Cool and Ugly Looking Airplanes

[GinandTonic]

Check the file name Super_Guppy_N941_NASA.jpg

Nasa modified a few transports to carry very odd sized loads.

Which leads you onto a whole bunch of freakishly ugly planes.

 

[citedon]

The Brewster Buffalo was one of the ugliest planes in WW 2. The best thing about it was that it could take a tremendous beating and still get its pilot home safely. The bad thing was that it usually did take a tremendous beating because it was slow and not very maneuverable.

Here's an even uglier looking version of the Brewster.

VL Humu HM-871 (Finnish prototype variant of the Brewster F2A)

 

[Taras Bulba]

Focke-Wulf 190

He-111 Bomber

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Most of Heinkel's medium bombers are rather handsome, I must say.

 

[Verbose]

Here's an ugly French WWII mug you ya'll.

The Arsenal-Dalenne 10-C 2 fighter!

Essentially a biplane retooled to a monoplane, with 1000hp engine and a 550 km/h top speed (decent for 1940), and with some of the manouverability of the biplanes in place (at the time the Italians actually thought biplanes still viable because of greater manouverability). It was experimental of course, but e few machines actually flew by the time of the Battle of France. The Germans took them back with them home and tested them alongside their own weird aircraft.

 

[Taras Bulba]

Most of Heinkel's medium bombers are rather handsome, I must say.

I can agree with you there

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Horten Ho 229

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

edit: wrong thread

 

[NewWaver]

Ugly:

WTH is that????

 

[citedon]

It's a Russian Bartini VVA. Ugly even when you see the whole thing.

 

[Onionsoilder]

How on earth does that... thing fly!?!

 

[red_elk]

It's skimmer AFAIK

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think it looks kind of cool. Its like something from Star Wars.

 

[red_elk]

I thought it's the one of Alekseev's planes
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=oY3Q4eVAV9A

 

[mr_lewington]

Ugly:

Cool:

 

[say1988]

With a better paint scheme (those bands look disgustion), that sabre (it is a sabre righ?) looks much better than the hornet.

 

[Dachs]

that sabre (it is a sabre righ?)

Yes, it is an earlier-run North American F-86 Sabrejet (am thinking A variant). The F-86D Sabre is almost a different aircraft, since it has the radar cone above the engine intake.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

How on earth does that... thing fly!?!

It's called a "ground effect vehicle." It takes advantage of a unique physical advantage created by flying within a certain distance of the ground to lift massive loads, and transport them at high speed.

Basically, these things fly a few meters above the ground, across dependably flat terrain, but most commonly water. The actual altitude varies from plane to plane, but ground effect is experienced between altitudes of .5 wingspans to 1.5 wingspans above ground. At this height, the plane is airborne, but is low enough to the ground that turbulence from the wingtips cannot form vortices. This is important because those vortices, which form at the end of every wing, no matter the design, greatly increase drag, and thus, affect lifting capability. By denying these vortices the ability to form (they make big cones behind the aircraft, and the ground being so close enters the space in which they would spin), the lifting capacity is greatly increased, since these planes, which never leave the area of ground-effect, travel with greatly reduced drag.

The lifting power of ground-effect vehicles is among the largest of any plane ever built.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Can they fly at greater altitudes than they usually do?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I suppose they could, unladen, of course.

And no, I don't know the airspeed-velocity of an unladen ekranoplan, English OR African.