Military Aircraft Trivia
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98 free Military Aircraft trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Warplanes carry more stories per airframe than almost any other machine. A fighter's nickname can come from a cartoon, a press misprint or a comic strip; a bomber can outlive the grandchildren of its first crews; a designer's surname can hide a Resistance code name. The records are just as strange: the fastest air-breathing aircraft ever built set its mark in 1976 and has never been beaten. These 98 questions move from the first synchronised guns of 1915 through the big piston fighters and bombers of the Second World War, the first jets and the Cold War's reconnaissance planes, to today's stealth bombers and remotely piloted aircraft. Expect designers and manufacturers, first flights and service lives, official names versus the ones crews actually use, the engines and design ideas that changed everything, the museums where survivors live, and famous flights as the record books state them. It suits a pub quiz, a museum visit, a classroom or anyone who has ever stopped to watch a display team: play on your phone with instant explanations, or print it for a quiz night. Every answer is cited to a reference page.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which First World War fighter does Snoopy imagine flying in Peanuts as he duels the Red Baron?
Sopwith Camel
The Sopwith Camel took its name from a humped metal fairing on its nose that pilots joked about; the name was never official. Snoopy's doghouse stands in for the biplane as he imagines himself a flying ace.
Q 02The Mitsubishi A6M, which entered navy service in 1940, took its 'Zero' nickname from the last digit of what?
The imperial year 2600
The imperial year 2600 fell in 1940, so the Navy's 'Type 0 carrier fighter' label used its final digit; pilots called it the Reisen, or zero fighter. Designer Jiro Horikoshi met the Navy's demands by stripping out every ounce of weight.
Q 03Which American bomber, in service since 1955, was slated in 2025 to keep flying into the 2050s?
B-52 Stratofortress
The B-52 Stratofortress last left the factory in 1962, so the youngest airframes would be about 90 years old by the 2050s; crews call it the BUFF, for Big Ugly Fat Fella.
Q 04Why were black-and-white 'invasion stripes' painted on Allied aircraft for the Normandy landings in June 1944?
To prevent friendly fire
To prevent friendly fire: planners feared thousands of aircraft would swamp the electronic friend-or-foe system, and for secrecy the order to paint the stripes went out only days before D-Day.
Q 05Which Grumman fighter, retired by the US Navy in 2006, had a single foreign customer, Iran?
F-14 Tomcat
The F-14 Tomcat was sold to the Shah's Iran in 1976, three years before the revolution; the new regime then flew its Tomcats in the war with Iraq, decades before the last American one left USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Q 06US Army helicopters such as the AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook are, by tradition, named after what?
Native American tribes
Native American tribes have given the Army's helicopters their names for decades; the AH-64 became the Apache in late 1981, after the Apache tribe. The Huey is officially the Iroquois for the same reason.
Q 07What nickname do crews give the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, in US Air Force service since 1977?
Warthog
Warthog suits a jet built to be tough rather than pretty: its cockpit sits inside 1,200 lb of titanium armour known as the 'bathtub'. The official name honours the P-47 Thunderbolt of the Second World War.
Q 08Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi A6M fighter, is the hero of which 2013 animated film by Hayao Miyazaki?
The Wind Rises
The Wind Rises is a fictionalised life of the engineer, voiced by Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno; Miyazaki wove in a romance borrowed from the Tatsuo Hori novel that gave the film its title.
Q 09In 1983 an Israeli pilot landed which fighter after a mid-air collision sheared off almost all of its right wing?
F-15 Eagle
The F-15 Eagle stayed controllable because its broad fuselage generated lift on its own; pilot Zivi Nedivi only saw the wing was gone after landing, as leaking fuel had hidden the damage.
Q 10Which Sydney Camm fighter, derived from the Fury biplane, inflicted most of the Luftwaffe's losses over Britain in 1940?
Hurricane
The Hurricane was overshadowed in the public mind by a sleeker rival, yet it fought in every major theatre of the war; its retractable undercarriage and Merlin engine were pushed past a sceptical Air Ministry.
Q 11Which British twin-engined bomber and fighter of the Second World War was built mostly of wood?
Mosquito
The Mosquito was conceived as a bomber so fast it needed no guns, an idea the Air Ministry doubted even after the prototype flew; by 1941 the 'Wooden Wonder' was among the fastest aircraft in service.
Q 12Why does the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the most-produced fighter in history, carry the prefix 'Bf' rather than 'Me'?
Its maker was Bayerische Flugzeugwerke
Its maker was Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, the 'Bavarian Aircraft Works', when the design was submitted, so the air ministry kept the Bf prefix even after the firm became Messerschmitt AG in 1938.
Q 13Which B-17, star of a 1944 documentary, was among the first US heavy bombers to complete 25 missions and fly home?
Q 21The US Air Force 'Boneyard' at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base stores thousands of aircraft outside which Arizona city?
Tucson
Tucson was chosen for its low humidity, scant rainfall, alkaline soil and 2,550-foot altitude, all of which slow rust and corrosion; the facility is formally the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group.
Q 22How many aerial victories traditionally make a pilot an 'ace', a term French newspapers coined in World War I?
Five
Five kills became the benchmark after French papers hailed Adolphe Pégoud as l'As once he had downed five German aircraft; roughly 5% of combat pilots have accounted for most air-to-air victories ever since.
Q 23Which transport, derived from the DC-3 airliner, dropped paratroops on D-Day and was the RAF's 'Dakota'?
C-47 Skytrain
Memphis Belle
Memphis Belle was named for pilot Robert Morgan's sweetheart Margaret Polk, and its crew toured America selling war bonds; the restored bomber has been on show at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton since 2018.
Q 14The Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter of the Vietnam era is universally called the 'Huey' because of what?
Its earlier HU-1 designation
Its earlier HU-1 designation was read aloud as 'Huey', and the nickname outlived the 1962 switch to UH-1 so completely that the official name, Iroquois, is rarely heard.
Q 15Pilots of which fighter, first flown in 1974, nicknamed it 'Viper', partly after a Battlestar Galactica starfighter?
F-16
The F-16 is officially the Fighting Falcon, but crews preferred Viper, partly for its snake-like look and partly for the Colonial Viper from the TV show airing as it entered service. Its first flight happened by accident during a taxi test.
Q 16Which country quit the Eurofighter programme in 1985 to build its own carrier-capable fighter instead?
France
France wanted a lighter, carrier-capable jet and a leading role, so it withdrew to pursue its own ACX project, which became the Rafale; Spain also hesitated that summer but rejoined within weeks.
Q 17Which Nevada test site was acquired by the CIA in 1955 to flight-test the Lockheed U-2 in secrecy?
Area 51
Area 51 was christened 'Paradise Ranch' by Lockheed's Kelly Johnson, to coax workers out to what the CIA later called a new facility in the middle of nowhere.
Q 18The US Navy Fighter Weapons School, 'Top Gun', was founded in 1969 at which California naval air station?
Miramar
Miramar, in San Diego, hosted the school until it was merged into the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon, Nevada, in 1996; the base itself then passed to the Marine Corps.
Q 19Which bomber, the most-produced American military aircraft ever, rolled off Ford's Willow Run line at one an hour?
B-24 Liberator
The B-24 Liberator line at Willow Run began badly, with labour trouble, rapid staff turnover and only a trickle of bombers in 1942; once the bugs were worked out, by 1944 it reached one an hour.
Q 20Which four-engined RAF bomber did 617 Squadron fly on the Dambusters raid against the Ruhr dams in May 1943?
Lancaster
The Lancaster was chosen for Operation Chastise because its long, unobstructed bomb bay could take Barnes Wallis's spinning 'Upkeep' bouncing bomb; the Möhne and Eder dams were breached that night.
The C-47 Skytrain carried some 13,000 American paratroopers to Normandy on D-Day; crews called it the 'Gooney Bird', a nickname some trace to the albatrosses of Midway Island.
Q 24Which US Navy carrier fighter, flown by 'Pappy' Boyington's Black Sheep squadron, had a distinctive inverted gull wing?
F4U Corsair
The F4U Corsair's inverted gull wing kept its landing gear short while a 13-foot propeller cleared the deck; early Corsairs bounced so badly on landing that they went first to land-based squadrons.
Q 25The RAF was created on 1 April 1918 by merging the RNAS, the Navy's air arm, with which Army air service?
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the Army's flying arm, and the merger at the end of the First World War produced what was then the largest air force in the world; its first solo operation came in 1925 against Mahsud tribesmen in Pink's War.
Q 26Which British fighter stayed in production from before the Second World War until after it ended?
Spitfire
The Spitfire's semi-elliptical wing, detailed by Beverley Shenstone with sunken rivets, was made as thin as possible to cut drag; R. J. Mitchell's team settled on the shape in 1934 to reconcile thinness with internal space.
Q 27What did UN pilots in Korea call the airspace near the Yalu River, site of the first large-scale jet-versus-jet battles?
MiG Alley
MiG Alley, the north-western corner of North Korea where the Yalu meets the Yellow Sea, pitted Soviet-built MiG-15s against American F-86 Sabres; the first jet-on-jet combat came when three MiG-15s attacked about ten USAF F-80s.
Q 28Which company built the MQ-1 Predator and its successor, the MQ-9 Reaper, for the US Air Force and the CIA?
General Atomics
General Atomics built the Predator as an unarmed spy drone, the RQ-1; once it carried Hellfire missiles, the Air Force renamed it MQ-1 in 2002, with M for multi-role.
Q 29In 1976 Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko defected to the West by landing his MiG-25 interceptor in which country?
Japan
Japan let American technicians help take the jet apart at Hyakuri Air Base; they found it fast but not the superfighter the West had feared, and Japan then shipped it back to the USSR in crates.
Q 30Which American pilot, nicknamed 'Uncle Wiggly Wings', dropped sweets to Berlin's children during the 1948–49 airlift?
Gail Halvorsen
Gail Halvorsen promised a group of children he would wiggle his wings so they would know his plane; once the story reached America, schoolchildren and sweet makers sent candy for him to drop.