Least favorite airplane

I would have to agree with you on the F-111. I worked on the F-111F at Mountain Home from '75-'77. I sure was glad to get off of that hog and back on the F-4 Phantom.

The one that decides to quit flying - 1/4 mile out - at 150 ft agl

Just ruins your whole day

Without question, the Fairchild SA-227AC Metroliner. If I were as wealthy as Gates, I'd buy every one of those abberations and burn them

Anything built after 1947. Not much of a jet fan.

F-117 Stealth Fighter. It's an ugly bird. I guess it's a good thing that it does its job very well.

for me its got to be the Beluga, its just so wrong in so many ways. Greg

Well, I'd take the Beluga over the Super Guppy it replaced.

The Super Guppy would have to be my least favorite. How you could get one airborne was enough of a mystery, how they managed to not get shot down by somebody for being eyesores is a much greater mystery.

The early jets....1949 till 1965 about. ...yuck. And the second would be in middle of the wars. Again, 1919 till 1939.

Mine would be the F104 starfighter...
The looks are bad enough and unlike the F117 which makes up for its look with performance, its(the F104) performance left a lot to be desired... Yucks... And it actually had an "ejection" seat that "ejected" from the bottom of the aircraft... (Wonder what the pilot did if the aircraft gave up on him at a 100m altititude???).. If looks is the only criteria then I'd put the A10 'Warthog' as a close competitor.. boy.. it sure looks Ugly... But one hell of a good tank buster!!

Cheers,
Nandakumar

I personnaly think the F-104 is a great looking jet. I think the ejection seat firing downward was due to the possiblity of the pilot hiting the vertical stab during high speed ejection. If you want a scary ejection seat, think about the Russian KA-50 attack helicopter. Pull the ejection handle and the rotor blades blow off, just prior to the seat firing. Now I'm not trying to put a digg on soviet aircraft, but this ole crewdog aint gettin in any helo that has a system to BLOW OFF THE ROTOR BLADES. Murphy is alive and well thank you very much!
Back to the original question... My least favorite aircraft would be the one on my six blazzin away.

QUOTE: Originally posted by nandman83 And it actually had an "ejection" seat that "ejected" from the bottom of the aircraft...

The F-104A and B models were the only ones that used the downward firing ejection seats. The F-104 was the second (F-106 was first) aircraft to be equiped with rocket assisted ejection seats. The A & B models were later modified with the rocket ejections seats.

The old style catapult ejection seats were not powerful enough to propel the seat past the stabilizer in a high speed ejection. Once the rocket seat was perfected, all front line aircraft were modified with rocket powered seats.

Now you know the rest of the story.

How about the Me 323 Gigant BIG UGLY and probably the easiest thing on the European continent to shoot down. Not saying I wouldn't build a model of one but YUCK JOHN

Hey Tempestjohnny, have you checked out the italeri kit of that big ugly m,f,r its a sweet "little" kit alright and builds with no real problems.
upnorth, i agree that the guppy is not going to win any beauty contests but it sure did sound sweet before they put turboprops on it
Greg

I go along with "qmiester" on this and cannot think of a more justified reason for becoming hostile with an aircraft, than having it "Get Quite" at the worst possible moment. (as if there is a best moment?)

Model aircraft: Any version that saturates the market (hobby shop), or more personally, the repeated building of the same kit influences me to "look the other way". Such is the case with any version of the P-51.

Here's why.....
Nothing wrong with it.... except back when I was in my modeling infancy ('71), I got SIX 1/48 P-51's for Christmas! "Now you fix that plane up real nice so your Aunt So~n~So will know you liked it.", then came up with the idea of taking a picture of me holding each completed model, along with it's box, so the sender would see that I really appreciated their thoughtful gift..... which basically just added to my resentment of the kit! Anywho, I came up with what I thought was a fool proof solution; Build one of the P-51's, get my picture made with it for Aunt Girdie, then scratch the decals off and apply the decals from Uncle Frank's present, all ready for the next picture.....

The following 4 months was a logistics nightmare, trying to prevent more than one P-51 model from being seen at a time, until they finally were secretly placed in a Toys for Tots receptacle because I couldn't conceal them at home any longer. Ever since then, my stomach muscles tighten whenever I look at a 1/48 P-51.

"Nine Zero Hotel's rolling two-six in Richlands"
Frank

I'm taking a page outta cassibill's book and writing part of my thesis while reading the forum... and the only aircraft i could come up with in my rather mixed-up state is the Me-163 Komet. What's the glamour in strapping yourself to a gasoline can with wings and then igniting the damn thing?!? I've heard that sometimes, upon landing on it's puny looking landing skid that unspent fuel would slosh around in the tanks and some how make contact with each other... coming back after a mission only to blow up upon touchdown. very sad.
-V

Funny this topic should come up.
Just the other day I was leafing through Squadron's B-17 in Action and saw the other 2 candidates (the B-17 was the Boeing 299 at that time) in a 1935 bomber competition, which included what must be the ugliest aircraft I've ever seen: the Douglas B-18A. Man-O-man, that thing was ugly. The other contestant, the Martin B-10B, was no beauty, but if you haven't seen a B-18A, words cannot truly capture the absolute lack of aesthetic sense in that poor aircraft. True, it wasn't a beauty contest, but sheesh!

Of course I don't hate the aircraft, but it sure was ugly. The ugliest, in my opinion.

But then again, there is that British single-engine anti-submarine aircraft that is veeeeery ugly as well...can't recall it's name, though.
You know the one.

Hi "J",

Yeah, the B-18A "Bolo".... which quite interestingly, was an experiment by Douglas Aircraft at making a "Bomber" out of the C-47 airframe!

Notice the Family resemblance?
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b2-24.htm


Frank

Hi, Frank!
Yeah, this book says it was a modified Douglas DC-2. That's quite similar to the DC-3, or C-47, yes?
Funny how they could ugly up such a good-looking aircraft!

Never cared for bi-planes in any way shape or form, but I think one plane that I truly disliked over the years was the Brewster Buffalo even though it's not a bi-plane. Oddly enough, I've always liked the Red Barons Fokker tri-plane.

Mmm... I do like the Airbus Beluga. Certainly nicer than the Super Guppy, and I also love the shape of the Komet...

The French bombers and reconn planes of the inter-war period can be quite ugly... The Amiot 143, and the Mureaux 117, to name but two that are available from Heller's catalogue..!

The B-18 Bolo is indeed rather ungainy too...

I have a few extra contenders for the bottom place: the Skua, the Hampden, the Lightning,..

How about the LeO 45?

Re F111. When in tech school at Sheppard AFB in 1970 the instructors called it McNamara's W-- Dream. After tech school my "c" shread out was removed and I went to Travis & given C-5A Identifier. Out of frying pan into fire.

I guess I'm weird, 'cause I like ungaingly. I also hate most modern-day jets. Anything normal or popular, as a rule, I dislike. I would have to say my least favorite airplane would be the Tomcat, mostly because it's so overdone. Or any present-day jet fighter, for that matter.

I think most all of the Migs would fit this catagory except for the Mig 29 and a few others that were obviously copied from our designs.
I never cared for the shape of the Mig 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, and 27.
They look like thay had extra sheetmetal that they needed to use up and so they just bolted it on here and there. [:0]

The Heinkel He 111 would have to be in the mix also as it is one ugly beast.
Of course beauty is in the eyes of the beholder as I think the A-10 is one cool looking aircraft.

Mike

Hey All!

I'm probably going to get a lotta heat from this response, but I can't stand P-51's!!!

What I am confused with is the fact that the P-51 was originally built for the british, and yet somehow managed to become the best american fighter of WW2!!!

I've seen quite a few aviation TV programs in my day , and all but a few recognize this fact!!!

Lancaster_lover

Bandit's!!! 12 O'Clock High!!!

I really don't dislike any airplane, but there is one that comes to mind. The aircraft I think is my least favorite is the 1918 Christmas "Bullet". It was the brain child of Dr. William Christmas, a first rate con man! There were only two planes built and both crashed on their maiden flights. Not only were both planes total losses, they also took their pilots lives! Expensive follies indeed!

And, Lancaster_lover, it only became the best American fighter once they fitted it with a British engine!

I must admit I don't care for the P51 either.

Sacriledge I know.

They just seem to be everwhere, the P47 always seems so underated, as does the Hellcat.

I don't like the Bell X-1 either, mainly because it used stolen technology, but lets not go there!

Karl

I wouldn't go so far as to say I dislike the P-51, but like the F-16 and F-15, they're just so Top-40, so to speak, that I'm just sick of 'em. Absolutely beautiful, amazing aircraft, to be sure, but after having them stuffed down my throat for years and years by all forms of media, I'm just not very interested in building them.
But that's just me!