Warbird Information Exchange

MY GOD-----------The Caproni Stipa is UGLY!!!!!!!!!!!


The Stipa is not a warbird----------its a WAR-TURD

The three rules of aircraft identification:

-If it's ugly, it's British

-If it's wierd, it's French

-If it's ugly AND wierd, it's Russian.

Though we may have to append "or Italian" to that last rule.

_________________
Phil K.
Yankee Air Museum
Systems Admin / Ramp Crew / Professional Photo Ruiner

What about this beautiful air-goddess

Meet the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl.................

That looks like it could be a prototype of Deimert's "Defender."

Oops! I just started looking at all those ugly planes and got overwhelmed!

There are certainly a lot of really ugly flying machines that came from outside the USA, but let's not forget these all-American aviation gems:

Vultee XP-54 Swoose
Curtiss XP-55 Ascender
Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet
McDonnell XF-85 Goblin

Cheers!

_________________
Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

WHOA !! K5DH

Th heading is UGLY airplanes.

No one ever accused either the XP-55 Ascender nor the XP-56 Black Bullet. They may have had their flying faults but aesthetically I wouldn't begin to include them with some of the other monstrosities mentioned in this thread.

OK, I'll give you the XP-54, that is pretty ugly . What's wrong with the others? The XP-56 and XF-85 fit in the category with the Me-163, which my fiance would refer to as the "cute" category.

I'd have to strongly disagree with you on the XP-54. I've always thought it was a pretty good looking airplane.

Has anybody nominated the first XP-75?

I presume this is WWII...Unfortunately, except for the "Spit" anything with a roundell on it. German technology might have been considered "cutting edge" but all of their aircraft were devoid of any beauty. The Italians, will what can you say...the Japanese, well the Zero had it's good points. The Russians never had anything worth admiring. The Americans get an "A" in my book for the most aircraft with good looks save for the B-24....Maybe we need a thread for aircraft that look like they "mean business", the Germans can play again. You have to also consider most of the axis aircraft along with the Russians had to build their planes under adverse conditions so they weren't into beauty as much as production and performance. Anyways I don't think this is going anywhere so I'll sign off.
Tom

How about the Handley Page Hampden?

http://www.military.cz/british/air/war/ ... den_en.htm

Dennis

Hands down, the F-107.

_________________
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

The Sailor Inhaler!!

Some say that the reason Boeing lost the contract was that none of the fighter pilots on the selcetion panel would want to be seen in a picture with one.

Gary,

I will have to disagree with you about the Shackleton.

(Actually I am speaking on behalf of my father, who passed away 2 years ago and therefore can't be here to defend it). He stated that the Shackleton was "a marvelous machine, with an admirable pedigree and a gorgeous shape".

Mind you, during his RAF career he also flew the Baulton Paul Defiant, Blenheim, Sunderland, Blackburn Beverley, Argosy and the Belfast (as well as several others), so he didn't really have much of a clue when it came to what a good looking aircraft actually looked like.

(As a side note, his log book shows that he had over 60 hours flight time in the Shackleton that is now at Midland as "Mr McHenry" when it was still in service with the RAF in the middle east).

And unfortunately (even as a Brit) I have to agree with several of the previous comments. It definately appears that the British were darn good at designing b*tt ugly aircraft.

Julian