what is the worst looking plane of all time?

[Eric Mc]

horseshoecrab said:

Another nod for the twin mustang from me but ultimately my nomination goes to the Stratolaunch.
Someone will probably point out it's an engineering marvel but it does a very specific job of getting branson near to space and looks horrible.
I'm struggling to fine one redeeming feature to this epic waste of resources.

Not connected to Branson as far as I'm aware.

[J4CKO]

RobbyJ said:

Equus said:

Or the Ilyushin iL-40:

Wow, now I know where BMW get their latest design inspiration from.



I generally find 'ugly' planes some of the best looking in a weird way. This is one of my favourites:

Yep, looks like it.
I love these oddballs, had a book of planes from the seventies as a kid and it had all this wild and wacky stuff in and used to marvel at it, they were all from the 40s, 50's and 60s when there was loads of trying new stuff. The photos in that book were so intriguing on massive concrete runways made of massive slabs in secret looking places.

[Equus]

[RobbyJ]

Another one of my favourite abominations that I had the pleasure of flying on a few times.

[DodgyGeezer]

RobbyJ said:

Equus said:

Or the Ilyushin iL-40:

Wow, now I know where BMW get their latest design inspiration from.

Unfair to the IL40 I reckon

[Gary C]

Equus said:

jesus

I think we have the winner

WTF is it ?

[Milkyway63]

Gary C said:

Equus said:

jesus

I think we have the winner

WTF is it ?

Not sure it’s even a plane..is it?

[horseshoecrab]

Eric Mc said:

Not connected to Branson as far as I'm aware.

My bad. You're right that was slightly better looking White Knight Two. I'm not keen on that either lol

[Equus]

Gary C said:

WTF is it ?

It's the Stipa-Caproni; a prototype built to test the effectiveness of what we would now call a 'ducted fan'.

It flew quite well, by all accounts, though it wasn't as fast as expected.

[matchmaker]

RobbyJ said:

Another one of my favourite abominations that I had the pleasure of flying on a few times.

Not as well received as its smaller sister:

Trilander - 72 built
Islander - 1280 built and still in production after 50 years.

[Voldemort]

Sikorsky S64

[RobbyJ]

DodgyGeezer said:

Unfair to the IL40 I reckon

I formally apologise, Sergey Ilyushin I'm very sorry.

[Jimbo.]

The Vought F7U Cutlass. Looked like someone took several different design ideas and got their children to cut them up and glue them together for a school art project. Going by the amount of crashes, it flew the same, too.

[wolfracesonic]

Milkyway63 said:

Gary C said:

Equus said:

jesus

I think we have the winner

WTF is it ?

Not sure it’s even a plane..is it?

I bet they thought if it doesn’t fly we can use as a wind tunnel for its replacement.

[RizzoTheRat]

Milkyway63 said:

Gary C said:

Equus said:

jesus

I think we have the winner

WTF is it ?

Not sure it’s even a plane..is it?

Presumably is a ducted prop rather than an annular wing like the Coléoptère?

[2fast748]

Voldemort said:

Sikorsky S64

That's not ugly, it's just a demonstration of the minimum amount of material needed to make a turbine fly!

[Equus]

RizzoTheRat said:

Presumably is a ducted prop rather than an annular wing like the Coléoptère?

Yes, though the duct did contribute to lift as well - but it's primary purpose was to augment the thrust of the propeller.

On the subject of weird French prototypes, some of their ramjet experiments were pretty ugly, too, though not bad enough to challenge for top honours on this thread:

[Dr Jekyll]

I find some of the aircraft mentioned quite appealing in their way,. Not so much ugly as combining functional design with bold disregard for aesthetic convention. EG Skyvan, BV141, Superguppy

[Milkyway63]

Dr Jekyll said:

I find some of the aircraft mentioned quite appealing in their way,. Not so much ugly as combining functional design with bold disregard for aesthetic convention. EG Skyvan, BV141, Superguppy

I’m sure that some were just innocent ‘doodles’ on a cigarette packet....
Which, somehow got built.

[annodomini2]

RizzoTheRat said:

I agree that that Ilushin is a clear winner, but plenty of competition for second place, especially among experimental aircraft


Dornier 31

This still exists, you can see it from the road by Friedrichshafen airport