I was inspired by another member to make this thread. What is the ugliest plane of ww2.? My opinion is the ME-110 and F2A- Buffalo.
Ugly is in the mind of the beholder ! Where would you put the Storch? In front or behind the Stuka ! Cheers Keith
I wouldn't have said the Buffalo or Me110 were particularly ugly. Very few aircraft are ugly as they have to be streamlined to fly. Maybe the AH64 Apache is ugly because of all its lumps and bumps, and because speed isn't its priority. In WW2, the nearest I can get to ugly is some of the French bombers designed in the 30's that were still around until the fall of France; their designers certainly seemed to have not learned about streamlining. The Amiot 143 is an example:
Others for consideration: French Bloch 152-C-1, M.S 406; German Fw 189, Me 323; Russian I-16, TB-3; Itialian M.C. 200, S.M. 79; Biitish Vickers Wellesley, Fairey Barracuda. As to the Apache, I am a retired US soldier and and to a ground pounder NO Attack Helicopter (of ours anyway) is ugly.
. I was afraid someone, probably an American soldier, would respond to my comment like this! I don't doubt that the Apache is an extremely welcome sight and very good at its job, whatever you think of its aesthetics! Likewise the A10 Warthog. I've noticed that a lot of the aeroplanes that people have cited as ugly are short fat ones rather than long thin ones - the Buffalo, the I-16, the Me163. I don't know if there is a deep-seated psychological reason for this! But this was a result of the 1930's teardrop theory of the perfect streamlined shape, and which only works in ideal conditions, rather than the arrow theory which relies on a small frontal area and which most subsequent designs subscribe to. Also, being short and fat means a low moment of inertia which increases manouverability. The Me163 is said to function extremely well as a glider, as post-war unpowered replicas demonstrated.
From what little I've heard and the couple of new books I've seen recently, the small British Apache contingent in Afghanistan is/was making a good account of itself.