From 1.3 to 1.9, There wasn't a whole lot of change to the build style of the stock aircraft. None the less, some of the biggest changes came to Simpleplanes during this time, Most notably it's introduction to steam and mod friendliness. From 2016 to 2020, and in my opinion, Simpleplanes became semi User developed, A term I came up with to define games that are developed by the player, for the player in the form of mods, With the main developer team basically fixing holes and bugs to allow said mod functionality. We got the ability to not only turn on AI crafts, but spawn them as well. The fuselage received a new corner style, cleaning up many users builds. We got weapons, more races, and combat missions. We received helicopter and car parts, and later a (former modder) and new developer, (Nicky Pike)[https://www.simpleplanes.com/u/WNP78] would put his refueling mod into the game. Several new stock planes were added, and some, because of flying complexity in either takeoff and landing were hidden, but could be unlocked by modifying there file names which by this time most users knew how to do from xml editing. Speaking of that, Pike would put another mod in the game permanently, the designer suite witch included in game xml editing and a blueprint importer. This Mod was tested well before release and although the handling of that situation was controversial, Not to Pike's fault mind you, It revolutionized how planes were built and actually paved the way for another update which I'll cover later. But for now, let's get into...

GENERATION 3.

First, we got the beloved Bushplane by weebabyseamus. Based on the CubCrafters CC18-180 Top Cub with a clipped wing modification, this STOL plane was slow, but highly maneuverable, making it the most aerobatic plane in the bunch.

Dimension:
Wingspan: 39.8 feet
Length: 34.8 feet
Height: 13.9 feet
Weight: 5810 lbs to 6366 lbs

Engine:
1x Blade T2000 tuned to 1000hp sending power to a 2 blade 110 inch prop.

Trivia
-It was the first stock plane to feature an open 'mock' cockpit with rudimentary stick and lights for gauges. a cockpit piece was placed where the pilots head would have gone.
-Unlike most gen 3 planes being under scale as most are built around the stock cockpit pieces, this plane was a 144% scale replica.

Second, a hidden plane and our first racing opponent. Originally built by WalrusAircraft But uploaded her by DanDaFreakinMan, it's the Blue Cow. Based on the Edge 540 racer custom, (single seat Edge with the 540 t wings, tail, and engine) this plane saw use in two races.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 30.2ft
Length 24.9ft
Height 10.0ft
Weight 3,077lbs to 5,249lbs

Trivia:
-Because wing liftScale didn't exist back then, it used doubled up wings, which although significantly increased weight, decreased wing loading allowing the blue cow to perform sharper turns.
- It is a 120% scale of its irl counterpart

Engine:
1x Blade T2000 tuned to 800 hp

Third, we got a new Tutorial Plane. Yes i know it starts with a 'T', It's in my files as 'design tutorial'. ANYWAY!!! Gone away with the high winged Twin Prop (we'd get a new one of those too,) The New Tutorial plane, while keeping the blocks, had a new cockpit, engines and landing gear. Not based on any air craft, it shares semblance to almost any twin prop tail dragger out there (and several tricycle and conventional gear planes based on it's silhouette) It was designed to be both simple to build and easy to fly. It featured outstanding speed and maneuverability coupled with ease of flying.

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 34.2 feet
length: 25.3 feet
Height: 10.5 feet
Weight: 3447 lbs to 4112 lbs

Engines:
-x2 Blade T2000 tuned too 500 hp driving 3 blade 70 inch props.

Trivia
-with 7 wing surfaces total, it barely makes the cut to auto spawn as an AI craft.
-It could be obtained (without downloading) either by xml unlocking the file, Or completing the build tutorial.
-Jundroo uploaded it to the site some time in 2016.

Fourth, And very similar to the Tutorial plane, we got a hidden plane, By the same name (as it spawned) but was slightly different Oh, and. It WANTED to kill you.

Dimensions:
-See tutorial plane

Engines:
-2x blade T2000 putting out 500 hp each. This time, driving 5 blade, 70 inch props.

Trivia:
-This plane is very similar to the tutorial plane, except it's got better propellers. Oh and it has a 75% chance of spawning as an enemy aggressor. giving it a motive to kamikaze the player and the means to do so.

Fifth, we have another hidden plane, Drone. Based on the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, it was used in the weapons training missions, and also doubled as an auto-spawning aircraft. Unlike it's irl counterpart being a slow, and steady recon platform, the drone is fast and nimble. It's only means of being obtained is through file renaming, given that the website has nerfed anyone attempting to upload it.

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 36.6
Length: 31.2
Height: 7.8
Weight: 2500lbs

Engine:
1x Blade T2000 tuned to 350 hp sending power to an 80 inch 3 blade prop in pusher configuration.

Trivia:
-It is a 92% scale replica. despite this It has over double the empty weight however it's weight can be tuned down with fuel load. It's engine has 3x the power of the real Rotax 914 that powers the Predator.

Sixth, Another hidden plane and actually a variant of the P-51. The El Diablo Uploaded here by DanDaFreakinMan Appears to be what happens when you give Harley Quin the keys to the batwing. Appearing in several races, it features an insane thrust to weight ratio. It is a canard/conventional tail jet similar to jets like the Sukhoi SU-33.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 21.1ft
Length 36.5ft
Height 11.9ft
Empty Weight 6,595lbs to 7,288lbs

Engines:
2x Blasto J50s producing 11000 lbs of thrust each.

Trivia
-It can be obtained through file editing
-It's side profile is eerily similar to the Hover car racers from the Hover car Racer book series by Mathew Reilley. The Pied Piper and Argonaut specifically, Both flying F-1 cars.

Seventh, another hidden plane, The Escort Bomber Used in... You guessed it, the bomber escort mission. Originally created by the user 4399ton It was based on the B-52. There are two ways to obtain this plane. The easiest is to get it Here but it's very much different from the escort bomber having a different weapons load and landing gear. The second is by renaming the file, getting rid of the dashed prefix and suffix. Anyway lets get into this thing... Featuring a conventional layout, 8 engines, and as many hardpoints it was both slow and not very maneuverable.

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 92.4 feet
Length: 88.3 feet
Height: 21 feet
Weight: 10341 lbs to 31449 lbs

Engines:
8x Blasto J15 turbojets producing 3372 lbs of thrust each

Armament:
8x Hardpoints for 250 lbs each.

Trivia:
-despite a lack of landing gear, it can still take off from the ground using wind settings because it is so massive and aerodynamically stable.
-It lacks any sort of yaw control.
-It is a 52% scale of it's irl counterpart.

Eighth, Is, sadly, another hidden plane. The Escort Enemy. Based off of Boxglow's Kicking Fish, the Enemy was slightly shorter, had a more basic delta wing appearance, and had missiles, but no gun. It had the top intakes removed to save on performance cost. Because of all this, and i believe this was an accident, It resembled a cross between the T-2 Buckeye and A-4 Skyhawk, giving it a cold war jet appearance that was amplified by it's lack of a gun, and only having active radar guided missiles.

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 33 feet
Length: 32.7 feet
Height: 10.5 feet NOTE: No landing gear

Engine:
1x Blasto BFE150 putting out over 33,000 lbs of thrust.

Weapons:
4x Guardian Radar guided missiles

Trivia:
-It had no landing gear or rudder, but had a much larger vertical fin then the Kicking Fish
-Like the T-2 i mentioned earlier, And some varients of the A-4, it's color scheme, while flipped, is primarily white and red.
-It could be obtained through accessing the xml files.
-at high altitude, it could get into a developed inverted flat spin, Howerver, it is one of the very few stock craft ever included to actually be able to recover, which would have made it a great trainer jet.

Ninth, Finally a craft you can just hop in and fly. Right? No. Enter the Gator 2 by weebabyseamus. Unlike most of the crafts on this list the Gator 2 wasn't added until 2019, when we got heli parts. Based on the Legendary Bell UH-1 Iroquois It was the first (and really only) stock helicopter in the game. It featured ground attack weapons including miniguns that could be manually aimed up or down.

Dimensions:
Rotor span: 46.9 feet
Cab width (outside): 16.6 feet
Length: 61.1 feet (rotor Spinning)
Height: 16.3 feet
Weight: 10162 lbs to 12324 lbs

Engine:
1x 1102 shp engine

Weapons:
2x miniguns
2x 7 shot rocket pods

Trivia:
-It is a 116.4% scale of its irl counterpart
-It's guns can be aimed manually. By pressing AG2 and using the trim slider they have an angle of +/- 15 degrees.
-It doesn't have an auto hover, but it does have an assist on AG3.
-Later after it's intruduction, the file was ratified to include a winch and magnet on AG1.

Tenth, We have the https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/31bim1/Hellkeska Based off the Sukhoi Su-24, our first eastern European aircraft. It featured two massive engines, Swing wings, and lots of ground pounding ordinance.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 41.6ft
Length 45.2ft
Height 14.6ft
Weight 16,301lbs to 25,293lbs

Engines:
2x Blasto BFE150

Weapons: 9 hard points. Stock set up is
2x Inferno anti tank missiles
2x 7 shot rocket pods
2x external disposable fuel tanks
3x boom 25s

Trivia:
-The Hellkeska is a 74% scale of it's irl inspiration.
-While the Hellkeska would much MUCH later be confirmed to be an SU-24, It's design was so ambiguous It could be a decent stand in for not only the SU-24, but the Tornado, F-111 and, with less than 5 moves, even the F-14. One key reason for this is it's appearance to have a tandem cockpit.
-It's the go to for the bridge busting mission.
-Due to physics limitations of Simpleplanes, It actually flies slower with it's wings swept.

Eleventh on our list is our first ground vehicle. The culmination of a collaboration between EternalDarkness and Leehopard, The Jackhammer. Added in 2020 with the introduction of the cannon, The Jackhammer is an armored vehicle on an 8x8 off-road chassis that is amphibious, though it needs either some preparation, or assistance when moving in water.

Dimensions:
Width 11.3ft
Length 28.1ft
Height 15.4ft
Weight 10,182lbs to13,810lbs

Engine:

Weapons:
1x 30 mm canon with 40 rounds.

Trivia:
-Water prep is easily accomplished. All you need is a VTOL engine with it's length scaled to 20% and weight scaled to null, and it's input max set to 1%. My recommendation is placing this behind the car engine piece visible at the top of the vehicle. Next you're gonna wanna grab a pair of vtol exhaust nozzles (not rcs) and place these on the bottom stern facing rearward, with there input set to roll. test and reverse input as needed. This gives you respectable maneuverability and a speed of 18 kts.
-The gun doubles as a self righting mechanism in the event of a rollover.

Twelfth, is another ground vehicle. The Little Bugger, added in 2016 with the introduction of car the engine and singular wheel. It was based off of either the Chenowth Advanced Light Strike Vehicle in 'civilian cloths' or a generic sand rail. Like the Bush plane, It featured a rudimentary cockpit with a steering wheel. A crazy horse power to weight and weight distribution completed the package.

Dimensions:
Width 14.3ft
Length 23.6ft
Height 7.3ft
Weight 3,547lbs to 3,680lbs

Engine:
1x 400 hp auto engine

Trivia:
-It's rudimentary suspension made it especially difficult to handle. This was exasperated by the strikeplate on the front, that while being a sideways turned wing, provided a slight degree of lift, making it unsuitable for racing.
-It was removed from the install files, and can only be obtained through downloading.
-It had two hidden variants...

graciously uploaded Here By MrCOPTY. It's the offroad racing opponent, And number Thirteen on our list, the Grimace. Very little has changed other than the engine putting out 50% more power, a new suspension, and a wing on top for downforce.

And number Fourteen. For the road going challenges, the Skidmark Uploaded here by DanDaFreakinMan. Again. not a lot has changed. It has a stock engine, but is now missing basically the entire top of the car. The strike plate has been turned down.

Number Fifteen, Burger king Foot lettuce. Just kidding. But seriously It's Another hidden plane. and since it and number sixteen are both variants of the same plane... As well as several others I'm rolling them all together order be damned.

Ok so Number 15. It's the Enemy WWII. Originally designed by Authros, And you can find a beta version of it here The Enemy WWII was what you went up against in the WWII dogfight mission. I call it a variant of the P-51 because it was very similar but in reality (at least i suspect) is that it may have been the Basis of the new(er) mustang. Several changes were made, It traded it's 6 piece main wings for 2 piece ones, It lost it's radio antenna, and it's three stripe empennage was replaced by a single one. However it gained a pair of guns.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 30.9ft
Length 24.9ft
Height 11.5ft
Weight 3916lbs to 5391lbs

Engine:
1x Blade T2000. Tuning unknown.

Weapons:
2x wing mounted machineguns

Note: I cannot gather any more info besides the dimensions and weapons, as there is not a version uploaded to the site and attempts to do so have resulted in a moderator smackdown. And because there is now an automated moderator, there probably will never be one uploaded ever. In gen 4, or the 1.10 update, It got replaced, along with the next one on this list.

At number 16, it's the Enemy WWII Alt. Another hidden plane, this one also showed up in WWII Dogfight mode. Glimpsed Here We can see it resembled the gen2-3 P-51. This time thought it had teeth. Not only did it have a scarier engine, It had two wing mounted machine guns and a center firing minigun.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 49.6ft
Length 30.8ft
Height 13.1ft
Weight 4,015lbs to 5,368lbs

Engine
1x blade t2000 tuned to 1000hp driving a 150inch 5 blade propeller.

Weapons
1 center mounted minigun firing through the propeller arc
2 wingtip mounted machine guns

Trivia:
-it is an exact copy of the Mustang 2.0, but with weapons.
-it's load out, while awkward, made it hard to shoot down unless you got behind it.
-It's engine set up was used on the real life Spitfire MK XIVe.

Number 18 and 19 are both also Hidden copies of the Mustang 2.0, albeit with turboprop engines. The blue 'Speedy', And yellow 'Lightning'. They're both racing opponents, Similar to racing mustangs of yesteryear (rip NCAR Unlimited class)

Engines:
-Speedy: 1x Blade T3000 tuned to 1500 hp driving a 115in 4 blade prop
-Lightning: 1x Blade T3000 tuned to 3000 hp driving a 115in 4 blade prop

Trivia:
-The P-51 was actually fitted with a turboshaft engine, as The PA-48 enforcer.
-Voodoo, currently owned and piloted by Steve Hinton, is fitted with an engine that put's out almost as much power as one of the US's most powerful turboshafts.

The Above four planes lead us to number 20 on this list. I wasn't going to include it but i will seeing as it received a slight change. The P-51. It now had a flashy silver and blue paint scheme and canopy comprising of two cockpit pieces. It's engine also sat slightly lower in the fuselage. Besides that though, nothing really changed. curiously it received no weapons overhaul, staying unarmed, and never did receive a belly scoop.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 49.0ft
Length 30.8ft
Height 13.6ft
Weight 2,932lbs to 4,839lbs

Engine
1x blade T2000 tuned to 1000 hp driving a 100in 3 blade prop

Trivia
-It's lack of a belly scoop gave it a side profile similar to the real life variant, The PA-48 Enforcer
-The P-51 on Jundroo's page was never updated
-Only taking into account the aircrafts length as the rest of the proportions are way off, it is a 95.5% scale of its irl counterpart.

And at 21, we have a European jet, The Pigpen. Based on the Saab JAS 39 Gripen, and Introduced in 2016, The Pigpen is a lightweight single engine fighter with a solid mix of air to air weapons. While packing 8 missiles, It includes an extra centerline hardpoint that can be used for anything extra the mission might call for.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 29.7ft
Length 37.0ft
Height 13.3ft
Weight 10,603lbs to 12,856lbs

Engine:
1x Blasto BFE150 producing 33,000 lbs of thrust

Weapons:
4x Guardian Semi active radar guided missiles
4x Interceptor fully active radar guided missiles
1x center line nose mounted gatling cannon.

Trivia:
-While being based on the Jas-39, The Pigpen has an extra hardpoint, and a different type of gun, with the Jas-39's being closer to the machine gun in design.
-Pigpen was the Callsign of one of the developers family members during the Vietnam war, who flew an aircraft similar to the Gator 2.
-It is an 87% scale of it's irl counterpart

At Number 22 on this list, we have our final hidden aircraft. While Technically added Much later, Infact I believe it was added with or after 1.11, It's scale and build style make it a 3rd gen stock plane. The Tanker, uploaded here by DanDaFreakinMan. Based on the Airbus A400M Atlas, the Tanker was intended to fill the role of an arial refueling service vehicle that could be both auto spawned and manually spawned. However, Thanks to the ever so lovely logic of Simpleplanes' Ai pilot algorithm, this failed miserably, Leaving the tanker to be little more than eye candy for the world. And I think I speak for everyone when I say it better serves as a weapons test target if anything. As a stock plane though It's a great source of Funkytree code, So if you want to expand your knowledge, be sure to check it out.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 144.4ft
Length 150.3ft
Height 45.4ft
Weight 79,102lbs to 114,342lbs

Engines:
4x Blade T3000 turboshafts tuned to 3500hp each, driving 8 blade 95 inch (2x scale) props

Trivia:
-while Hidden in Simpleplanes, You can enjoy this aircraft in Juno: New Origins.
-Despite the A400 being such a large aircraft, The Tanker is a 101% scale, making it larger overall, and almost classifying it as a gen4 stock plane.
-and still, when prepped for a person to fly it (adding landing gear) it still has an insanely low rotate and landing speed with the P-51 needing more speed for takeoff and landing... A missed opportunity this was.

Number 23 on the list is a smaller turboprop. In 2016, The install files were changed to give us a slightly refreshed Twinprop, similar to this one. However, It was slightly lengthened, with fuselage sections 5 and 6 being lengthened to 5 units each, and its nacelles were flipped around to allow the install of a pair of turboprop pusher engines, and it's tail received some crank.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 35.8ft
Length 31.6ft
Height 13.8ft
Weight 8,476lbs to 11,676lbs

Engines:
2x Blade T3000 turboshafts tuned to 3000hp sending power to 85in 4 blade props

Trivia:
-The third iteration of the twin prop, The what i like to call MkIII has no real world counterpart, Since it is a full departure from The first one, being based on the Cessna 414. However It's closest resemblance is The AAC ANGEL which although happens to be very close in size and shape was never fitted with turboshafts... Although I'm sure the PT6 would have fit right at home...

Finally, We're at Number 24. 13 hardpoints. 66 thousand pounds of thrust. All the G's and a stinger in the nose. The Only aircraft that can take the fleet. It's the Shipborne, Super Hornet inspired Wasp. Probably The best jet for the bomber escort mission, It features a solid and numerable mix of weapons.

Dimensions:
Wingspan 33.0ft
Length 40.9ft
Height 13.3ft
Weight 17,813lbs to 22,817lbs

Engines:
2x BFE150s putting out 33000lbs thrust each

Weapons: All of them.
1x Gatling canon
1x Nonconformal auxiliary fuel tank
2x Guardian semiactive radar guided missiles
4x Interceptor full active radar guided missiles
4x inferno gps guided anti tank missiles

Trivia
-This aircraft was renamed to the wasp, but is the predecessor to the previously included F-18.
-This aircraft, based on the Super Hornet, did not make a return as a stock plane for the 4th generation, But will return for Simplplanes 2.
-It is a 72% scale of it's irl counterpart

That's it for Gen 3. Gen 4, aka the 1.10 update would bring one of the most radical changes to Simpleplanes. Near 1 to 1 scale builds, glass, cockpit parts, and the introduction of a new game mode, Virtual reality.