Blohm and Voss BV141
Looks may be in the eye of the beholder but sometimes a design just looks like it shouldn’t work.
Messerschmitt ME 323
Last week we looked at aircraft that looked aerodynamically and aesthetically correct. Today we look at the other side of the coin. The lead image is one of several asymmetrical designs developed and produced by the Germans during the Second World War. Above we see the ungainly six engined Messerschmitt ME-323 powered by Gnome engines liberated from the French after it was found that it didn’t work that well as a glider.
Only A Mother Can Love This Shape
My last choice here is the entirely unattractive F-117. An aircraft designed around a singular purpose of avoiding radar at all costs. This choice might upset a few of you but lets face it this looks like something Michael Bay would have created for the Transformers movies if he had been allowed to. So now its up to all of you to agree or disagree with my own choices or, better, to present your own below.
[images wikipedia.org]
Delanne Duo-mono
<img src="http://www.airlineempires.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/lysander.jpg"width=500>
I really like this aircraft but that's probably because it's actually a Westland Lysander P 12, a variant of an aircraft which performed stellar duty dropping off and picking up spies and downed airmen from occupied Europe.
<img src="http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/media/galleries/images/38903/500×400/westland-lysander-jpg.jpg" />
Well that is really… interesting. You nailed the kind of thing I was looking for in this thread.
This is the Delanne Duo-mono. Hard to find a decent pic of the real thing. The Internets have confused it with at least three different aircraft, including the Lysander P12 .
<img src="http://www.nestofdragons.net/media/23112/delanne_c10_model1.jpg" />
I kinda like that, oddly enough…I think because it looks to me like it basically has the right elements for a pretty sweet alternate-history fighter, just not arranged quite right.
<img src="http://guidesmedia.ign.com/guides/479671/images/devastator.jpg">
Got to love Crimson Skies.
I'm in love.
<img src="http://motleydogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/harbor-the-dog-with-the-worlds-longest-ears-lying-down.jpg" width=400>
Isn’t the F117 basically impossible to fly without computing support? It really doesn’t work aerodynamically. I’d have to vote for that.
This is one of those questions that needs to be narrowed down to decade and production vs non-production. There are plenty of experimental oddities and gross pre-WWII aircraft, but in modern times this is the most disgusting production aircraft. The Transavia PL-12 (in this picture it's pissing on good taste):
<img src="http://www.aamb.com.au/images/airtrukfly.jpg" />
I believe this aircraft is still in production as well. Ugly but very good at what it does.
The early models had a radial engine. They were even worse.
<img src="http://oim.hq.nasa.gov/oia/amd/images/aircraft/jsc/super-guppy.jpg">
IMG from NASA.gov
I… I like that one.
But I also have a thing for dirigibles.
Yeah, it's a thing of beauty to me.
You don't like the Super Guppy? I got to see it in person a few months ago. Its actually more unusual to see in person then the pictures show. It took an unusual look with the Boeing Stratocruiser and turned it into this.
We have a Guppy out at the Tillamook Air Museum.
Got to agree. The F-117 is ugly as sin. Works at its designated task, but ugly as sin.
I dunno — I agree it isn't exactly the most conventionally beautiful plane, but I put it in the same "brutally attractive/badass" category as the P61 Black Widow.
I'll cast my vote for the Grumman J2-F Duck, the prototype for Jay Leno.
<img src="http://avionswwii.free.fr/images/avions/Grumman_J2F/GrummanJ2f_9.jpg">
"Chin" was not the first anatomy to come to mind.
Does that radial engine really make it that front-heavy…? Woulda sworn I'd seen….uh….less awkward-looking round-engined seaplanes than that…
The Soviets had a thing for huge helicopters that were generally pretty ugly.
<img width=500 src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Aeroflot_Mil_V-12_%28Mi-12%29_Groningen_Airport.jpg">
What??? That thing is eight different sorts of fantastic! Pick on something like the horrible "hey look, I'm straight outta the movie The Fly" Kamov Ka-26:
<img src="http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/106/254/106254999_640.jpg" width="500" />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M-15.jpg
The Handley-Page Victor.
[img
CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:03 pm
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fodder650
September 7, 2012 at 12:06 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:10 pm
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fodder650
September 7, 2012 at 12:14 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:17 pm
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fodder650
September 7, 2012 at 12:20 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:25 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:27 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:13 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:14 pm
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fodder650
September 7, 2012 at 12:15 pm
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The Professor
September 7, 2012 at 7:07 pm
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Tiller188
September 7, 2012 at 7:21 pm
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P161911
September 7, 2012 at 12:14 pm
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September 7, 2012 at 12:16 pm
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fodder650
September 7, 2012 at 12:17 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:18 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 7, 2012 at 12:20 pm
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fodder650
September 7, 2012 at 12:21 pm
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The Professor
September 7, 2012 at 7:08 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
September 8, 2012 at 7:40 am
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P161911
September 7, 2012 at 12:24 pm
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CaptianNemo2001
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The Professor
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BlackIce_GTS
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fodder650
September 8, 2012 at 7:44 am
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CaptianNemo2001
September 8, 2012 at 7:45 am
The ME 323 worked well as a glider it was the fact that it took so many valuable planes to haul its big heavy ass into the air that was the problem. Even with the Gnome engines it was still well underpowered for its size.
Well as glider it required two HE-111's to launch it into the air. It caused the creation of this thing below. As for the Gnome engine. See the Germans liberated a bunch from the French and didn't really have a use for them.
<img src="http://www.asisbiz.com/il2/He-111/He-111Z-(DH+DY)/images/1-Heinkel-He-111Z-Zwilling-01.jpg" width=600 />
Or as an option, if I recall, 3 Me-110's. The picture is of the He-111z.
Right it was 3 ME-110's that did it in formation until they HE-111Z was designed to take its place. There is a lot of good video of the ME-110 method of launch. That they didn't crash to many of them on takeoff is very impressive.
Such a waste of planes, fuel and pilots. Thank god they started slapping engines to the gliders…
Now if I could just find a picture of the pulse-jet powered experimental glider. I'll have to dig through my books…
I'm not seeing much online about a pulse jet powered glider.
It was very experimental… I have only seen 1 picture of it and by chance at that.
I think it might have been a modified DFS 230 but I do remember seeing a single pulse jet under the wing on each side of the fuselage. I remember it since the note said it was one of a very few purely pulse jet powered flyable aircraft built.
FOUND IT. http://tanks45.tripod.com/Jets45/Histories/DFS230…
Not the same photo I saw but here it is.
<img src="http://tanks45.tripod.com/Jets45/Histories/DFS230/DFS230_1.jpg" width="600">
Engine: 2x Argus VSR pulsejets
Wing Span: 21.98m
Length: 11.24m
Height: 2.74m
Weight: Empty 860 kg / Loaded 2,100 kg
Towing Speed: 210 kph / Maximum Dive Speed: 290 kph
Ceiling: N/A
Range: N/A
Crew: 1x pilot / 9x troops
Armament: 1x 7.9mm MG 15 machine gun / (field-fitting) 2x 7.9mm MG 34s firing forward
More info on the above site.
<img src="http://www.stipa-caproni.com/wp-content/uploads/Stipa-Caproni41.jpg" width="600">
<img src="http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/51cf3f59ccf8631b2d8f37ea9d563d34ce33a8b9_m.jpg" width="600">
A short bit of info from the below site.
The Stipa-Caproni, also generally called the Caproni Stipa, was an experimental Italian aircraft designed in 1932 by Luigi Stipa (1900–1992) and built by Caproni. It featured a hollow, barrel-shaped fuselage with the engine and propeller completely enclosed by the fuselage—in essence, the whole fuselage was a single ducted fan.
Stipa’s basic idea—which he called the “intubed propeller”—was to mount the engine and propeller inside a fuselage that itself formed a a tapered duct, or venturi tube, and compressed the propeller’s airflow and the engine exhaust before it exited the duct at the trailing edge of the aircraft, essentially applying Bernoulli’s principle of fluid movements to make the aircraft’s engine more efficient.
Lots more to read and see here: <a href="http://www.stipa-caproni.com/2010/04/the-stipa-caproni/” target=”_blank”>http://www.stipa-caproni.com/2010/04/the-stipa-caproni/
I should also note that there were many fanciful covers on Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, as well as others, featuring aircraft using these principles in the 1930's.
He had a valid idea but it was underpowered and just to darned heavy to make a use of it. Its almost the approach of the Custer Channel Wing. Its also the way that a lot of RC planes pretend to have jet engines.
Good lord but that's ugly.
Huh, a giant flying ducted fan….that's pretty cool! I have a buddy that once referred to a T-6 Texan as being of the "Flying Keg" style of plane, which I thought was pretty funny and fairly apt….but evidently, we had no idea.
Apparently Russian let their naval and railroad engineers design a bomber.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Kalinin_K-7_01.jpg"width=500>
That picture does not even begin to show just how big that thing really is…
You're right. Wasn't it called the K-7 or something?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-7
On another note the ANT-20bis was bigger still and almost as ugly.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Aeroflot_ANT-20bis.jpg" width="600">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_Gorky_%28airplane%29” target=”_blank”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_Gorky_%28airplane%29
If I remember right the Gorky or K-7 was built before the revolution but were used as propaganda devices afterwards. They worked so well they made several more of them like the Gorky.
Almost?
Yes… Almost. The K-7 has some totally ugly boots going on… Plus the ANT-20bis is more streamlined and does not have the ugly twin tail.
I like this photochop version better.
<img src="http://www.hoax-slayer.com/images/K7-heavy-bomber-3.jpg" width="600/">
Yah there is a whole series of renderings of the K-7 minus the "guns" of course. The renderings really show you just how massive this thing is.
Yeah, that's where I've seen those things before. Needs more engines and naval rifles.
This is the first thing that came to mind when I tried to think of ugly aircraft:
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Sikorsky_UH-19B_Chickasaw_USAF.jpg/800px-Sikorsky_UH-19B_Chickasaw_USAF.jpg" width=500>
I acknowledge that ugly is in the eye of the beholder, I think the F-117 is really cool.
Ah the good old piston engined helicopters. We have some falling apart at my local air museum. Still for plain ugly in a piston helicopter how about the Screaming Mimi.
<img src="http://www.rotaryaction.com/images/riptide8.jpg" width=600 />
They tend to grow on you.