Ugly Aircraft Contest

[molemot]

Roy Chadwick must have seen it in a nightmare before drawing the front of the Avro Lincoln...

[reymondos]

Shorts 360. Fugly!!

Here's a pretty good top 20

http://www.techxilla.com/2010/08/19/20-worlds-most-ugliest-aircraft-designs-ever/

[Sparky]

Any site that calls the HP Victor ugly is no friend of mine.

[Iconic Ride]

Some amazing new material, reymondos, but more than a few of the site's follow on comments seemed to support Sparky's view on the Handley Page Victor as not belonging on the list.

[Bibs]

Who remembers this thread?

 

Voight V173

 

[slewthy]

If the USAF is prepared to design, build and fly something like that, imaging what they must be testing now?!

[Bibs]

Those pics were taken in late 2012

[molemot]

The Chance Vought V 173 dates back to 1942! A bit of googling shows it was based on the "discoidal" aircraft thought up by one Charles Zimmerman in the 1930s. I wonder if he was related to Robert Zimmerman???(!) Aircraft designers in those days weren't governed by such things as "knowledge" but could take wild stabs into the unknown...it was those that enabled proper rules for aerodynamic design to be laid down, resulting in todays aeroplanes all looking pretty much the same.

[Vulcan Grey]

Who remembers this thread?

 

Voight V173

 

 

Nice!

 

I posted about the similar Vought XF5U here

http://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/topic/50694-pop-quiz-plane-geeks/http://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/topic/50694-pop-quiz-plane-geeks/

 

[slewthy]

[Günter]

Simon ..if you now can find the historical link between those design-examples 

[Iconic Ride]

The Chance Vought V 173 dates back to 1942! A bit of googling shows it was based on the "discoidal" aircraft thought up by one Charles Zimmerman in the 1930s. I wonder if he was related to Robert Zimmerman???(!)

 

As Robert might have said, "You don't need a wind tunnel to know which way the wind blows."  

[Bibs]

Martin XB-51

 

[Bibs]

What a noise this gun makes

 

http://youtu.be/1rGcn2XGr48

[mdw]

When I was in Newark in the mid 80s you would see the A10s almost daily doing practice runs on the cooling towers of the local power station. Rather bigger target than tank . Used to scare the crap out of you as they were so low.

[slewthy]

Once saw two A10s doing practice dogfighting over Hereford. A small light aircraft then entered their space, they circled it until it passed and then continued.

Awesome!

[USAndretti42]

When I worked at Gaydon, they often flew over the test track and used to waggle their wings at the cars clocking up miles for emission certification.

[Iconic Ride]

Best view I ever had of the A10 was while sitting atop the wing of a C5A I had flown in for static display for an airshow in Tucson, Arizona. He did most of his maneuvers at low altitude...about eye level from my vantage point high above the tarmac. I think I heard the announcer state that it had an 800 ft turn radius, which for a combat aircraft is quite impressive. And at bank angles approaching 90 degrees, his wingtip was just shy of scraping the ground...or at least gave that impression. I recall the engines as being whisper quiet as well, more like muffled tea kettles. 

[73JPS]

The Beech 1900D is pretty ugly:

 

[ramjet]

 

And these things just remind me of the brain bug from Starship Troopers (great intellectual movie by the way)

[Iconic Ride]

Geeze, Michael!  That top one has mos def had a severe encounter with the ugly stick.

 

Patrick, urban legend has it that the Beech 1900 had the aft strakes added on after the fact to fix a stability issue.

[comem47]

I wondered if that plane in Mad Mad beyond Thunderdome was real or made up for he movie. Now I know!!!

 

It was just on cable the other day.

 

 

[73JPS]

 Patrick, urban legend has it that the Beech 1900 had the aft strakes added on after the fact to fix a stability issue.

 

 

The D is all the more ugly considering the handsomeness of its progenitor.

 

[fmxa]

Not really ugly, but I came across this fascinating site of Soviet era aviation stuff (careful, you can spend hours browsing around!) http://englishrussia.com/2012/12/05/planes-doomed-to-die-soon/#more-115102

[Günter]

oh'common guys based on the looks Beech*1900 is for dwarfs ..wheras in *1900D you can really walk in the cabin,right So nothing ugly on the bigger one, from point of usability. But those *Mad Max* trilogy ultra-light planes look like ugly toys -for sure