Ten photos, ten helicopters, no sign-up. It starts with the shapes everyone knows and ends with the ones only spotters get right. After each answer you get a short fact about the aircraft.
How to tell helicopters apart
Start with the rotors. Two rotors, one at each end, means a tandem design like the Chinook. Two rotors stacked on one mast and no tail rotor points to a Kamov. Then look at the cockpit: attack helicopters seat the crew one behind the other in a very narrow body, while transport types have a wide cabin and big side doors. Count the rotor blades if you can see them, because the biggest machines give themselves away there.
The helicopters in this quiz (contains answers)
- CH-47 Chinook. American tandem-rotor transport, first flown in 1961.
- AH-64 Apache. American attack helicopter with a 30 mm chain gun, in US Army service since 1986.
- UH-60 Black Hawk. Sikorsky utility helicopter, in US Army service since 1979.
- UH-1 Iroquois “Huey”. The Bell utility helicopter closely tied to the Vietnam War.
- AH-1 Cobra. Narrow two-seat attack helicopter built around the Huey’s engine and rotor.
- Bell 206 JetRanger. Light helicopter widely used by police, news crews and flight schools.
- Mi-24 Hind. Soviet gunship with a cabin for eight soldiers.
- CH-53E Super Stallion. Three-engine heavy lifter of the US Marine Corps.
- Ka-52 Alligator. Russian attack helicopter with stacked main rotors and ejection seats.
- Mi-26 Halo. The largest helicopter ever put into series production.
