Successful aircraft types

Over the history of flight there have been a number of particularly successful aircraft types. Many measures of success are possible, including fitness to task, safety record, outstanding performance in any of several dimensions, longevity in service, or the sheer number produced. Many worthy aircraft designs, through one circumstance or another, have been commercial failures, or merely modest successes. A few of the most heavily produced aircraft in history are commonly dismissed as barely competent types that happened to be ordered in vast numbers simply because of circumstances, but the most-produced types listed below are regarded as examples of outstanding merit.

Civil airliners

• Douglas DC-3:1935 to 1945, 13,400, including about 2500 built in the Soviet Union.
• Boeing 737: over 5000 built from 1967, still in production.
• Airbus A320 family: almost 3000 built from 1988, still in production.
• Douglas DC-9: over 2400 of the DC-9/MD-80/MD-90 and Boeing 717 family of aircraft made from 1965 to date. Still in production.
• Fokker Friendship, 788 Friendships were delivered between 1958 and the mid 1980s, making it the most successful Western turboprop airliner to date, evolved into the Fokker 50 and Fokker 60 airliners with more efficient engines but a lower production run.
• Lockheed Constellation, a transatlantic piston-engined airliner that evolved into the Super Constellation and Starliner. Notable for its graceful beauty and coherent design, regardless of how many were built. Served military forces as the C-121.

General aviation

• Cessna 172: 39,600 manufactured between 1955 and 2002, still in production.
• Piper Cherokee: first manufactured in 1960, still in production
• De Havilland Tiger Moth: 1931 to 1957, 8492.

Fighters

• Messerschmitt Bf 109: 137 to 1945, 35,000.
• Supermarine Spitfire: 1938 to 1947, 20,351 plus 2408 of the navalised Seafire.
• Focke-Wulf Fw 190: 1940 to 1945, 20,051.
• Republic P-47 Thunderbolt: 1941 to 1945, 15,660.
• North American P-51 Mustang: 1940 to 1945, 15,675.
• Hawker Hurricane: 1937 to 1944, 14,449.
• Curtiss P-40: 1938 to 1944, 13,378.
• Vought F4U Corsair, 1942 to 1953, 12,571.
• Sopwith Camel: 1916 to 1918, 6000.
• Polikarpov I-16 Rata: 1933 to 1940, 8644.
• Lockheed F-104 Starfighter: 2578

Bombers

• Ilyushin Il-2, 1940 to 1944, 36,163
• Consolidated B-24 Liberator: 18,482
• Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress : 12,726.
• Vickers Wellington: 1937 to 1945, 11,461.
• Avro Lancaster: 1941 to 1945, 7377. Design evolved into the long-serving maritime patrol aircraft called the Shackleton.
• De Havilland Mosquito: 1940 to 1950, 7781.
• English Electric Canberra: An early twin-jet bomber, with variants still in active service for reconnaisance purposes. Sold by the UK to USAF as the B-57.