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The Ugliest Airplane: An Appreciation

The Ugliest Airplane: An Appreciation

randycupertino

Comments (31)

  • EdwardDiego
    I was lucky enough as a young child to see one of these working a high country farm - it was operating off a sloped runway and I was convinced it was going to crash as it landed uphill, then convinced it was going to crash after it took off after reloading due to how slowly it climbed - I can't find a definitive number, but I vaguely recall it had a take off speed that lurked around 50kt...On the subject of top-dressers... ...I was privileged to see a turboprop equipped Fletcher FU-24 in action a couple of weeks ago, those pilots are very darn good at flying very low in hill country. Very loud and notable engine sound.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_FU-24
  • charles_f
    > airtrukYou got to love that even its name is utilitarian.This is such a cool story. Airplanes seem such a complex, standardized, full of red tape and elitist thing that such stories of hackers starting to pull random beams together and you get a thing that flies are pretty inspiring... And yet it also sound quite well thought. As usual, there is more than meets the eye
  • mastax
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL_M-15_BelphegorThe M-15 is still uglier. Also intended as a cropduster, though unlike the AirTruk it was really bad at that job in every way.
  • recursivecaveat
    From all the examples in the comments, I'm learning that the most reliable way to make an extremely ugly aircraft is a stubby look where the body is tall and the rear half seems to just end early.
  • pfdietz
    Steve Death does sound like a Mad Max name.
  • m463
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transavia_PL-12_Airtrukaussie plane makes me think of the aussie flyer in the road warrior. (not even the same, but spiritually)
  • userbinator
    Did anyone else think the first photo was AI-generated at first, due to how unusual it looked?
  • chasil
    "He started with a large, steel, barrel-shaped tank and began adding."I thought everybody used aluminum?
  • burnt-resistor
    9 fatalities in 88 incidents from 1967-2010 of 138 built 1966-1993.It's possible some are still intact and maybe a couple are still flyable. The only recent evidence any maybe still intact is a 2017 photo of ZK-CVB on static museum display at MOTAT NZ.https://aviation-safety.net/asndb/type/PL12https://www.airhistory.net/photo/896371/ZK-CVB
  • ziofill
    It looks kinda cute if you ask me
  • thumbsup-_-
    I like it
  • JumpCrisscross
    …can I still get one?
  • taspeotis
    (2021)
  • stackghost
    I actually think the Super Guppy[0] is the ugliest, hotly contested by the Optica[1][0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgley_Optica