Time to take a little break from the never ending shitstorm that is politics today and have some fun.
Let’s talk ugly. I mean really ugly. I mean able to spawn a million “Yo mama is so ugly” jokes ugly.
Now before everyone gets all huffy when I make fun of their favorite plane, ugly doesn’t mean bad. It just means it ain’t pretty.
As the saying goes: beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes to the bone!
The United States
We’ve certainly built our share of ugly planes over the years.
A-10 Thunderbolt II
OK, it may be the greatest close air support aircraft ever built but it’s just plain ugly. If it was pretty it wouldn’t be called a “warthog” it would be a “swan” or “gazelle” or something.
Note that nobody except maybe the factory rep has ever called it a “Thunderbolt II”. It’s a “warthog” or just a “hog”.
A-7 Corsair II
When your nickname (SLUF) has “Ugly” as part of the acronym, your plane is pretty much ugly by definition.
When the Vought took the attractive F-8 Crusader and chopped it down to make an attack aircraft, they got this oddly proportioned little guy. Actually a great bomb dropper, the Air Force found it hard to maintain and pawned it off on the Air National Guard.
Note that my tanker unit’s callsign was “SLUFF” because we had converted from A-7’s. The closest I ever got to an A-7 was flying the simulator once just before they decommissioned it.
Boeing B-52
Ugly, it’s right there in the name. My beloved BUFF is anything but pretty.
Douglas C-124 Globemaster
Cargo planes are at a disadvantage in the looks department. They need to have room for “stuff”, which tends to make them chunky looking. The radome was definitely added as an afterthought. The original version didn’t have it.
Lockheed C-130 Hercules
The venerable herc is arguably the best tactical airlifted ever built. Heck, they’re still building them 60+ years after it first flew.
It has a face that only a mother could love, however. For even more uglitude, stick an antenna farm on it and call it an EC-130.
Grumman EA-6B Prowler
The A-6 Intruder wasn’t all that attractive to begin with but its electronic warfare sibling is just plain weird looking.
Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star
Take the most beautiful airliner ever built, graft a couple giant radar antennas to it and you get this hideous thing.
Grumman Duck
The best description I could come up with was it looks like somebody trying to steal a canoe with a biplane.
Boeing EC-135E
Take a perfectly good 707, graft a giant Snoopy nose onto it and you get this weird looking thing. The test wing at Wright-Patterson used to fly these. I think they tracked Russian missile tests with them.
Boeing KC-97
The Boeing Stratocruiser looked like a pregnant whale. The KC-97 looked like a pregnant whale that swam through an underwater junkyard. Yeah, analogies never were my strong point. Oh well, it may have been ugly but at least it was slow.
Sweden
You can always spot a Saab, whether it’s a car or a jet. They’re just different. Must be the six months of darkness up there.
Saab Tunnan
The name means “barrel” in Swedish. Very good jet for its time. Goes to show looks aren’t everything.
The Russians (and their lackeys)
As the saying goes: “If it’s ugly and weird, it’s probably Russian.”
Antonov AN-32
This is basically the ubiquitous AN-26 with a pair of monster engines grafted onto it. It was developed for the Indian Air Force, which needed the extra power for operating from high altitude runways on hot days.
Baade 152
East Germany’s sole attempt at building a jet airliner. It was……..um……….different.
Beriev BE-12
I think this one came from the Uglovich Design Bureau. Designed as a sub-hunter, it manages to check both the ugly and weird boxes.
PZL M-15 Belphegor
I don’t know who thought a jet biplane crop-duster would be a good idea but I’m guessing there was alcohol involved. On the ugly list I’d say this misses the #1 spot by the slimmest of margins.
It sets several dubious records: world’s slowest jet, world’s only jet biplane and the only jet crop-duster. That didn’t stop them from building 175 of them.
To my knowledge this was not some secretive Soviet project to spray chemical weapons on NATO. More likely NATO would have died laughing when they saw this coming at them.
Tupolev TB-3
This is what passed for a heavy bomber in the Soviet Union circa 1930’s. After some early tests they decided there was no point trying to streamline it since it was going to be slow no matter what. Despite its shortcomings these saw a lot of use in WWII.
The Brits
There’s not much in-between with the British. It’s either a real beauty like the Spitfire or the Hawker Hunter, or it’s something hideous like the Gannet.
Fairey Gannet
Developed as a carrier based anti-submarine aircraft, the Gannet apparently worked well enough. They also made electronic warfare and early warning (AWACS) versions.
It just looked like it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.
Hawker Siddeley Nimrod
Alas the poor Comet. One of the most beautiful jetliners ever built mothered this hideous thing.
They should think about reopening the Tower of London and locking whoever designed this hot mess in there before they get any more ideas.
Shorts 360
While not a bad little airliner, the Shorts 360 looks like the box it came it.
Handley-Page Victor
I’m torn on the Victor. From some angles it looks great but from the front it looks bloody awful. They were definitely thinking outside the box when they designed this.
Australia
The Aussies only get one entry here but they only need one. Here it is, the ugliest airplane ever built. Which doesn’t stop me from wanting one.
Transavia PL-12 Airtruk
Designed as a crop-duster, most of you probably recognize this plane from the third Mad Max movie.
This one is arguably so ugly that it’s cool, but it’s still ugly. And I still want one.