Ugliest Aircraft?

Yokosuka P1Y Ginga 😉 Anna

Most American choppers are proper mingin’.

Also the Jet Provost is one minger of a plane.

Kyushu Q1W Tokai ‘Lorna’ 😉 Anna

I personally think the Saab B17A is the worst…just look at it :diablo:

The Embraer 170 I saw at BHX the other week – in Alitalia colours, with that black nose, it looked like it had a big gaping hole in the front, plus it’s a hideous shape. I prefer the smaller Embraer jets.

My Mum would go for the Jetstream, she thought the Eastern one we saw at BHX was worse than any Embraer 170.

ugliest aircraft? pretty much everything the British produced.. including the Lightning, Harrier, Buc, Tornado.. etc..

Russians come in close.. but they’ve got the abilities to make something really ugly, look cool at the same time.

This one hurts my eye. It is a Junkers Ju-287… 😮

Tillerman.

I think the Boeing 737-600 is too out of proportion…I loathe them. I think the AN-2’s are ugly…

Boeing 747SP.
Many propliners.
A few stealth jets.
A few Antonov’s.
Most Russian/Ukranian unknowns.

F7U CUTLASS! 😀

the main reason (AFAIK) why the VVA-14/14M1P was cancelled was because it failed to take off from water.

According to red star volume 8 about these lovely WIG machines Bartini had his own design bureua, but the aircraft was produced at the Beriev plant, because he did lack production facilities. 2 machines were build, although only one flown. The second was never finished, but used for small scall tests, so it could well be true that there is the second one is rusting away at the taganrog plant.

At first the aircraft was flown without liftjets and floats. The lift jets never caim availeble and so they decided to include another two D-30V engines on the front fuselage and then fit the floats on the first machine. In this version the WIG was nothing more then a fast boat, since it could never create enough ground effect to be out of the water completly, this resulted in its final cancelation.

The C-133 is no worse that the Short Belfast….well maybe just a a little, the radome on the 133 looks like the red noses worn in the UK to support the children’s hospital fund campagin.

Just because a plane is common to us (ie. F-16, Tornado) doesn’t make it ugly. taken for granted perhaps, but not ugly.

Not too many years ago some would have said the Phantom was “ugly’ for being common, but wouldn’t we all like to see one fly today in the UK or US?

And the C-74/124 isn’t nearly as bad as the Breguet 763 Provence…. or the Beverly:)

And for those of you who think helicopters are ugly….you’d change your mind if you were clinging to the distant end of a rescue hoist. 😀

Ugly?

I can think of many aircraft which aren’t exactly pleasing to the eyes (Transavia PL-12 Airtruk, Saro SR.A1, Bréguet Sahara, Wilga, X-32, PZL M-15 Belfegor, XF-85, Blackburn Beverly, roman-nosed C-130, C-133, C-74/124),

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As one who navigated the C-133 for two years, and who has spent the last five years completing a comprehensive C-133 history, I have always found it an elegant and very attractive airplane. The same is said by many pilots who flew it for thousands of hours. Undeniably, there were performance issues and a record of nine aircraft lost in flight, but that sad reputation did not stem from the physical appearance.

Arthur,

Many thanks. What a shame that the concept died there and then – perhaps if it had more support and was allowed to develop properly it might have been a revolution in amphibian aviation.

Fleet Shadower was Airspeed.
I think Kenneth’s probably got the ultimate. There really were some fearsomely ugly French designs in the 20s and 30s. The Boeing Bathtub comes close, though.

Arthur,

that is the one – it looked in a poor condition when i saw it at Monino in 2001 ( I have pics on a.net of it) and will be interested to see if it has deteriorated any more. The wings were there behind the hull but are slowly being swallowed up by the grass.

Ink,
AVIKO-press has a booklet in Russian on the VVA-14. The whole development and cancellation of it is described, if you might stumble across it – get it!
Since it’s in Russian and years ago since i read it, here’s a posting by a guy called ‘Don’ at the airbase.ru forum, http://airbase.ru/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=9&t=14212:

Like they called it in Soviet Republics – “The Beriev’s Cow”

Terms required to know:
Ekran (Screen) phenomena – change of lift-generating properties
of a wing at extremely low height flights – discovered by aviators.

In the early 1950s (correct me if I’m wrong) R.L. Bartini working for OKB Beriev introduced new idea of using Ekran phenomena for improving take off/landing properties of an aircraft. According to N.A. Pogorelov, primary assistant designer of R.L. Bartini, the main aim was to realize ideas of contactless take-off and landing: an aircraft lifts itself above the ground or waterbody a little bit and then begins its take-off run leaning against the “ekran”. If this would ever come true, a revolutionary aircraft technology would’ve been invented which would require no runways and
gave considerably greater performance advantage over the average VSTOL jets.

According to the above concept, two technology anti-submarine
testbeds were built under VVA-14 designation. VVA stands for “Vertikal’no Vzletaushaya Amfibia” or Vertical Take-off Amphibious aircraft. Due to contactless take-off and landing, a better marine performance was achieved, the dream
of takeoff and landing on sea under any kind of weather conditions became a reality. Vertical take-off ensured special gas-pillow which magnified itself within the fuselage using two air compressors (so basically a huge balloon was formed inside of that plane). In 1976 one of these prototypes was rebuilt into
ekranoplan. It was designated 14M1P (see illustration). Designers placed to additional D-30M engines on the nose of the aircraft for the purpose of increasing airflow under wings, rubber landing gear was replaced with more durable one made out of metal.

Some time after R.L. Bartini passed away in 1974, and all works
on the project were cancelled under great pressure of OKB Beriev which was developing A-40 and A-50 anti-submarine amphibians and wanted no competition.
One of remaining prototypes, VVA-14 #10687, crippled after a fire accident, without a tailplane, engines and wings was delivered to Monino where it slowly, but surely grows a thick layer of rust up to present days. The sight is awful I must say.

I’m not sure how many VVA-14s were actually built: sources range from one to three. However, the sources mentioning that more than one were built state that another one should be rusting away at the dump of the Beriev OKB at Taganrog. Having been on that dump, between all the wonderous and absolutely never-seen pieces of unidentifiable wrecks and parts, i did not see anything resembling a VVA-14. Plenty of other weird stuff though (unfortunately, the pics of the dump are now with the FSB :rolleyes: ).

Arthur,

Absolutely heatbreaking – I nearly wept.

Any idea why the project was abandoned…. not that I can think of many uses for such a jack-of-all-trades.

Bye the way, my ugly aircraft votes are:

Super Entendard (event hough I recognise its inherent classic aircraft value)
HAL Kiran – yuck!
The Shorts Skyvan
and
The OV-1D from Gurmman

Paul: you mean the Bartini VVA-14.

It certainly looks strange, but what else would you expect from a VTOL amphibian which can fly both as aircraft and as ekranoplan?
I absolutely love it, it’s a shame it is in such bad shape at Monino.

Better days at Taganrog…

And the sad remains at Monino… the wings should still be there, but they have never been fitted ever since the aircraft went to the museum in the late 1970s. Watch these pics by the resident Flanker Man and weep…

The Beriev VW112 Bertolini is very bad.

I would link to a picture of it – there are a some of it at Monino on a couple of well known piccy sites