows the crew area to be clear of the
cargo containers sliding out of the front in the event of an accident.
When the
Airbus A380 was announced, the maker originally accepted orders for the freighter version A380F, offering the second largest payload capacity of any cargo aircraft, exceeded only by the An-225.
An aerospace consultant has estimated that the A380F would have 7% better payload and better range than the
747-8F, but also higher trip costs.
Starting May 2020 Portuguese Hi Fly started charting cargo flights with an A380, carrying medical supplies from China to different parts of the world in the response to the Covid-19 outbreak. It allows almost of cargo between the three decks. In November 2020 Emirates started offering an A380 mini-freighter, which allows for 50 tons of cargo in the belly of the plane.
Types of cargo aircraft
Nearly all commercial cargo aircraft presently in the fleet are derivatives or transformations of passenger aircraft. However, there are three other methods to the development of cargo aircraft.
Derivatives of non-cargo aircraft
Many types can be converted from airliner to freighter by installing a main deck cargo
door with its control systems; upgrading floor
beams for cargo loads and replacing passenger equipment and furnishings with new linings, ceilings, lighting, floors, drains and
smoke detectors.
Specialized engineering teams rival
Airbus and
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
, giving the aircraft another 15–20 years of life.
Aeronautical Engineers Inc. converts the
Boeing 737-300/400/800,
MD-80 and
Bombardier CRJ200
The Bombardier CRJ100 and CRJ200 (previously Canadair CRJ100 and CRJ200) is a regional jet designed and manufactured by Bombardier Aerospace between 1991 and 2006, the first of the Bombardier CRJ family.
The ''Canadair Regional Jet'' (CRJ) ...
.
Israel Aerospace Industries
Israel Aerospace Industries (Hebrew: התעשייה האווירית לישראל ''ha-ta'asiya ha-avirit le-yisra'el'') or IAI (תע"א) is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both mi ...
’ Bedek Aviation converts the 737-300/400/700/800 in about 90 days,
767-200/300s in about four months and
747-400
The Boeing 747-400 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, an advanced variant of the initial Boeing 747.
The "Advanced Series 300" was announced at the September 1984 Farnborough Airshow, targeting ...
s in five months, and is looking at the
Boeing 777
The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long-range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the world's largest twinjet.
The 777 was designed to bridge the gap betw ...
,
Airbus A330
The Airbus A330 is a wide-body aircraft developed and produced by Airbus.
Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner in the mid-1970s. Then the company began development on the A330 twinjet in parallel with the A340 ...
and
A321.
Voyageur Aviation Corp located in
North Bay, Ontario converts the DHC-8-100 into the DHC-8-100 Package Freighter Conversion.
An
A300B4-200F conversion cost $5M in 1996, an
A300-600F $8M in 2001, an
MD-11
The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 is an American tri-jet wide-body airliner manufactured by American McDonnell Douglas (MDC) and later by Boeing.
Following DC-10 development studies, the MD-11 program was launched on December 30, 1986.
Assembly of t ...
F $9M in 1994, a
B767
The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...
-300ERF $13M in 2007, a
B747-400 PSF $22M in 2006, an
A330-300 P2F was estimated at $20M in 2016 and a
B777-200ER BCF at $40M in 2017.
By avoiding the main deck door installation and relying on lighter
elevators between decks,
LCF Conversions wants to convert A330/
A340s or B777s for $6.5M to $7.5M.
In the mid 2000s, passenger 747-400s cost $30–50 million before a $25 million conversion, a
B757 had to cost $15 million before conversion, falling to below $10 million by 2018, and $5 million for a
737 Classic, falling to $2–3 million for a
B737-400 by 2018.
Derivative freighters have most of their development costs already amortized, and lead time before production is shorter than all new aircraft. Converted cargo aircraft use older technology; their direct operating costs are higher than what might be achieved with current technology. Since they have not been designed specifically for air cargo, loading and unloading is not optimized; the aircraft may be pressurized more than necessary, and there may be unnecessary apparatus for passenger safety.
Dedicated civilian cargo aircraft
A dedicated commercial air freighter is an airplane which has been designed from the beginning as a freighter, with no restrictions caused by either passenger or military requirements. Over the years, there has been a dispute concerning the cost effectiveness of such an airplane, with some cargo carriers stating that they could consistently earn a profit if they had such an aircraft. To help resolve this disagreement, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected two contractors, Douglas Aircraft Co. and Lockheed-Georgia Co., to independently evaluate the possibility of producing such a freighter by 1990. This was done as part of the Cargo/Logistics Airlift Systems Study (CLASS). At comparable payloads, dedicated cargo aircraft was said to provide a 20 percent reduction in trip cost and a 15 percent decrease in aircraft price compared to other cargo aircraft. These findings, however, are extremely sensitive to assumptions about fuel and labor costs and, most particularly, to growth in demand for air cargo services. Further, it ignores the competitive situation brought about by the lower capital costs of future derivative air cargo aircraft.
The main advantage of the dedicated air freighter is that it can be designed specifically for air freight demand, providing the type of loading and unloading, flooring, fuselage configuration, and pressurization which are optimized for its mission. Moreover, it can make full use of NASA's ACEE results, with the potential of significantly lowering operating costs and fuel usage. Such a high overhead raises the price of the airplane and its direct operating cost (because of depreciation and insurance costs) and increases the financial risks to investors, especially since it would be competing with derivatives which have much smaller development costs per unit and which themselves have incorporated some of the cost-reducing technology.
Joint civil-military cargo aircraft
One benefit of a combined development is that the development costs would be shared by the civil and military sectors, and the number of airplanes required by the military could be decreased by the number of civil reserve airplanes purchased by air carriers and available to the military in case of emergency.
There are some possible drawbacks, as the restrictions executed by joint development, the punishments that would be suffered by both civil and military airplanes, and the difficulty in discovering an organizational structure that authorizes their compromise. Some features appropriate to a military aircraft would have to be rejected, because they are not suitable for a civil freighter. Moreover, each airplane would have to carry some weight which it would not carry if it were independently designed. This additional weight lessens the payload and the profitability of the commercial version. This could either be compensated by a transfer payment at acquisition, or an operating penalty compensation payment. Most important, it is not clear that there will be an adequate market for the civil version or that it will be cost competitive with derivatives of passenger aircraft.
Unpiloted cargo aircraft
Rapid delivery demand and
e-commerce growth stimulate
UAV freighters development for 2020:
* Californian
Elroy Air wants to replace trucks on inefficient routes and should fly a subscale prototype;
* Californian
Natilus plans a
Boeing 747 sized transpacific unpiloted freighter and should fly a subscale prototype;
* Californian
Sabrewing Aircraft targets small regional unpiloted freighter and should fly a 65%-scale vehicle in 2018 fall;
* The
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...
flew its payload AT200 in October 2017 based on New Zealand's
PAC P-750 XSTOL utility turboprop
* Chinese package carrier
SF Express
SF Express (Group) Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational delivery services and logistics company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It is the second largest courier in China, and provides domestic and international express delivery. SF Express has ...
conducted emergency logistics tests in December 2017 with a
Tengoen Technologies’ TB001 medium-altitude UAV, and plan an eight-turbofan carrying more than
*
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
flew its
Boeing Cargo Air Vehicle prototype, a
vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) craft.
Carpinteria, California-startup
Dorsal Aircraft wants to make light standard
ISO container
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship ...
s part of its unpiloted freighter structure where the wing, engines and tail are attached to a
dorsal spine fuselage.
Interconnecting long aluminum containers carry the flight loads, aiming to lower overseas airfreight costs by 60%, and plan to convert
C-130H with the help of
Wagner Aeronautical of San Diego, experienced in passenger-to-cargo conversions.
Beijing-based
Beihang UAS Technology developed its
BKZ-005 high-altitude, long-range UAV for cargo transport, capable of carrying over at .
Garuda Indonesia will test three of them initially from September 2019, before operations in the fourth quarter.
Garuda plans up to 100 cargo UAVs to connect remote regions with limited airports in
Maluku,
Papua, and
Sulawesi.
Examples
Early air mail and airlift logistics aircraft
Important "
airlift and
logistics;" "cargo-liners," "mail-liners," and "mail aircraft."
*
Avro Lancastrian
The Avro 691 Lancastrian was a Canadian and British passenger and mail transport aircraft of the 1940s and 1950s developed from the Avro Lancaster heavy bomber. The Lancaster was named after Lancaster, Lancashire; a Lancastrian is an inhabita ...
(Transatlantic mail)
*
Avro York (
Berlin Airlift)
*
Boeing C-7000
*
Curtiss JN-4
The Curtiss JN "Jenny" was a series of biplanes built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, New York, later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. Although the Curtiss JN series was originally produced as a training aircraft for th ...
*
Douglas M-2
*
Douglas DC-3
*
Douglas DC-4
*
Douglas DC-6
The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with t ...
Converted airliners
Oversize transport
Light aircraft
Military cargo aircraft
Experimental cargo aircraft
*
Hughes H-4 Hercules ("Spruce Goose")
*
Lockheed R6V Constitution
*
LTV XC-142
Comparisons
See also
*
Airlift
*
Air transport
*
Cargo airline
Cargo airlines (or air freight carriers, and derivatives of these names) are airlines mainly dedicated to the transport of air cargo, cargo by air. Some cargo airlines are divisions or subsidiaries of larger passenger airlines.
In 2018, airline ...
*
Modular aircraft
A modular aircraft or pod plane is a design principle for an aircraft where the payload carrying section can be routinely detached from, and reattached to, the rest of the aircraft. It can be compared to the function of intermodal shipping contai ...
*
Preighter
References
External links
Airlift Cargo AircraftIndo-Russian Transport Aircraft (IRTA)
{{Authority control
Military transport aircraft