Boeing X-32
A strange feature of the X-32B was its mid-mounted engine, this and its method of achieving short take off and vertical landing were reminiscent of pre-Harrier studies by the British aircraft designer Ralph Hooper with its swivelling nozzles. Unlike the Harrier, which had four swivelling nozzles for thrust, the X-32B had only two.
The ungainly humped thick wing carried a good amount of fuel and improved low-speed handling. The proposed F-32 production version would have had more conventional wing of a slightly sleeker form. The gaping jet air intake and truncated nose of the X-32 were another reason some find the aircraft so ugly, though opinion is divided with many finding it adorable.
British Aerospace Nimrod AEW. 3
The world’s first commercial jet airliner was the elegant de Havilland DH.106 Comet. With its discrete streamlined air intakes and noble nose profile, it was a beautifully clean machine, but thanks to an ill-fated attempt to turn the Nimrod into a flying radar station it also spawned the horrible Nimrod AEW.3.
Earlier, the Comet had been successfully converted into the brilliant Nimrods MR1 and R1 for Britain’s Royal Air Force, which excelled as maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft. With the RAF desperately in need of a new flying early warning radar station to replace the ancient Shackleton, the Nimrod was a natural choice.
Airbus BelugaST
Seemingly possessing a disproportionate forehead, with a swollen sausage of a fuselage, the Airbus Beluga is almost nobody’s idea of elegance. Though not attractive, the Beluga is superb at its intended role of moving outsize wing and fuselage sections of incomplete aeroplanes for the Airbus company.
Airbus is an international company making airliners, and originally owned by governments and companies based across Europe. As such the parts, made at different factories around the place, need to be moved for final assembly. The quickest way is by air, but some parts are too large to fit in standard transport aircraft.
Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
As soon as aerodynamics ceases to be a designer’s priority, the looks of an aircraft go out of the window. With the A-10, rather than the lowest possible drag, a lot of thought was put into survivability. Huge efforts were made to enable the A-10 to soak up gunfire from the ground and survive to fly home.
Perhaps the oddest feature of the A-10 is the mounting of its twin turbofan engines in pods above the rear fuselage. This placing reduces their chances of being shot or in the case of engine fire, the risk of a fire going from one engine to the other. It does however look a little goofy.
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