Ugliest aircraft?

In my opinion, the BELUGA is the best (or worst?). You say...
www.spotter-cgn.de/belugaatxfw3.htm

The Beluga is a beauty compared to the Super Guppy it replaced.

As for those comments on the British aircraft being ugly, I mention the Shorts Seamew pushing me to call an aircraft ugly on the first page.

Anybody that can look at a Hawker Hunter, EE Canberra, Supermarine Swift, Hawk trainers, any of the DeHavilland twin boom fighters, any of the V-Bombers or the TSR.2 and not see things of beauty should be making a trip to the optometrist.

Lets not forget, America gave us such "darlings" as the B-52, F-4 Phantom II and what I would consider to be two of the least aesthetically pleasing postwar jets to ever see regular service, The A-10 Warthog and the F-105 Thunderchief. (Note, I didn't ever say "ugly") :-)

I'll have to agree with Upnorth on the Beluga..! I love it. It's beautiful. The Super Guppy was butt-ugly! But not as much as the Brewster Buffalo..!

Upnorth,

The A-10 and F-105 "least aesthetically pleasing"? Hmmm... maybe not good looking in a supermodel kinda way, but certainly, both of those aircraft are beautiful in their own right! Sorry, gotta defend two of my all time favorites. Each has a definite sexiness to it, and was adored by the men who flew/fly it.

As for my vote for ugliest? Hmmm.... MiG-25 is up there. That, the Westland Lysander, and maybe the Shorts Sterling are my picks.

Interesting the XP-75 bears a very, very close resemblance to the Bell P-39. Looks like all they did was change to a single prop and shorten the frame of the XP-75 to get the P-39, which also suffered performance problems. Guess that is why we sent them to the Russians.

Dave
Stargazer

Shorts Skyvan. I forget the military designation. The ANG used to base one at a civil airport here.

Almost everything that the French built should be in the running. Especially their ‘research’ aircraft from the 1950’s.

Ugliest aircraft .... thats easy .. anyone that has my ex-wife on it and doesn't crash !!!

Any of you familiar with the Edgely (Brooklands) Optica observation aircraft?

I saw one once back in 1986 but hadn't really thought about it again till I saw a picture of it on the net today and immediately thought of this thread.

She's not what you'd call ugly, but her looks and an accident or two made her a fairly sales proof bird so its a rare one.

There's a bout 6 decent pictures of them at the following address:

www.airliners.net

Just put "Optica" into the keyword search box and you should be taken right to them. As they were clearly copyrighted photos, it wasn't right to post them myself though I was tempted to

Actually, the Goblin is not all that ugly. We have one on display at the U.S.A.F. Museum and it's kinda cute.

My vote for the ugliest airplane goes to almost anything French.

Any one of several bombers that the French air force was using when WW2 started - such as the Potez 540.

Again from France - the Mignet "Flying Flea" homebuilt.

Also, from Col. Howdy Bixby's "Forgotten Warbirds of WW2" - the British Humbley-Pudge "Galipoli" bomber, and the Russian "SNUD" transport.

Jim

I have always been a little partial to the Goblin. This points out that we all have personal favorites, but hate to hear the things we like run down. Form follows function and all A/C have some appeal to my eye.