What is everybody’s favorite flying airplane? And I don’t mean your favorite airplane, but what is the best looking plane in flight. My favorite airplane is the F4U but I have always thought that the P-40 is beautiful in flight. Watching the P-40 fly in the movie Pearl Harbor is the only thing that made that movie worth watching more than once.
My top three most beautiful in flight are…
P-40
F4U
B-24(even though I think it looks funny on the ground)
What are yours? And just because I can’t get past 1945 doesn’t mean you can’t.
But the most impressive I’ve evber seen with my own eyes was a French Mirage 2000 at an airshow in Belgium. Fantastic agility! And the Rafale must be even better, they say…!
The HS Gnat in Red Arrows livery. I saw them a couple of times in the seventies. Tiny things, but with pure, beautiful lines, they looked effortless in flight and in manuever.
2.The Concord departing JFK. I must have seen this dozens of times, that sleek beast gaining altitude over Jamaica Bay, but I never got tired of it. An endless parade of mundane commercial aircraft, then suddenly “THE CONCORD! Oh, yeah, it’s 10 AM, must be the British Airways one.” I mean, I even knew their schedule and it still surprised me everytime I saw it.
More impressive than beautiful, seeing a C-5 landing at Campbell Army Airfield. Yeah, it’s just a transport coming in for a landing. But the closer it gets, the more you realize how BIG that sucker is until you’re left thinking “Okay, it landed, but how in the world did it ever get off the ground?”
give my age away…
the blimp is the most graceful aircraft that flew in my mind
then the flying boat
and last and not least the C-5A
anyone around that remembers the blimp ? I watched them fly over New York City when I was a young kid.[:D][:D][:D]
2.Concord like Al, I used to watch these things take off from Heathrow, as my desk overlooks the runways. Always beautiful, and I don’t even like airliners.
3.Practically any glider. I live near a glider filed in Oxfordshire(Ex-Bomber Command field) and see them over the house every day. They just look so graceful.
…on the deck(100’)…high speed(200-250kts)… knife edge(left to right) pass…of a nmf P-51D with a brilliant red Beech Staggerwing tucked up tight…in close parade formation…
…ah, to loose the ties that bind me…what a sight that was !!!
Glen S,
I live about 10 minutes from Flushing Meadows/Shea Stadium/US Tennis Center, and we have a blimp or two in orbit around our neighborhood almost every day from the middle of August to the first week of September, covering the US open. Goodyear and Fuji are the operators of the two I saw most recently, but I think I saw one operated by MetLife Insurance sometime last year (that one has a giant cartoon of Snoopy flying his doghouse on the side).
Karl,
You’re absolutely right about the gliders. Talk about effortless looking flight.
Tough call for just three when I could think of so many more.
The Concord is indeed right up there, a bit ungainly looking on the ground with its nose down, but once she was up in the air with her nose straight she was something else to see.
The F-5 is another of my favorites, beautiful sleek lines and astounding aerobatic capabilities in the hands of the right pilot. I used to love the CF-5 displays at Canadian airshows when Canada still used them.
Third place is a toss up between the SAAB Gripen and the SU-27 Flanker, I saw both of them fly for the first time in my life recently and both put on jaw dropping performances. The Gripen is a slick little beauty and the Flanker is a big brute of a fighter, but they were both just as graceful as each other in flight.
Only three is pretty tough but I’ll give it a shot. Only talking about stuff I saw myself (otherwise the F-106, Valkyrie and SR-71 would be mentioned here!) :
1- The B-1B Lancer. Full burner takeoff with an immediate vortex-generating left-turn after rotation. Oh yeah!
2- Saab J-35Ö Austrian display Draken. That beauty of a jet just kept on turning and rolling in full burner till the gas ran out.[8D]
3- Funny enough a glider. No burners on that one, which is a pity I must admit, but still. I recall sitting on a mountain top in Austria years ago, when I heard a swoosh. My jaw dropped as I saw a glider fly past at eye level. The pilot and I waved at eachother and he was off again. That has to be the most graceful thing I’ve ever seen in the air. Oh, another thing: I have seen a Dutch glider aerobatics champion (forgot his name) do some crazy stuff at two airshows now. If I didn’t know I was looking at it with my own eyes I’d say it was impossible. Loops, hammerheads, hugging the runway at 3 feet (and low airspeed) forever and then pulling up very hard to finally land. Come to think of it, this has to rate as my number one.[8D][tup]
Lockheed’s Constellation hands down was the most beautiful bird, in flight or standing still on the tarmac. In aviation, her curves can be only matched by the subject matter of a B-24’s nose art.
Got to be the Spitfire. That classic gull wing shape and a Merlin engine - nothing to beat it.
DH Mosquito. Seen several over the years. The last one was at a commemoration service for the Banff Strike Wing Memorial Trust near the old Banff airfield in the north east of Scotland. It gave an excellent display over a lay-by at the side of the road where the memorial stands, and its last pass came up from the valley below at full power and was so low, it took the top 18" off a tree at the side of the road! Awesome! I could feel the heat from the engines.
Hawker Hunter. ‘If it looks right, it’ll fly right’. Have a look at the website for Miss Demeanour! Fabulous paint finish on what was a Swiss Mk58 and is now in private hands.
3a. (I’ll just squeeze this in) Avro Shackleton! 10,000 rivets flying in loose formation! An amazing old thing powered by Rolls Royce Griffon engines. You felt the ground shake when one took off. Saw a formation of 4 fly over my place of work in 1988 as they neared the end of their RAF service and it was a sight to behold! Think about it - 32 contra-rotating propellors thrashing the air into submission! A wonderful old aircraft to see in flight. Ah, memories…
