America's Top 10 UGLIEST Aircraft
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- Today we take a look at 10 of the Ugliest aircraft produced in the United States of America!
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0:00 Intro
1:11 Ugly Aircraft 10
2:32 Ugly Aircraft 9
4:03 Ugly Aircraft 8
5:30 Ugly Aircraft 7
6:47 Ugly Aircraft 6
7:58 Ugly Aircraft 5
9:18 Ugly Aircraft 4
10:45 Ugly Aircraft 3
12:16 Ugly Aircraft 2
13:32 Ugly Aircraft 1 
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As always with these types of video, I had a lot of fun making this :D
F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
I agree about the X-32. The pelicans around here would have gone on strike if the RAAF/RAN had ever considered using their good name for such a monstrosity. RAAF Base Williamtown, the primary RAAF Training Base, would have been black-banned.
Swing and HUGE miss with your #1, 4, 5, 8 and 9 picks.
The primary purpose of the V-173 was not to take off from full sized carriers. The idea was to have the aircraft take off and land on small flat tops retrofitted onto the deck of cargo ships in convoys to provide defense against enemy aircraft and limited anti-submarine capabilities.
@@adamdubin1276 The articles I read soon started talking about true VTOL!
Note that similar articles were written about the Custer Channelwing too.
@@John.0z Not sure which article you were reading. The V-173 and later XF5U was never meant to be a VTOL, it was supposed to be a Short Take Off and Landing (STOL), that was the whole reason behind its design.
Doesn't matter how many people call it ugly. That Boeing fighter just keeps smiling.
Don’t be forgetting the A-7 (the UGLY Corsair)
@@blairkinsman3477That leaves me wondering why they named it the Corsair II, when it was the third aircraft bearing the Corsair name.😅
It's not smiling. Some people call it the Flying Hippo for a reason, you know.
you can almost hear the "huehuehuehuehue"
That's because he isn't so smart. He is inbred, you know? But a happy fella! 🤣
The X32 was really advanced. The plane could fly very close to the ocean surface and scoop up plankton with what you call the air intake, and could convert the plankton to fuel on the... fly.
Lol Fantastic comment
We might add bird strike processing :)
And it could repair its own battle damage with planks made from the plankton.
@@nicks2581Greenback reprocessing.
They used real baleen from whales to make the filters. That was the key to its success.
As a fan of ingenuous design, the yc-14 went from ugly to awesome as soon as you mentioned powered lift.
seeing footage of the YC-14 makes me feel like we were robbed of a very interesting, very capable aircraft that could've encouraged further innovation. I'm sure there were downsides and such that you didn't have time to delve into, but seeing something that bulky take off and land in such a short space blew me away.
I actually have to agree, this thing just seems so practical
We do know the downside, engine maintenance is difficult. We know this because this very concept ended up resulting in An-72.
well wings behind engine needs to be way stronger and need to survive jet exhaust and you need to get people on the wings to inspect engines... and since fuel tanks are usually in the wings...
It's incomprehensible that the military had no use for a STOL, rough-field medium transport.
No, engine maintenance isn't an issue, when they fly planes that cost $400k per hour in the air.
See also the '50s Chase/Stroukoff YC-134E. Upgraded C-123 with BLC & blown flaps for STOL, waterproofed fuselage and fitted with a pair of huge flat skis. On skis, it operated from pavement, flat ground, sand/mud, snow/ice, and water.
You will find that the late-70s was a graveyard for many military projects. The Carter Administration cut defense spending significantly and restricted military exports.
Seeing the Zerbe Air Sedan for the first time was a eye-widening, jaw-dropping, "What the bloody hell!" moment. Rex will be receiving a bill from my therapist in due course.
It appeared six years after the Christmas Bullet and three years after the Caproni CA.60. There was a point where a general consensus developed which allowed people to look at a prototype and say "No, there's no way that can fly, there's more to a workable aircraft than simply putting wings on something and this is obviously one of the cases of not having enough of the things that make up an aircraft". I just don't know when that happened.
It looks like someone took a chunk of baseball bleacher and welded it onto the back of a car. The fact that it even got airborne (even slightly) shocks and very slightly offends me lol
@mistformsquirrel The Ground Effect has given undue kindness to many a... "flying" device over the years.
lol sedan
You could tell at a glance that thing would never fly.
Boeing, Lockheed, Douglas, Martin all had a long and proud history of going completely mad while near a drawing board every now and then.
Aircraft engineers can Blackburn once in awhile. As a treat.
Brewster was continuously insane.
@@tholmes2169Brewster hogged the allotment of insanity to itself.
You mention Lockheed, you have to bring up Kelly Johnson. And the way you recognize a Kelly Johnson design is the same way you recognize a Burt Rutan design -- it looks like nothing else that ever flew, but it still flies.
@@seanbigay1042 L-133 was another of the "looks like nothing else" but it never got to fly. USAAF was not interested in a ground-breaking, strange looking jet fighter in 1942. Whether the Lockheed L-1000 engine would have worked out or not, well, we'll never know.
I was on the X32 program and after a briefing I was told by an air force bird colonel that the planes performance was superior, however ; we obviously forgot that he had to recruit 19 year old kids to fly it which made his job impossible!
The Vought V173/XF5U "Flying Flapjack" is personally one of my favorite aircraft. It had an insanely low takeoff speed and structural integrity that made a brick building look weak. Which realistically means there could have been enough weight removed from it to have even more insane performance.
It looks like a Headcrab...🤔🤔🤣
It's a cool plane! But like so many designs late in the war, the new jet planes made them obsolete.
The crazy thing is that it performed on par with most early jets and had loiter capabilities that would have made for an incredible close-air support craft.@@benjaminbarrera214
Zimmerman was NACA stability engineer. His technical papers are online.
I've always wondered if a design like that with turboprops might make an excellent CAS platform.
When I worked at Boeing, someone put together a hilarious photo comparison of the X-32 with the face of then-CEO Phil Condit. There was a distinct similarity!
I remember that. He was yelling with his mouth wide open, as I remember. We had one at B-2 Flight Test. I think it was titled "SEPARATED AT BIRTH?".
@@buddyaustin7232 @Ricky40369 yall clearly are homies you should kiss
that name sounds familiar. Wasn't he the guy in charge of Boeing who tanked quality control in favor of more profits?
I still think the USAF blew it by not turning the YC-14 into an operational plane. The proposed production version would be a somewhat bigger plane with even more powerful engines and would have effectively replaced the C-130 _Hercules_ by the middle 1980's with a plane that could operate out of really short airstrips.
The USAF changed its mind and decided it needed a new strategic lifter instead and the C-130 could still do the job - which turned out to be correct. So they got the C-17, which ironically was a scaled up development of the YC-15 that lost out to the YC-14.
True, and the Russians were so impressed that they built a version. The surviving YC-14 is at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson AZ.
just a year after cancelling that program, the US military wanted to have just such a plane for the iran hostage rescue... I wonder why they didn't use one of the two prototypes, did they not work properly?
@@Ass_of_Amalek It turned out they didn't need it, because of the outcome of the 1980 Presidential Election. The Ayatollah knew that he wouldn't be able to push Reagan around like he did Carter, so he chose to let the hostages go rather than facing the wrath of a US military that was chomping at the bit for a chance at redemption after Vietnam.
@@z3r0_35 LOL that certainly is a version of those events.
The only reason the X32 was on here was because, like you stated, the F32 isn’t a thing. God I wish it was, it looks cool! Also the YC-14 has character and is really cool.
I hate to say it, but in light of what I've heard has been going on at Boeing lately I think we dodged a bullet not picking that fighter.
@@keithharper32 different Boeing, also the government was trying to drag Lockheed out of a ditch, which they did. Glad they did, too.
Fun fact: The X32 still exists. One is currently sitting at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum in Lexington Park, Maryland. It’s a neat little museum if you get the chance to visit Saint Mary’s county. It had all sorts of stuff, from an F4D, to a QH50 DASH, to a T2, and even the front half of a C 130!
Actually, there’s two of them. The other is currently undergoing restoration at the National Museum of the USAF in Dayton, Ohio.
@@Shaun_Jones Never knew that! Hope they can get it working on time. Would be an interesting little piece for Dayton to have.
The other X-32 is at the National Museum of the Air Force, and was just recently restored to it's factory fresh look.
I've enjoyed the PAX Museum so much over the years, Dogfighting some friends in the simulators, glancing at the flight line every time I drive past to see what new additions have made their way there, lots of good times.
I am nominating "pint-size bumblebee of death" as your best description ever...
I agree wholeheartedly.
I like the X32. Such a cheerful "smile" like a cartoon jet. Hardly inspires fear in the enemy though. It might lull the enemy into complacency because of it's friendly countenance.
'Excuse me, may I interest you in a heat-seeking missile up your tailpipe?'
beat out by a girl called Fat Amy. Where's the love?
Always felt they should come with googly eyes. Other pilots see it, start laughing and never here the missile lock warning.
Looks like a pelican to me. Y'all have gutter minds.
A pig in need of lipstick.
I liked the OV1 Mohawk. Nice visibility and high functionality has a beauty of its own.
It reminds me a giant metallic dragonfly.
"Help me, OV-1, you're our last hope!" :P
@@thhseeking , alas, the Dark Side of the Force issued Order 66 and cancelled the project.
I have always liked the XF-85 Goblin, as a neat solution to what was at the time a major problem for the Air Force. I also wonder how the testing would have gone if a B-36 had been used verses a B-29. With the B-36 and its pusher props, the Goblin would have been trying to connect up ahead of the prop wash in a calmer air stream. The U.S. Navy successfully operated the F-9C Sparrowhawk off of its Zeppelins.
I cannot imagine the Goblin being effective in a dogfight against anything more advanced that a Sopwith Camel!
I feel like if we kept the Goblin and kept developing it we would've basically gotten real life Tie Fighters lol
@@tysontaggart7246 LOL! But really, what self-respecting fighter jet was that Goblin going to shoot down?
This is the most British video Rex has ever made to date. 👏
Australian
Except he's an Aussie.
@seymourskinner2533 he must have lived in England for a good while then, because his accent is definitely mostly English. There is only the faintest hint of Aussie in the way he says "project", for example.
Rex has said his family is from England. Rex, i'm curious of your situation of being from England but now in Australia if you want to mention it?
Anyone want to tell him that Rex is an Aussie?
The Flying Flapjack is NOT ugly. It has a beauty all its own.
I understand it has a *great personality.*
Given how the test article was such a success, I really wish they had at least flown the prototype. I also have to wonder how valuable it would have been in Vietnam? The Skyraider was thought to be at least obsolescent when that started, and they soon found it one of the most useful close support aircraft available.
One of the things about the FF was all the strange magazine articles written at the time - claiming all sorts of abilities that were never part of the design.
@@John.0z Effectiveness is secondary in Air Force thinking.
Glamour and "Cool factor" count for more.
i agree.
that cute flying pancake aint ugly
@@tombogan03884 Sadly there seem to be plenty of supporting examples for your claim.
Yet I am still wondering how the Cutlass did not make that "ugly" list?
Fun fact: The X-32's stealth came from the fact that it ate the radar energy
My own theory for the X-32: RFP was misdirected to the section that did the interior fit-out for business jets. They decided that what was really needed was a high speed runway vacuum that could be flown around to all those messy military bases and tidy them up. Fabulous!
Nah, the problem was Boeing's last fighter plane was the P-26 Peashooter. You can see how much alike the X-32 and P-26 are.
I didn't know about a few of these aircraft. The flying Sedan, that horrific little flying amphibian. The manta ray aircraft and the fact that De Gaul wound up with it. The YC-14 looks like it would have made a great transport aircraft. The X-32 looks like a plane that's very happy and loving life.
Yeah that De Gaulle factoid was extremely interesting. Couldn't have been too bad if France's top general used it.
and by "very happy and loving life", you mean it looks like it has williams syndrome
@@samadams2203 Yes, but then when victory was declared, they set fire to it, which suggests at least a touch of ambivalence.
The YC-14’s competitor wound up becoming the C-17
plane
Actually I love very much the "Zimmer Skimmers". The V-173 made a very spectacular "landing" on a beach with Charles Lindbergh behind its controls. It was spectacular at least for those sunbathers whom almost got ran over during the landing.
The XF5U, which the V-173 was the proof of concept for was so sturdy that it had to be destroyed with a wrecking ball... tragic really, would have made a great artifact for the Smithsonian.
plane
The flying sunfish?
The Mohawk was a great surveillance aircraft was a bit ahead of its time electronics applications in this field. I was a crewchief and tech observer on Hawks in Nam circa 1967 - 1968 and I can attest to not only its dependable Grumman sturdiness, but also it’s ease In maintenance. Pretty much all systems were plug and play, and the engines were the rugged Lycoming T53 turboprops. It had some pretty impressive STOL characteristics and was rated at +9/-3 g’s. The preying mantis looking cockpit made it a superb visual reconnaissance bird in its daylight close air support role.
Compared with the hugely, erm... *unfortunate* Edgeley Optica, the Mohawk looks kinda okay.
The Flying Flapjack is one the most graceful specimens to ever grace the skies.
I genuinely thought you paused to let the Zerbe Air Sedan sink in before immediately moving on😂
The Goblin has that sort of ugly-cute thing going on, though. Like a pug, or a french bulldog.
Hey! I'm not cute! 😠
Same with the F4 Phantom (my personal favourite "ugly" plane)
It looks like a kid sabre
@@eyeblech2001 Yes, that's the perfect description of it, now I think about it.
@@Makkis I never found the F4 ugly, tbh. It's sort of utilitarian, kind of like an old pickup truck.
Can't believe you took the 747 over the B-52 😮
P.S. That Mohawk was gorgeous, guess a classic case of a marmite airframe. Love it or hate it 😊
I thought he was going to say the Space Shuttle, but I guess that's actually a spacecraft.
Probably because the 747 is useful and not an outdated lumbering dinosaur with no place in modern air warfare.
Kind of figured the A-10 would make the list. As beloved as the thing is by internet air force aficionados, the aircraft is known as the Warthog despite being officially designated Thunderbolt 2 for a reason.
It's called a hog because Fairchild Republic century fighters were always called hogs the name didn't happen just because it was "ugly".
Thanks! The X-32 looks SO HAPPY!
YC-14 was AMAZING! It was certainly not ugly, by any standard. It could have been developed into amazing STOL and would have been usefull for Operation Eagle Claw phase that required STOL aircraft to land and takeoff from a stadium.
They forget the lessons of the past.
The YC-14 was an incredible flyer. I got to watch flight tests and its landing and takeoff were amazing!
A great video. Loved the music, it perfectly added a unique cheeky bite to each aircraft.
As a fellow airplane geek, I loved your cultural references. Airfix and the Thunderbirds.
Well said
I'm surprised that the Northrop Tacit Blue didn't at least get an honorable mention.
what
the heck
is that
box with box wings
Tacit Blue is one of the most impressive planes ever to me, just because they made *that thing* fly. A school bus with inverse chamfers (chines) and stubby wings should not fly.
Hand me that bottle of bleach please
Oh my... Seems that someone in the design team was a fan of the Eagle 5 from the Spaceballs
My biological father worked on Tacit Blue, aka Orca, due to the air intake on top ( the blow hole).
Orca was a testbed, designed to understand stealth with curvature features. Orca helped design the B-2.
How could you call the X32 ugly? It's just so damn happy! It is definitely the most cheerful looking aircraft ever made!
Your humor is getting really good! Couple of your one-liners gave me a good chuckle!
I got to see the X-32 in person, and I swear it looks even chunkier in person.
As a Murican myself, I loved this video. Would love a round two!
& 3...
@@JTA1961& 4
@@aegisop4862 Nominations accepted below.
I'm surprised that with the shape of the canopy, the Mohawk wasn't called the Dragonfly.
for those wondering, the museum where the flying pancake is located is a the Frontier of Flight Museum near Dallas Love airport in Dallas Texas :D
I actually like the Mohawk's appearance. Reminds me of a dragonfly.
The bernelli full wing design was actually pretty cool! Why do you think its ugly?
The front looks like it's sucking sucking on a lemon and from the side it look bent like a gust of wind will snap it in half.
Weird, completely un-elegant lines all over the place, that's why. 😜
Yeah like how can people call that ugly if F4 Phantom exist, weird stuff.
And why is a plane that appears to be Scottish on a list of American aircraft?
Ha! Loved it! What a great video, thought you might include A-10 some folks don't appreciate the beauty
Great commentary again ,also great stuff keep it up ,from Australia
The Zerbe air sedan wouldn't have looked out of place in the film Those Magnificent men in their flying machines
'It doesn't go uppity-up-up, it just goes down-dee-dee-dee-down-down'
The finished F32 with the completed nose section with radar was a incredible looking aircraft.
X32 Underbite?
Ünderbheit!!!
I also like the look of that "finished" F-32, like a modern version of the F-86.
They could have called it the Sabre II, or maybe follow the F-100 and call it the Super Duper Sabre? The possibilities are endless(ish)
I worked as a model shaper in the company that built the wind tunnel prototypes of the F 32...we were used to call it " The Buck Rogers airship"🎉😅❤
intrsting video and nice sense of humor btw. thx 4 ur videos
I actually like x32. It appears to be screaming, but that only opens many possibilities for creative squadron markings :)
It's screaming because it looked at itself in the mirror 😮.
More like giggling lol yet looks cool
Sorry, but the U.S.A. just couldn't have a plane that funny looking as its primary fighter jet. Intimidation matters for helping to keep peace through strength
Hats off to the first pilots to fly these monstrosities. Balls of steel. This is one of my favorite channels, keep up the good work, Rex
Mutleeeeey!
Great Video, Lots of fun. That air sedan is terrifying.
I've been waiting for an American installment of this series for a while and wasn't disappointed.
Rex, is there a chance you can do a similar thing with any South American countries that have produced aircraft?
When first confronted with the Zerbe Air Sedan, I did not believe that any plane could be uglier than #10. I still don't, really.
I applaud your ability to track down alarming looking aerial conveyances and ultimately agree with your limiting it to #10 as Zerbe's Air sedan has such a tenuous hold on the titla of Aircraft.
I read somewhere that after a few weeks of testing the XFV, Kelly Johnson’s team sent a memo to the Navy saying “We do not recommend attempting to land this aircraft.”
Every time I see a photo of it now, I think "You know, with onboard computers, fly-by-wire, LED lasers for distance measurement, solid-state cameras in the tail plaine and a HUD.... these things could work.
@@TheAnxiousAardvarkThat, or just make a tailsitter UAV instead. The most difficult aspect of a tailsitter is pilot (or crew!) integration. Remove the easily confuzzled shaved primates from the equation, and you solve the biggest problem.
@@BogeyTheBear Yes, but where's the fun in that? It could come to that at some point, with a VLS cell setup, folding wings, etc. A swarm of automated defensive UAV's around a naval taskforce?
Hi Rex! Great video, I love these Top 10 Ugliest count downs. Are you going to do more? You could certainly do German and Russian.
Don't forget Italy.
I loved the soundtrack for Ugly Aircraft #1. Awesome!
I have a soft spot for the X-32, but that might just be my soft spot for the A-7 Corsair II that lives on for its younger cousin.
Otoh, I don't like the look of the toy plane that is the F-104, but I understand why it didn't make the list.
Personally I love the rugged looks of the Mohawk - I would submit the Republic Thunderscreech in it's place. I would also swap out the Boeing YC 14 and replace that with the Fairchild XC-120 Packplane. Great video all the same!
Sweetbabyjesus... Strong contender indeed xD
I'll argue against the Thunderscreech on this one, but I strongly agree with the Packplane. The Thunderscreech was a truly abysmal aircraft by all accounts, but it's a fairly pretty design in spite of its odd turn-n-burn engine system. The packplane though? Jesus christ, even if it's not unduly ugly due to its job, it's still a bulbous Thunderbird 2 lookin' thing with all the good looks of a man who's spent thirty years losing boxing matches.
The XC120 is no worse than the DHC4 Caribou
@@sleeplessindefatigable6385The Thunderscreech would have looked better with a jet engine, rather than a turboprop😅
@@blairkinsman3477 It's a fair point - but this had to be American aircraft and the Caribou is from Canada...
The Burnelli design and Chance Vought pancake are awesome! I've been thinking of doing my own survey of "Fat Wing" aircraft. The thing that ended demand was the helicopter.
Brand new here, never thought I was interested in this topic, but this is really well made and entertaining! Lovely job, I'll be back!
Thank you for featuring two of my favorite aircraft, the YC-14 and the beautiful OV-1 Mohawk. But I missed an other of favorites, the F-4 Phantom II. 😎
McDonnell had some nasty names, the original name for the Phantom must be the worst plane name that ever existed.
The F-4 isn't ugly. Brutal-looking - a real war machine; the F-4 means business - but not ugly. I've loved it since I was a little kid, with its big twin intakes & exhausts and wonky wing & tailplane angles. But I also love the A-10, warts and all ;) , so maybe I'm biased.
The Bronco became the scout for fire fighting planes. In California
@@RB-bd5tz Don't see any "brutal" in the droopy tailplanes. It looks like a not very good looking plane that has begun that middle aged droopiness.
@RB-bd5tz Aggree with the F4, I think we should also consider the F4 was flying in an age with more exotic looks like the Corsair II, Mig 21s, and the Century series with a shootout to the Delta Dagger and the Thud. The F4 looks are perfectly serviceable in not pure brutal in a dogfight. A10 IS DOOFY though.
12:27 I was trying so hard to figure out what I'm looking at, It looks an AI generated Seaplane
Underrated comment.
YC-14! One of my favorite "ugly" aircraft. Here's to another awesome video!
These videos are always fun!
I’d never seen the XSG1, and it was no loss. Now I can’t unsee it.
The OV-10, on the other hand, deserves defending. It did its job well and had a knack for coming home.
OV-10 is an entirely different aircraft.
Boeing actually proposed a modernized OV-10 for the light CAS role.
The only one of these I'll argue with you is the Goblin - and that's because it's freaking adorable. It looks like someone took a regular fighter of the era and drew it in Super Deformed style.
Like the angriest flying baby ever to exist.
Awesome selection
This was fun! Thanks.
Bumble bee of death . I like that !!
“Pint sized bumble bee of death” made me smile too. Well done Rex, another cracking video.
I must disagree with you about the goblin. Always loved the anesthetic of that little bugger
Brilliant humour with this video great 👍 work keep up the good work 👏
I love the big intakes on the XF32 and the old A7 Corsair.
The interesting thing about the V-173 is that it used prop wash to overcome the normally poor aerodynamics of a low aspect ratio wing.
"waste not, want not" lol
That's a myth.
The Vought/Zimmerman plane was copied from the 1930s Arup S-2, which did everything the Vought did, better, and was markedly efficient, not draggy and inefficient.
The props did not counter the wing-tip vortices at super-slow speeds, since the vortices are what allows it to fly super-slowly and not stall. NACA tunnel tests showed that the V-173 did not gain anything nor particularly change anything versus normal 80hp props spinning the other way.
Zimmerman wrote about this for NACA and in his patent sheets. Such very-low aspect-ratio planforms do not always carry around a burden of excessive drag due to wing-tip vortices. The huge vortices are elective and temporary, in order to fly slowly and not stall.
'90s Wainfan "facetmobile": 100 kts on 40 hp with 340lbs useful load. Stall proof. Wainfan wrote for NASA about the "parachute lift" phenomenon of such very-low aspect-ratio. Could stay aloft at 35 degees + nose-up,
As a crusader lover the x32 is beautiful and nobody can tell me otherwise, also they have like most of these aircraft at Pima air and space
18 seconds in and you mention the F-14 Tomcat. You've already made me insanely happy.
GREAT FUN, and interesting too, THANK YOU!
I'm glad the A-10 Thunderbolt II didn't make the list. I know it was nicknamed the Warthog because many thought it was ugly. Me personally though, I always loved the look of the plane.
No body would dare insult the A10, for fear of BRRR.....
Ugly in a good way? I'd say the YC-9 was uglier, sort of like an American Su-25 that had too much A-6 Intruder (again not a looker) in it.
But the A-10s looks were dictated by [1] the ability to field that merciless shredder of a Gatling gun, and [2] the ability to remain airborne even after several SAM strikes. It does both jobs *extremely* well. It's frankly amazing how much damage an A-10 can soak up and still make it home. And even more amazing how much sheer terror it can instil into any enemy that even possesses a tiny amount of knowledge about that Avenger gun.
I gather a favourite motto of A-10 pilots is "Don't bother running, you'll only die tired" ... :D
This is a classic case of form dictated by function. The function being to kill enemy tanks and armoured columns, in an environment that's alive with lethal enemy metal (ZSU-23s and, more recently, 2S6M Tunguska AA/SAM combos). I'm reminded of another acronym here, namely BOTOTCHA ... Bombs on target, on time, come home alive. A-10s do this very well.
Its pilots don't care how ugly other people think it looks, they care about the fact that it's going to get them home if they're shot at, and ruin the enemy's day in spectacular fashion. Plus, it's probably THE perfect modern day plane to have shark teeth painted on its nose. :)
Only disagreement is the YC 14 .. weird engine mount but it fulfilled well a specific purpose - for decades the idea of a mid-chord mounted engine has been the way of the turboprop (Grumman Greyhound) and the radial (DHC-4 Caribou or the C-119 Flying Boxcar; Fairchild Thunderpig was close - picking the unusual so it’s not boring but could have picked pretty much any multi engine radial setup like a DC3) .. for reference look up the Antonov AN72 or AN74 that actually went into (Russian version of) production in the 90’s … otherwise really cool video
That's what I was going to say: the same conception gave USSR (Russia and Ukraine later) nice and rugged An-74, about 80 were built. Nice and sturdy, short runway, regional transport aircraft, keeps going strong and as Wiki said, keeps to be produced (although I have some sad doubts about that fact)
@@yurypozdnyakov5177 🇺🇦
It might have had a very good reason for looking how it did, doesn't stop it being truly hideous
It actually doesn't look half bad @ PIMA !
@@bobhazel2335 beauty is in the eye of the beholder - I’d fly it in a heartbeat
16:00 "Parasite Fighters" Giving a WHOLE new meaning to "Happy Landings". LOL
Excellent, timing for a Sunday, time to start drinking.
✌️
I saw the x32 flying off the Patuxent River when it was being tested in the 90s looked rather cool in flight but strange
My first job out of college was on the design team for the X-32’s exhaust nozzle (that lasted for a few months before the X-35 was downselected and I was transferred to that team). Even we who were working the engine made fun of the airframe’s appearance.
LOL 🤣. Great video . Laughed out loud here , a LOT. Thanks ! Homer's (Simpson) vehicle creation comes to mind with the penultimate abomination . Classic 🤣
One addition to Rex's excellent video: the official name for engine augmented lift is the Coanda Effect.
No it isn't. Coanda Effect works on all wings. It's the name of the effect that a fluid (in case of airplanes, air) stream tends to stick to curved surfaces. You can use it for engine augmented lift, but without the Coanda Effect all planes would stall as the air stream wouldn't stick to the curved top part of the wing.
Interesting. I never knew about the early lifting body. I'd say this plane was very advanced for its day. The Navy Pirate is also new to me. Good idea it never went into service. The Boeing YF 14 cargo plane was later copied by the Soviets. Great video as usual.
I actually really like the UB14, it just looks so damn neat.
The X 32 looks like a Happy Flyer! Always smiling. LOL Thanks for the video!
I personally really like the aesthetics of the OV-1. But I grew up watching M*A*S*H and have a fondness for the Bell 47/H-13, so an airplane that evokes that shape is certainly going to appeal to me.
The UB-14 is interesting, because it makes me think of some of the designs for an all-electric airplane being through around these days. The "not super fast but very energy efficient" element being a key part of an electric aircraft, I wonder if that shape will feel "normal" for light aircraft in a couple decades.
That last one is just adorable, that big happy smile that's just happy to be there helping!
I'll always remember both prototypes of the YC 14 and 15 at RAF Mildenhall in the 70's. The YC 15 was similar to it's larger current version the Globemaster.
Other aircraft on display included the YF 16A and the largest aircraft at the time, the C5 Galaxy.
As a pilot I find some of these to be quite beautiful. Especially the Goblin.
I would love to have one.
Wait -- you actually LIKED the Goblin? That hideous little bug should've been #1 on this list!
I'd love to see the goblin in war thunder that thing would be hilarious to play
@@bigboygrease5922a flying barrel 😂
She didn't handle well. Not a lot of wing for control surfaces and as development went on they kept having to add more vertical stabilizers.
@@seanbigay1042
Liked? No, he likes the Goblin.
A friend of mine was an engineer on the X-32. Boeing designed it just before the bought McDonell Douglas. He said it was obviously designed by people who had NEVER worked on a fighter before. Once the bugs were worked out it would have been quite the ugly little killing machine.
While the X-32 had severe shortcomings in the USMC fully V-TOL capability I think it could have been sorted out. I think the main reason it lost the JSF competition was its very strange looks. The X-33 looked like a fighter while the X-32, well, how can you describe its looks. Even though the X-33 had higher technological risk with its lift fan the X-33 prototype just looked better and at least for V-TOL performed better. Honestly the USMC should have had its own procurement program since V-TOL is such a penalty for sharing a lot of commonality with non V-TOL variants that simply requires too many compromises in those other variants designs. I find it astonishing that the X-35 we got is as good as it is considering the commonality requirements of this program to make 3 very different versions of 1 airplane and have it work as well as it does.
SLUF mk 2, perhaps?
Tbh, Boeing hadn't developed a fighter aircraft since 1945, when it produced the XF8B for the US Navy. Ironically, that aircraft was both sleek and powerful, but it arrived too late to see war service, and the Navy wanted to concentrate on jets.
@@larrybremer4930 The x-32 could have been made into a very capable VTOL attack jet. It would have been far superior to the Harrier.
@buddyaustin7232 The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom? I said Boeing, and I meant Boeing. And if you're going to be pedantic, the F-15 was the last fighter plane before the JSF.
Good show!
All good choices. I suggest a part two. Bell YFM Airacuda, Pogo, GeeBee racers etc.
With all them lifting bodies the McDonnel XP-67 Moonbat didn't make it?
Chester Goon or Jeep? That early Triplane Gunship Boeing GA-1 should've got a shakke. Where our beloved flying bathturb, the Aeronca C-1?
It still amazes me how some aircraft can look like completely different types depending on which angle you are viewing them. The Burnelli, viewed from the side, looks almost conventional.
Saw the YC-14 do a demo at Boeing field. Very impressive.
Great video. Though I'm a bit surprised that the A-6 Intruder isn't on this list.
I always liked the OV-1’s looks (as an air traffic controller).
We definitely need a second run of these, cause there's definitely some weirdos you didn't get too, like the Northrop XP-79 Ramming Aircraft.
Plus, the Thunderscreech and the XF-92 mixed powerplant fighter, and my favorite, the Sikorsky S-38 flying boat, which is literally a flying platypus, or the love child between some industrial scaffolding and a canoe.