How to identify aircraft: Airbus vs Boeing and beyond
To identify an aircraft type, work from the big features to the small ones: count the engines and see where they sit, check whether the fuselage is narrow or wide, then look at the nose, the wingtips, the landing gear and the tail. An Airbus A320 and a Boeing 737 — the two most common airliners — differ in their engines, landing gear, wingtips and tail. For aircraft too far away to see these details, a radar app shows the type from the aircraft's own broadcast.
Reviewed:
In short
- Engines first: how many, and under the wings or at the tail?
- Narrowbody or widebody: one aisle or two, two wheels per main gear leg or a multi-wheel bogie.
- A320 vs 737: the 737's main wheels stay visible in flight; the A320 closes doors over them.
- Every type has an ICAO code — A20N, B38M, B789 — that radar apps show.
Step 1: count and place the engines
The engines are the quickest way to narrow down any aircraft:
- Two engines under the wings — most of today's airliners: the A320 and 737 families, A330, A350, 767, 777 and 787.
- Four engines under the wings — the large classics: Boeing 747, Airbus A380 and A340.
- Engines at the rear fuselage — most business jets and regional jets such as the Bombardier CRJ, usually with a T-tail.
- Propellers — turboprops such as the ATR 72 and the De Havilland Dash 8, both with a high wing and a T-tail.
Step 2: narrowbody or widebody?
Narrowbody aircraft have one aisle and typically six seats per row; widebodies have two aisles and a far larger fuselage. From the ground the landing gear is the giveaway: narrowbodies such as the A320 and 737 have two wheels on each main gear leg, widebodies carry bogies with four or six wheels. The Boeing 757 is the classic exception — a long narrowbody on four-wheel bogies.
Airbus A320 vs Boeing 737
These two families fly most short- and medium-haul routes in the world and are the first pair every spotter learns to tell apart.
| Feature | Airbus A320 family | Boeing 737 |
|---|---|---|
| Main landing gear in flight | Closed behind gear doors | Wheels stay visible in the belly — no doors cover them |
| Engines | Round nacelles; on the neo very large and round | 737 Classic and NG: nacelle flattened at the bottom; 737 MAX: serrated chevrons at the rear edge |
| Wingtips | Small wingtip fences (older ceo) or tall curved sharklets | None, blended winglets (NG), or split-tip winglets pointing up and down (MAX) |
| Nose | Rounder and blunter | More pointed |
| Tail fin | Leading edge meets the fuselage with only a short fairing | A long fillet runs from the fin forward along the top of the fuselage |
Within each family, length is the clue: the A319, A320 and A321 — like the 737-700, -800 and -900, or the MAX 7, 8, 9 and 10 — share the same look but differ in fuselage length and in the arrangement of their doors and emergency exits.
Telling the widebodies apart
- Airbus A380 — two full-length passenger decks, four engines. Nothing else looks like it.
- Boeing 747 — four engines and a hump: the upper deck covers only the front of the fuselage.
- Boeing 777 — big twin with huge engines, six-wheel main gear bogies and a flat, blade-shaped tail cone.
- Boeing 787 — smooth nose, long and strongly flexing wings with raked tips instead of winglets, and serrated chevrons on the engine nacelles.
- Airbus A350 — black "mask" around the cockpit windows and curved wingtips that sweep upward.
- Airbus A330 — twin-engine widebody with upturned winglets and four-wheel bogies; its four-engine sibling is the A340.
Regional aircraft and turboprops
Regional jets carry fewer passengers on shorter routes. The Bombardier CRJ has its engines at the tail and a T-tail; the Embraer E-Jets have engines under the wings and look like scaled-down airliners. Among turboprops, the ATR 72 and the Dash 8 Q400 both have a high wing and a T-tail — the Q400 is longer and retracts its main gear into the engine nacelles, while the ATR stows it in pods on the fuselage.
ICAO type codes: how radar apps name aircraft
Every aircraft type has a short ICAO type designator. Radar apps and spotter logbooks use them because they distinguish variants that look almost identical:
| Aircraft | ICAO code |
|---|---|
| Airbus A320 / A320neo | A320 / A20N |
| Airbus A321neo | A21N |
| Boeing 737-800 / 737 MAX 8 | B738 / B38M |
| Boeing 787-9 | B789 |
| Airbus A350-900 | A359 |
| Boeing 777-300ER | B77W |
Practise until it is second nature
Identification gets fast with repetition. Watch the aircraft that pass over your area, check your guess against the radar, and look closely at the details that gave the answer away.
Train with Type Rating. CatchFlights has a daily Type Rating quiz on real aircraft photos: answer questions about the types of a family to earn its type rating. Every aircraft you catch on the radar shows its type, and your collection grows by manufacturer, family and model. Explore CatchFlights.
New to the hobby? Start with our plane spotting guide, or find out which plane is above you right now.