https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/05/22/the-12-sexiest-warplanes-of-all-time/ Some beautiful aircraft. Click baity, but well done.
Whoever shot the P51's in flight used a fast shutter. You can read the Hamilton Standard logos on the prop blades. Almost looks like a fake photo.
I have often thought about the characteristics of WWII aircraft. I don't think that one can ever say that a German airplane was sexy but one could say that it (or they) had a clean, no nonsense, efficiency about them. Model them to do what had to be done and nothing more. Simple, clean, straight, smooth, and easy to produce. And very effective in the intended roll that they were to play. The British produced the beloved and beautiful Spitfire that had subtle curves and a sculpture that was blended to air flow efficiency but difficult to build quickly in mass quantities but the British did it because of their affinity to detailed work. The ME109 details and sub assemblies were built in garages, basements, and wherever in the last stages of the war because it could be slapped together by anybody. Effective. The handsome Hurricane was a grand basket weaving project with wire braced bolted aluminum tubing frame and delicately fretted wooden formers and wooden stringers covered with cotton fabric . At first the wings were fabric covered from the rear spar to the trailing edge, covering Warren truss ribs. The main spars were Warren truss also and the entire assembly consumed many hours. The Hurricane was a single winged Fury and carried over the archaic methods of the early thirties but what a job it did during the Battle of Britain. At this time I don't think that the French were able to get anything coherent put together. Just some of my thoughts.
Never cared for the Hurricane but did like the Typhoon. I thought the FW 190 with the BMW was a good looking airplane. With the Jumo it was a far better performer but the sleek lines and nice proportions were gone. The 109 was very purposeful but not what I would call a good looking airplane. Very Teutonic. I agree with most of the list. Corsair, B58, F86, P51, all good looking airplanes.
Good word, Teutonic. That applied to just about every German airplane. ME-109, FW-190, JU-87,JU-88 were not built to be beautiful or even pretty, just functional and they were excellent. In analyzing their lofting methods one can see that smooth transitions were made into straight lines or lines that had little change over their progression. The ME-09 displays this. So does the FW-190 and JU -88. Then the functionality comes into play with the canopy of the ME-109. Simple, bullet resistant, and easy to manufacture...and ugly. Less so with the FW-190 but close and still inexpensively practical. The splayed out wheels of the ME-109 were designed to fit into a thin wing therefore no camber was put into the configuration. Drag was minimized because there was no bump in the smooth contours of Willy Messerschmit's wing when the gear was retracted and that is what he wanted...NO CHANGES! Landing accidents killed about 150 fledgling fighter pilots, if I remember. I think that I remember, too, that the fuselage skins of the ME-109 were flanged inward at the perimeters to act as stringers and frames when joined.
Sorry, but any "most beautiful warplane" list that includes the Mosquito and not the Tomcat isn't even trying. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Perhaps one of the most spectacular German WW-II prop driven fighters was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_335 Just a shame that only a handful were ever built prior to the end of the war.
Technically maybe but it had a face only a mother could love. Nothing smooth, graceful or well proportioned about it.
Both great airplanes but aesthetically? Mmm....no. Just considering contemporaries the A26, F7F, P38 or Me262. Whichever you accept as a contemporary. Any one puts the Mosquito on the trailer. And the F15 was much better looking the the 14. The Tigercat was one of my favs but really was a post war airplane.
Again, an assembly of gentle changing lines tho not very graceful, strictly Teutonic in every respect. It was faster on the rear engine than the P-51 was in cruise. I worked with an ex-German who was an engineer and test pilot on that airplane and his main complaint was that, " Every time I was on a test flight some damned P-51 was trying to shoot me down and I simply out-ran them."
Not sure you can classify the SR71 as a "warbird". Cold war bird? To me the sound of the Merlin engine makes the Mustang, Mosquito, and Spitfire a cut above the jets. But the Starfighter and Super Sabre are simply beautiful machines to look at.
Cold War Bird. It deserves the name. There were a lot of cool sounding recips, especially when they are working hard, a Corsair with the hammer down sounds good. There were some great looking early jets. Saber, Starfighter, Voodoo, Cougar. Maybe we should lock the Ferrari design team in a room and make them watch film showing all these designs. Maybe they'll learn functional doesn't need to be ugly.
The Thud and Thud drivers ARE in a class of their own. That airplane was nothing but a great big cal. 50 bullet with tiny wings on it. A great engineering feat. Hardly what could be called pretty but a marvelous airplane.
I always thought the Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik was a really attractive plane. And, extremely effective. It was designed to bust tanks and that's exactly what it did. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
True, but... I saw some of these flying in Europe, probably on the French/German border, in 1965 or 1966, so I was 5 or 6 years old at the time; and since these days, I still think, even today, that from certain angles, the F-105 can be very pretty: from directly under or directly above, where the coke-bottle shape is very apparent. The "Musée de l'Air" in Paris-Le Bourget has one; static only, of course, but still a magnificent machine. Really one of my favourites. Those jets of the fifties are the nicest. Rgds
Well Bob…Not wanting to derail the thread, so let’s try to stay brief. It depends if you speak from a technical or aesthetical point of view. During the thirties the French Air Force had first to structure itself, because it became independent from the Army in 1933. At the time, the aircraft industry was dispersed in too many small firms in competition for too few small orders, and designs became to lag behind. Especially – this one is for Brian, among others – in the matter of aero-engines: the main in-line V12, the Hispano, was never very efficient considering its capacity, and never well adapted to forced induction, and did not have an efficient blower (However, the soviets did manage to achieve something with the Hispano engine, because built by themselves as the Klimov V12, they showed it has potential: think about the Yak-9 for instance). There was a collection of different radial engines, but the good ones were not reliable. It is a well known fact that when the first Curtiss H-75 ordered in the United States arrived here in 1938 (P-36 to you Americans) the French mechanics marveled at their Pratt and Whitney engines. The year 1936 was also a year of social changes in France: introduction of the first paid vacancies, limits on the number of hours worked in a week, etc...and all industries had to shift to new working schedules, which took some time; The government lifted all restrictions on the number of hours worked only in 1938, after the Munich crisis, when rearmament was decided. Basically, the industry was restructured one year too late, the rearmament effort and monies came one year too late also. The two good fighter designs, both able to hold their own against the Messerschmitt 109, came too late on the front line: the Dewoitine 520 and the Arsenal VG-33 (that one only by single numbers). Note that in an effort to find an efficient engine, some versions of the Arsenal VG-33 were fitted with the Allison V-1710. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewoitine_D.520 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_VG-33 I maybe biased on this, but if we leap to jets, during the fifties Dassault built some efficient fighters, and pleasing to the eye, too: the “Mirage III” or its cousin the “Etendard”, for instance. Rgds
I have spoken to some retired pilots who flew a lot of nice airplanes, from WW II to the jets. The F8F-1 has a lot of praise.
It is indeed very often quoted as one of the best performing piston engined fighter of all times. That said, it looks purposeful indeed, but is not particularly "pretty"... Rgds
I would agree. I have seen a few in the flesh and while it was a great plane beauty was not one of its strong points in much the same way as a P47.
