So Ugly That It's Cute

[K5DH]

I've often thought the Gannet was a neat airplane.

Alcohol may have been involved.

[Keith Gaff]

Handsome is as handsome does fellas. The Gannet depicted is the airborne early warning version. The Royal Australian Navy used the anti submarine version for many years off the carrier HMAS Melbourne. Legend has it that during naval exercises with the US Navy one RAN Gannet made a completely undetected mock torpedo attack on the mighty USS Enterprise.

Also the Gannet was built in a unique way in a process known as "envelope jigging". Most aircraft are built from the inside out. The Gannet was built from the outside in with all fuselage skins jigged into place and everything else then rivetted together. The idea was to eliminate variations in the external surface finish. Needless to say it was poisonously expensive and the process was never used again.

[Pat Carry]

It almost seems like it would not be capable of flight but I remember the one at Oshkosh in flight a number of years ago.