I hate to think how many Paras broke their jaw dropping through it, something known as ringing the bell.
Challenge: name an airplane uglier than the Lloyd Luftkreuzer
- Thread starter riggerrob
- Start date
BlackDragon98
Banned
Someone mentioned a Fleet Air Arm AEW bird as butt ugly as the AEW Avenger. It occurred to me that this beast might be this critter:
Fairey Gannet, with the radome in the wrong place, to make it worse?
A whole row of them.
And even in the clean ASW version, they look screwed up.
Short version of ugly.
The folding wing tended to stick at the top of the Z-joint.
Quick release harness buckle for the pilot tended to get stuck. Not too bad if you had to cut yourself out of the harness after a trap, cause the plane captain could always replace the harness, but a bit awkward if you had to bail out cause the Double Mamba turbo-prop engine ingested gear filings and bits of housing casing from the contra-rotator gear assemblies as the gears tore themselves to bits. This happened more often than the RAF or the Luftwaffe liked to admit. The pilot loss was bad enough, but the Gannet was EXPENSIVE in either the AEW or ASW role.
The radome and observer seats look like tumors sticking out of the plane.
Very ugly indeed.
Deleted member 94680
“...due to poor performance... it never reached service” - really, you don’t say? I also love the quote “a camel amongst race-horses”
They were doing research into whether there were any advantages to the pilot being prone in high G maneuvers.
That just raises even more questions! How did they maneuver planes on the ground?
Deleted member 94680
Plenty of earlier aircraft had poor ground visibility. The Vulcan only lasted 6 years, so maybe the ground handling was part of the problem?
BlackDragon98
Banned
Ladies and gentlemen, the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl Mk V
WHY? WHY?
WHO ON EARTH WOULD MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!?
It looks like it was made by a 3 year old using parts from 10 different planes.
I vote this monstrosity for most ugly.
Errolwi
Monthly Donor
Having your head in line with and behind the wing makes it not too bad in flight, apparently.
No worse ground visibility than many types.
Comper Swift VH-UVC taxi by Errol Cavit, on Flickr
No worse ground visibility than many types.
Comper Swift VH-UVC taxi by Errol Cavit, on Flickr
Heretic the Warthog is the greatest airplane ever. It’s the Volvo of combat airplanes, all function and it’s glorious for it. All American history served only one purpose; to create the Warthog, it’s a war god flying among the lesser mortals.
Pilot view on the Pterodactyl is better than on a lot of Biplanes.
It was made to test the concept of a flying wing. However I think the Hortons did it better.