An Idiot's Guide to Identifying Airliners
2026 EDITION! Woo-hoo!
This was a proposed biz-jet based on the Soviet Backfire bomber. It never happened. But we’re never going to get your attention with an Airbus A320.
If all things from a certain category look the same to you, then you’re probably an outsider. The exception to this rule is airliners, which all look the same to a lot of insiders, too. Airbus is particularly guilty: spewing out a series of uniformly bland designs that leave observers uninspired to even check the identity of the passing plane on the Flight Tracker app. But the skies are alive with secrets, my friend, these clones are not clones! The following story will change your life, as we at Hush-Kit, with the help of artist, Maule pilot, air traffic controller, and comedian Dorian Crook, can finally share the arcane secret that allows identification of modern airliners. Mesmerise lovers, blow the minds of colleagues and terrify therapists with your new ability to tell an Airbus A320 from an A319. Don your Gore-Tex, leave sexy at the door and prepare for An Idiot’s Guide to Identifying Airliners, 2026 edition!
We know this is by no means comprehensive, BUT WE RAN OUT OF CIDER.
Squashed engines = Boeing 737
Squashed engines = Boeing 737
The barrel bit under each wing is an engine, if it’s a bit ‘squashed’ on the bottom like this one, then it’s a Boeing 737. You can see it’s not quite circular, the lower lip is a little flattened. (This wasn’t the case with early 737s, but you’re very unlikely to see them). The nose is a bit pointy too.
Unlike the generally similar Airbus A320 series the vertical tail fin starts from the main body of the aircraft at a sharper sweep angle before raking back to a shallower more vertical angle.
Double-decker all the way = Airbus A380
Fat. Four engines. Tall tail. Appears to move in slow motion. Really massive with a huge forehead. From the front it looks like the body (or fuselage if you’re feeling fancy) is so heavy it’s bending the wings down.
Frilly engines = Boeing 787 Dreamliner
If the back of the big barrel bits (it has two engines) look frilly as if attacked with a pastry cutter, then it’s a Dreamliner. They also have skinny shark-fin wings.
If it has four engines with scalloped bits at the back it’s a 747-8)
Airbus A350
Looks like a Dreamliner without frilly engines, wearing a Zorro mask.
Boeing 747
VERY big, with four engines, a face like a dolphin and a bump on the top. The front is double-decked. That room the pilots look out of is placed higher than on other aircraft. Today, seeing one’s you’re seeing a freighter with no passenger windows. Or it’s the end of the world, and the US regime’s E-4B ‘Doomsday Plane’ is swooping past, assessing you as a potential meal.
Boeing 747-8
Very long with fancy cake-cutters on the four barrel bits under the wing. This is a 747-8. If it has windows, it’s an 8i; if not, an 8F freighter. You’re unlikely to see a -8 as they made less than 150. The winglets (little bits on the extreme tip of the wing) are not erect like other airliners, but still have a partial semi on, and are raked back.
Boeing 747SP
Why is that the 747 so cute and cartoony? It’s a 747SP!
SP does not stand for So Pudgy, though it should. The adorable Boeing 747SP was the Special Performance, i.e. long-range version. This was achieved by reducing the weight of the aircraft, mainly by shortening the fuselage so it appears to be just that big nose and tail. There was maybe room for 3 passengers in between the cockpit and the toilet. By the way, if you fly, or work on, a Boeing 747, you absolutely HAVE to call it a “Seven-Four”. If you say “Seven-Four-Seven” you’ll look like a fool. On the hill overlooking Seattle...
Boeing 767, 777 or Airbus A330?
All are huge twin-engined sausages. They’re very big. They also all have the same amorphous quality of looking fat* or sleek depending on which angle they’re looked at from. There’s a more serious guide to identifying these types here.
* (We would only fat-shame aircraft, never people. Sleek fat people do exist.)
777: The singing fish
The singing fish
The 777 is the biggest. It’s enormous. But if you’re not in a position to judge its height it does have a scalloped ‘flat’ end to the tail - viewed from the left it looks like a singing fish. Also 777s don’t have those tiny mini-wings (winglets) at the end of their wings that some A330s have (as do some, but not all, 767s).
If the wheels are out, it’s easy to tell a 777. The main undercarriage each has three pairs of wheels (the 767 and A330 only have two). (Be careful though, the A350-1000 also has three pairs of wheels).
Airbus A330
Little winglets? And boring straight-bottomed cockpit windows?
Can’t tell it from a 777? Join the club mate, but the winglets should help.
Here’s a useful rhyme to help remember this:
Boeing’s tips lean back like a lazy old cock, Airbus stands stiff, pointing straight as a rock
Boeing 767
Note the conical end to the tail. Some 767s have winglets.
Two sets of mainwheels on 767.[/caption]
Airbus A340 ‘Heroin heron chic’
Four engines and very long and skinny. Or if it’s a A340-600 it will be COMICALLY long and skinny. In 2026, you are very unlikely to see one, as they’ve largely been killed off by the body positivity movement.
Palate cleansing image
Embraer 190
Like a high-speed French train with wings.
Looks a bit like a small DC8 (younger readers will need to research this)-especially in Alitalia colours-but without the nostrils. It’s Brazilian, so all Embraer destination airports are required to shave the grass either side of the runway.
Look! The wings are not swept back very sharply at all.
Oh shit, just noticed the engines are a bit squashed on the E190 too. But the underside is still far less flat than a 737’s. Also the underside of the pilots’ windscreens are all on the same level.
The artist previosly known as the Bombardier C-Series: Airbus A220
Now the Airbus 220. Visual clue is a little cat flap at the bottom of the tailplane. Probably with some Swiss Cheese nearby. Or it could be an APU inlet. Despite this being a very new aircraft, it sounds like a 1950 vacuum cleaner when reverse thrust is applied.
Nice curved nose like a dog or a de Havilland Comet. Kind of looks like a skinny man in a bandit mask carrying two big kegs of beer.
Fokker 50
Reminiscent of the 1950s-era Fokker Friendship. Mainly because it is a 1950s Fokker Friendship, but the engines are different. And it has two nosewheels instead of one. Has a straight wing, and as it is always thinking about the tragic fate of Fokker fighters in the Second World War, it has a ghostly moan.
Handley-Page HP 42
One of the first successful airliners (cue Twitterstorm), this one knew what it was doing. Flying regularly from Croydon to Paris. There was no HP42 NewGen, Neo, Excel, or other such nonsense. The only modification was that the First Officer had to bring in the flagpole carrying the Ensign, before the aircraft took off. This machine also had a revolutionary Head-Up Display: The pilot’s looked up and checked that they were still following the Reigate-Ashford railway line, and thus pointing the correct way to Paris. Smoked Salmon sandwiches with the Captain. Ok, that doesn’t help you identify it, but there’s none left anyway. Just showing you what we’re missing……..
A lot of the others
If in doubt it’s probably one of the smaller Airbuses or a 737.
A320 family
Despite the best attempts by scientists, no one can really tell an Airbus A318 from an A319, A320 or A320...and there’s even an A321. If you can read and recall just one of the following points you’re ahead of the pack (whether it’s a pack you’d let into your home remains a valid concern) .
A321 has four passenger doors and has sensible proportions. ‘Four lovely doors are lots of fun, this must a 321.’
As the rhyme says
‘Two emergency doors above the wing are plenty; this must be an A320.’
A319 - Rhyme ‘One emergency exit can be seen, between the two passenger doors of an A319.’
“Tiny and cute as a pug in heaven, windows forward only 11” The Rhyme for the A318 refers to the fact that moving forward from (but not including) the overwing emergency door, there are 11 windows. It is very short and very cute with puppyish proportions. The two pictures above are not to scale, the A318 is shorter.
New additions for 2026
Comac C919
Rhyme to help:
If the winglets can’t really be arsed
You know that a Comac has just passed
Chinese narrowbody, similar in size to A320/737 MAX. Distinct nose and wingtip fences. Thanks a lot China, another bloody bland jet to explain.
The undercarriage looks too simple, the windows in the cockpit make it look like a depressed simpleton. Viewed from the front, the cockpit windows look like an open book or Simon Cowell’s hairstyle.
The bendy bits at the extreme outer ends of the wings are very non-committal.
Annoyingly, whereas in the past you could be sure you could be looking at a legacy 737 because the engines were squashed, the 919 also has squashed engines.
It has a small nose and downward turned eyes, so imagine actor Rami Malek in a role where he has to put a tiny bit of weight on (it’s a little tubbier than the 737 and the smaller Airbuses).
Irkut MC-21: Russian narrowbody, slightly wider fuselage than C919, distinctive winglets.
Over the last ten years, Putin’s Russia has committed war crimes and human rights abuses in Ukraine, systematically tortured and detained prisoners, forcibly deported Ukrainian children, repressed dissent and civil society within its own borders, and caused thousands of civilian deaths in Syria through military intervention. BUT, on the plus side of the balance sheet, the Russian Federation has made a narrow-body single-aisle jet that can actually be easily identified. Because, with its trying-to-be-cool-but-failing-shades-style cockpit windows and chunky fuselage, it is a dead ringer for Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Mitsubishi SpaceJet
Limited regional jet production, very small and slim, cockpit windows very close together.
2020s airliner cockpit window designs were all inspired by a designer going to a sunglasses display rack and choosing the pair most likely to be worn by your aunt’s terrible new boyfriend who watches Jordan Peterson on YouTube religiously, drives his oversized SUV like a bellend and thinks his anger management failures are ‘Alpha’. Mitsubishi tried to do this with the pleasingly named SpaceJet, but happily failed, and instead made a plane that is a halfway house between a member of The Family Ness cartoon and a train that’s had too much coffee. If I’m honest, I quite like it.
(Or if you can’t be bothered to memorise this, the identity of a plane is normally written on the side at the front of the aircraft)
Sigh. I appreciate your effort here, but honestly it just reminds me of when I was growing up and there were more than two manufacturers, and each manufacturer had distinctive design features that pervaded their product line, so while you might not be able to narrow it down to a specific type/model/series, you could generally tell at a glance whether it was a Boeing or a Douglas or a Lockheed...
Outstanding guide. The squashed engine detail on the 737 is legitimately useful because I never paid attention to that before and now I cant unsee it. The Bombardier C-Series rebranding to A220 still confuses me every time I see one at an airport, feels like they tried to erase the whole Bombardier legacy with that move. Also the Dog the Bounty Hunter comparison for the MC-21 is spot on and I'm never goingto look at that plane the same way again.