Airplane Folk Specific Content…

Trans_Maro wrote: Sorry, NOTHING is uglier than a Shorts Skyvan: At least you don't have to take it out of the packing crate to fly it. Shawn

You can do worse than a Shorts. Remember the Trans Avia Air Truck from Thunderdome?

Heh..

I'd forgotten about those ugly things.

Funny story, back when I wrenched on airplanes, one of our customers bought himself a used Cessna Ag-wagon.

We asked "why such an ugly airplane"

He said the thing was aweome to fly, like a prop driven fighter aircraft. Way more power than necessary, gobs of lift, great to fly at low alititudes, great handling and a fantastic roll rate.

It's a cropduster after all, you're basicly on a bombing run.

Apparently they're tons of fun to fly.

Shawn

I watched a AG Cessna "plowing" a field in Minnesota going to Oshkosh. That thing had an incredibly short turn radius. I'd want an AG Cat myself.

I just did a google image search for ugly air plane and uglt aircraft, there are lots of uglier planes than any thing seen so far in this tread.

exhibit A exhibit B I can't tell if this is real or a photo-chop exhibit C

HappyAndy wrote: exhibit B I can't tell if this is real or a photo-chop

I don't know what's going on in the foreground but I think you're actually looking at two aircraft superimposed by the camera, not one. The foreground aircraft appears to be a DC6 with a DC-8 cockpit grafted onto the front, I assume for development/training of the DC-8 back in the old days.

The aircraft in the background with the massive Star Trek forehead is a Supper Guppy:

...which was based on a modified Boeing C97 Stratocruiser and designed to carry large-volume cargo for the space program and other aircraft manufacturers.

Adrian wrote…

“RX Reven, throw us a bone here, what's the link or context.”

I was looking out for your best interest but if you insist on gouging your eyes out with a rusty railroad spike and filling the resulting cavities with Hai Karate aftershave, be my guest:

http://fraseraerotechnologycompany.us/Visiting_Photographer4.html

Aircooled wrote…

“I would guess the incidence angle would need to be a lot higher then the front to avoid a rear wing stall (very bad).”

Right concept / wrong direction…if you’re using angle of incidence to ensure the front wing stalls first, you would set the angle lower on the rear wing.

There are two other commonly used ways to ensure the front wing stalls first:

Select an airfoil that has a lower maximum AOA

Decrease the cord (distance from the leading to trailing edge of the wing). All things being equal (airfoil cross section, Reynolds number, etc.), the lower the cord, the lower the maximum AOA

“Of course this might explain why the flying flee (same configuration) is generally know as a very dangerous airplane.”

Correct…others in this thread have attributed the excessively high crash statistics Flying Fleas experienced to poor build quality & lack of proper training on the part of their pilots. Although this is true, the Flying Flea is fundamentally flawed by being capably of “bunting over” which is basically a forward somersault that is a problem common to Gyrocopters that have a thrust line above the center of mass and/or center of drag.

The British Aviation Ministry demonstrated this with formal wind tunnel testing and pulled the Fleas airworthiness certificate way back in the 30’s.

Bottom line…along with making sure the front wing stalls first in high attitude flight, safe canard design also demands that the rear wing achieves zero lift first in low attitude flight. Without this, there is a dive angle threshold where control force is insufficient to compensate for the fact that the canard is producing less lift than the rear wing. In the case of the Flying Flea, the threshold was determined to be negative 15 degrees which really isn’t a very severe dive angle.

Years ago I was involved in the ag-chem business and we had a fly-in where we showed ag pilots what their swath pattern looked like. The coolest plane there was a Stearman with a 450hp engine. That mother would almost climb straight up like an elevator.

I had several pilot friends who earned great respect during that time. One guy sprayed trees for a gypsy moth outbreak in the Smokey Mts. with a Bell helicopter. One of my favorite ag pilots flew F-104s in support of B-52s in Vietnam. Not many of those over there. When he put his helmet on to get in the plane he assumed a totally different look.

Ah the good old days. I love the smell of cotton poison in the morning.

spitfirebill wrote: Years ago I was involved in the ag-chem business and we had a fly-in where we showed ag pilots what their swath pattern looked like. The coolest plane there was a Stearman with a 450hp engine. That mother would almost climb straight up like an elevator. I had several pilot friends who earned great respect during that time. One guy sprayed trees for a gypsy moth outbreak in the Smokey Mts. with a Bell helicopter. One of my favorite ag pilots flew F-104s in support of B-52s in Vietnam. Not many of those over there. When he put his helmet on to get in the plane he assumed a totally different look. Ah the good old days. I love the smell of cotton poison in the morning.

And don't be dissing on the Short Skyvan. That's an incredible little plane.

The Spitfire was the most beautiful aircraft ever designed and built. Looked almost as nice as a naked woman..

The Spitefire looks better at 73 than almost any woman at 23.

And boy can she ever cook...422 mph!!!

spitfirebill wrote: The coolest plane there was a Stearman with a 450hp engine. That mother would almost climb straight up like an elevator.

That's why the coolest airshow pilots still fly these things. Want to win the worship of every kid? Forget the Extra, leave the Sukhoi, get yourself a Super Stearman.

NYG95GA wrote: The Spitfire was the most beautiful aircraft ever designed and built. Looked almost as nice as a naked woman..

I'll back that.

A museum in Chicago has a Spitfire hanging in a stairwell that you can get very close to. This plane is an early model and a survior of the Battle of Britain. If you are a real plane guy it will give you wood.

Its the same museum that has the U boat!

spitfirebill wrote:

NYG95GA wrote: The Spitfire was the most beautiful aircraft ever designed and built. Looked almost as nice as a naked woman..

I'll back that. A museum in Chicago has a Spitfire hanging in a stairwell that you can get very close to. This plane is an early model and a survior of the Battle of Britain. If you are a real plane guy it will give you wood. Its the same museum that has the U boat!

Speaking of "close"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvDDDKnNhuE

spitfirebill wrote: A museum in Chicago has a Spitfire hanging in a stairwell that you can get very close to. This plane is an early model and a survior of the Battle of Britain. If you are a real plane guy it will give you wood. Its the same museum that has the U boat!

That's got to be the Museum of Science and Industry. I have been there a few time many years ago. One thing I do remember is that they also have a Stuka hanging from the ceiling, and it has what appears to be bullet holes in it!

Also... the later Griffin engined Spits where capible of 450+ MPH. My personal favorite is the clipped wing mk XIV:

That's one mean lookin' beauty! Those are New Zealand markings I believe BTW

Day-um, that's a pretty shape. Only problem I have with it, is, why camo a plane, and then put white stripes on it?

Stands out like a sore thumb.

Opps, looks like that roundel for the SEAC (South East Asia Command), British.

I know for D-Day, they striped the planes to try and prevent allied ground units from shooting at them. I suspect the SEAC did it to help differentiate the plane from the Japanese planes. Obviously a Spitfire looks nothing like a Zero (or most other Japanese planes) but I suspect any round shapes on the wings would tend to draw fire (that is why the SEAC roundel is so subdued). I also would assume that later in the war (being on the offensive) the allies were more concerned about friendly fire than camouflage.

Some hyped up "cowboy" in a Hellcat see's a plane fly by with dots on the wings... he's a shottin'!