I was looking at the thread about the Fairey Gannet and thought it would be interesting to start a thread about some other aircraft that are 'Ugly".This is not a poll . My choice would be the Brewster Buffalo . It was stubby ,slow and completely outclassed by the Japanese fighters it flew against. Any others ?
Of the “Cat” series from Grumman, only the Bearcat is sexy. Which is probably why quite a few surplus Bearcats ended up air racing. I digress…
Seems like a lot of the early jet aircraft from the 60’s & 70’s left much to be desired in the aesthetic dept. English Electric Lightning? What were they thinking?
There was similar thread somewhere way back when about aircraft we just don’t like. Hmm…found it!
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=43855
Well, I’ve said it before on other ugly aircraft threads, I’ll say it again here:
For civil aircraft it would be the Brooklands/Edgely Optica. So ugly its cute and I’d love a 1/48 kit of it!
For military birds, its a tough pick, but the F-105 Thunderchief always rubbed me the wrong way aesthetically. What bugs me most is I could never put my finger on why; perhaps the raked forward intakes or the airbrake arrangement like some big flower around the tail pipe…
Of course, I’d never let the fact that I found a plane ugly stop me from building a kit of one if I wanted and example of it in my collection. 
For me, the Fairey Barracuda would have to be up there with the ugliest aircraft. In fact, just about everything Fairey designed was pretty ugly (Gannet, Battle and Rotodyne[yuck]). Or how about the Super Guppy???
I was actually stood next to a Super Guppy a couple of weeks ago. That thing looks like a hot air balloon from the front! It used to fly over my house regularly, as I live near where the wings for the Airbus series are made. Now I see the Beluga in its place. Not QUITE as ugly, but still no oil painting! [;)]
Two words:
MODERN
JETS
I’m sorry for those of you who enjoy this subject. It’s just that the whole swept-wing jet-in-tail thing does nothing for me. To me they all pretty much look exactly the same, and do pretty much the same thing. Besides, they did away with a staple of military avaition- the dogfight. Now it’s all air-to-air missiles and air-to-ground missiles, and missiles this and missiles that. I just find the days of machine guns and bombs aimed only by bombsights and dead-reckoning much more facinating. What can I say? Modern aviation is boring.
Well, my rant is over. Take it or leave it, just remember none of it is personal.
Can you name it?
Tim Landers
TimL
My word that is ugly, but I can’t name it (don’t know that I could without being rude!!!)
OK my curiosity has got the better of me, what is it.
Some kind of cargo plane obviousely , but i dont have a clew. Whats it setting on , a dry lake ?
My vote goes to the Lockheed U-2. Now I know it was an amazing piece of aviation engineering, I just never liked the look of it. Lets face it, it won’t win any beauty contests.
The ugliest Aircraft ever has to be the Spitfire Mk. IX… Just kidding [:)]. I’ll put in a vote for the Junkers Ju 288. The bulbous greenhouse tacked onto a pencil thin fuselage always said ugly to me.
REgards, Rick
Prop planes would be the Fairey Gannet. Jets would be the Lockheed, J-35 Joint Strike Fighter with that 90 degree rotating butt that looks like some kind of hornet without the ability to hold its tail straight. And then that hideous lift engine in the middle. I certainly hope no one ever has to fly that thing into combat where one bullet in the rotation mechanism for the tail will bring it down.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Hehe
I pull this baby out whenever these threads come along:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:M-15_belphegor.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-15_Belphegor
Avert your eyes!
Budd RB Conestoga, C-93 to the USAAF.
I could give a list a mile long here, but one that I really have a love/hate view about is the X-32. From the side both variants look absolutely hideous… especially the X-32B…
From the top, however… the X-32A looks dang cool…
Perhaps more later…
Fade to Black…
Me-163. It just looks so strange… and short. I love the Ju 52 and the Do 335 which many people consider ugly.
The ugliest plane is whichever one is shooting at me from behind.
I used to think the B-52 was pretty ugly, then I had to work on them for 3 1/2 years and they kinda grew on me. Although, I still think the tall tail models were ugly.[V]
The X-32 has got to be the ugliest modern plane ever.