UGLIEST Aircraft Built and Flown

[Sineva]

That looks like a recoilless rifle. Where recoil go?

View attachment 729627

I think its supposed to be the XM204 105mm Howitzer.
maybe they had some idea of using guided rounds ala AT-8 Songster/AT-11 Sniper as it does say "gun-launcher"
They evidently had some rather avant garde ideas

https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/andrei_bt/18425682/2898389/2898389_600.jpg

 

[The K2]

Can't decide if it's Elvis doing the lip curl thing, or the Elephant Man . . .

cheers,
Robin.

Or the Batman villain, Two Face.

 

[klem]

Britten-Norman Defender

 

[Justo Miranda]

This plane is ugly but shot down a Thai fighter in January 1941.

 

[Sineva]

For the interwar years how about the french DB-10

Or perhaps the AB-20

 

[Archibald]

Already mentionned the DB-10 as the ultimate horror, page 2 of this thread. https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/ugliest-aircraft-built-and-flown.22403/page-2

At least the AB-20 vaguely looks like a contemporary bomber, like the TB-3 or some british bombers. It has a "normal" shape. Except for the windows in the wing "profile".

Look ma ! A flying bathtub !

https://www.aviafrance.com/dyle-et-bacalan-db-20-aviation-france-4956.htm

 

[Stargazer]

Already mentionned the DB-10 as the ultimate horror, page 2 of this thread. https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/ugliest-aircraft-built-and-flown.22403/page-2

At least the AB-20 vaguely looks like a contemporary bomber, like the TB-3 or some british bombers. It has a "normal" shape. Except for the windows in the wing "profile".

Look ma ! A flying bathtub !

https://www.aviafrance.com/dyle-et-bacalan-db-20-aviation-france-4956.htm

Only marginally worse than the Martin 123 prototype... (I love both, incidentally!)

 

[Archibald]

This thread only gets better with every post.

 

[Topi]

What ? I love the Buccaneer "muscular" look.

The Buccaneer most certainly was a yorkie of an aircraft - a complete antithesis of the graceful and frail elegance of Spitfire or de Havilland Hornet. However, like you, I cannot call it ugly. It has a workmanlike charm to it.

 

[Stargazer]

"Aesthetically challenged" doesn't even begin to describe the Pemberton-Billing P.B.31E "Night Hawk" and its predecessor, the P.B.29 "Zeppelin Destroyer"...
Imagine this: the company became Supermarine soon after that!

 

[klem]

• 01-Goupil’s monoplane of 1884 02-the Lloyd 40.08 Luftkreuzer 03-Rocheville Arctic Tern

 

[publiusr]

If this aircraft has been completely invisible,

What aircraft? I don't see anything...

The aircraft in post #100 is why you don't use a disjunction drive while in the Bermuda Triangle.

The guy in the Norwegian camp in 82's The Thing that Mac brought back actually wasn't the creature...just the unfortunate waist gunner that popped in.

 

[Archibald]

Ok, those Pemberton monstrosities are almost as ugly as the Dyle&Bacalan... I have to admit.

 

[Stargazer]

If I were the legendary winged horse Pegasus, I would be annoyed that Borislav Karpenko's monstrosity was named after me... ("Pegas" sesquiplane pusher, 1987)

 

[Archibald]

That one looks as if it was drawn while under very heavy vodka influence...

 

[Stargazer]

That one looks as if it was drawn while under very heavy vodka influence...

Look at how scary the boom attachment seems... I would NEVER have entrusted my life to that contraption!!
(Front view looks marginally better...)

 

[Silencer1]

Britten-Norman Defender

He isn't ugly, but cute!

 

[Silencer1]

This plane is ugly but shot down a Thai fighter in January 1941.

Coming in the Asian war theatres on January, 1941, the New Action Movie:
"The Bad, the Good, and the "Loire-130"

Tagline: "You ugly, but have the machine guns. Thai' fighters - not"

 

[Michel Van]

more about Loire-130

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ThpSJXDPEZ8

 

[Stargazer]

This plane is ugly but shot down a Thai fighter in January 1941.

The Force was strong with this one.

 

[TomcatViP]

And nobody yet named the Phantom?!

There is bit of Farman in it...

 

[The K2]

The 757 F-22 testbed.

 

[sat_dxer]

named the Phantom
Only the F-4K with that extendable nose wheel:

 

[Trident]

Actually, I thought the Navy and early Air Force variants of the Phantom were reasonably decent-looking. The F-4E with the gun fairing and the plethora of external hinges on the slats that don't even really retract flush and the fixed slat on the stabilators though... such a collection of afterthoughts and band aids!

Anyway, no such thread would be complete without these three:

Short Seamew – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

Bennett Airtruck – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

PZL M-15 Belphegor – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

 

[Archibald]

I think we can dug even uglier french interbellum "aircraft".

 

[Stargazer]

I think we can dug even uglier french interbellum "aircraft".

Oh, no doubt about it! The Loire 130 is even cute in its own way...

 

[Michel Van]

I think we can dug even uglier french interbellum "aircraft".

down the French rabid hole...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEqdWGA1cE8

 

[Justo Miranda]

More jewels Post-3

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-4

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-5

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-6

 

[Archibald]

@Michel Van,

Thanks for that video.

Potez 75 - it was a CAS plane for Algeria

Delannes - smart, but ugly

Agree about the Amiot 143 - I would say tragically ugly, as those planes tried to stop the panzers on May 13, 1940 near Sedan: against ferocious flak, 109s and 110s.

Breguet Alizé - less ugly than any Gannet

SE.100: not exactly ugly, but a bastard that killed its crew in 1940

Leduc 022: that one, again ? it was glorious and spectacular looking

Loire 130 : already mentionned. Admittedly, it looks like a shoe box with a flying boat around it (ROTFL)

SNCASE Grognard: ok, that one is supremely ugly, an obese crossed with a huntchback (fat fuselage plus dorsal air intake = ugly combo)

Bleriot 125 : sweet geez, that one is truly horrible. My eyes are bleeding ! I told you @Stargazer we could find more abominations if we dug the interbellum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blériot_125 Seems it flew like a led brick, how surprising.
I knew about the Bleriot 127 (another horror not unlike my beloved Dyle & Bacalan) but the 125 looks like Porco Rosso's Mama Aiutos having a very bad day. Louis Bleriot died in 1936, 27 years after his channel crossing his star had paled... like too many french aircraft companies of the interbellum, he mostly produced monstrosities.

Finally, glad to see the Farman Jabiru winning the "ugly prize". The three engine variant is hard to beat as far as ugliness is concerned.

 

[Archibald]

Oh geez, Bleriot 125 led to the 127 which drove me to BCR and... (drums rolling) the Breguet 410. Now that's an abomination !

"Breguet 410 - Google Search

It looks like a glass tower - with an aircraft vaguely wrapped around it.

And the derived 460 was hardly better: "Flying greenhouse " LMAO

"Breguet 460 - Google Search

Breguet 462

"Breguet 462 - Google Search

 

[The K2]

Westland Wendover P.12

 

[_Del_]

I am always so fascinated by the monstrosities of the 20's and 30's that I cannot even find them ugly.
It is simultaneously the era I find most fascinating, and the era I have delved into the least. An age of "Let's just try this", and I love even the ugliest and least successful of them.

Airtruck, Norman Defender with the bulbous nose, and Nimrod AEW would probably get my top-three votes. Nimrod is doubly unfortunate because of it's lineage from the quite attractive Comet.

 

[Stargazer]

You guys think you've seen "ugly"?
Take a good look at the "Istina"... and scream (with laughter)! A monstrosity from 1987 built by Vladimir Mikhailovich Toporov, of Votkinsk in the former Soviet Union, it looked as if Clément Ader had been asked to design the Piasecki "Rescuer"... Its name meant "truth", and it was defined as a "manned flywheel". The real "truth" about it is that it was a non-starter. Amused onlookers at SLA-87 (the Russian Oshkosh) commented that when it puttered and hopped its way across the field, "it almost looked as if it was going to fly"...

 

[Archibald]

Its designer certainly wendover the edge... (I'll get my coat)

Westland Wendover P.12

 

[Michel Van]

Germany had also ugly aircraft
like Dornier Do L Delphin
in earlier version sit pilot in open cockpit behind large engine block
later version place the pilot in glas house under the engine....

 

[Stargazer]

Germany had also ugly aircraft
like Dornier Do L Delphin

Definitely NOT ugly in my book!
Maybe yhis one? 'and even then, I kind of like its fugly appearance...)

 

[The K2]

LaLa-1