For aircraft enthusiasts: the meanest looking aircraft

[Blazer]

Okay it's a given that if you're going to fight, you ought to look the business, making sure that with looks alone you could scare the living daylights out of people. And none more is that evident in warplanes, if it were done on purpose I can't say but some warplanes really looked scary. Let's talk about the meanest looking aircraft.

To start off I'll name the Fairchild Republic A 10 Thunderbolt II or to call it by the affectionate nickname "The Warthog"

With the warthog it's function over looks and this tankbuster does its job well, it can sustain incredible punishment and come back for more and with its HUGE nose fitted seven barrel cannon it can inflict serious damage in its own right. That nose with the off-center mounted cannon looks a bit like a Mobster with a cigar in his mouth ready to have somebody "Sleeping with the fishes."
"You want some of this, ya punk?"

Then there's the Messerschmitt 262 "Shwalbe" (Swallow) which looked a lot like a shark.

If the great white shark was an airborne animal he'd probably ended up looking like this: sleek, fast and deadly. Even the way it was camoflaged was sharky, the grey on top made it difficult to spot from the top while the light colored belly was difficult to see from below, just like it is with a Great white.
Even the shark's trademark, the triangle shaped dorsal fin is there in the profile of the Me 262

MIG-built fighters themselves were scary opponents for many pilot unfortunate enough to oppose one but the scariest looking of them was no doubt the MIG 17 PF "Fresco"

The MIG 17 series reached its pinnacle with the PF model which was an all weather radar equipped version. That then state-of-the-art radar is also what makes the "Fresco" look as scary as it does. Early versions of the MIG 17 had a flat ring shaped air intake but with the radar dome in the middle of that air intake and a ground detection radar in a lip on top of that air intake it ends up looking like a monster with its mouth wide open and tongue extended, ready to snap you up and devour you.
In contrast, this is the nose and air intake of an older model MIG 17

However, the scariest looking aircraft of all time must be the Junkers Ju 87 STUKA

The large cowling under the nose, its inverted gull wings and fixed under carriage made it look like a bird of prey with its beak open and its talons extended, ready to dive right at you. And that's exactly what the Sturz kampf flugzueg (Diving fighter aircraft) was designed to do, to dive at you like a bird of prey, drop the lethal payload and then pull up again. It basically was the fore runner of smart weapons, the entire airframe was used to direct the bomb straight onto its target. When used in that role during the Blitzkrieg, they were highly effective and were the scourge of many cyvilian or allied soldier who encountered them.
A surviving Stuka, this picture clearly shows its eagle-like appearence

[cjburr]

Here's a few for you from this place in the desert I sometimes visit

[cjburr]

a few more

[cjburr]

and of course my vote for the "baddest" aircraft ever

[Telenator]

The F104 Starfighter is an all time favorite as is the F4 Phantom.

Funny that the F117 has the "F" designation though as it doesn't meet the criteria. In order for a plane to brandish the "F" designation it must be super sonic and it must armed with guns. It is neither. The F117 is a small bomber. Perhaps they had to designate it "F" in order to get the funding for it. With the whole B1B debacle and the zillions spent on the B2, it probably would have been impossible to bilk the public to fund yet another bomber.

[Buckocaster51]

Convair's B-58 Hustler always worked for me.

[Buckocaster51]

I'll bet that back in the 60s more than a few of these were reported as UFOs.



I only ever saw one fly. June 1968 in Colorado Springs.

The thing was awesome. Just plain awesome.

The stillborn YF-12A variant was even meaner looking.



I always thought the sensors on the leading edge just off of the nose, always looked sinister to me.

To think that those things were designed with sliderules and built without CNC...can you imagine working on that project?

It had to be a blast.

[64Strat]

my personal favorite of all time.....

[cjburr]

here you go

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Mov...EM-0041-02.mov

[Buckocaster51]

Originally Posted by Telenator

The F104 Starfighter is an all time favorite as is the F4 Phantom.

Funny that the F117 has the "F" designation though as it doesn't meet the criteria. In order for a plane to brandish the "F" designation it must be super sonic and it must armed with guns. It is neither. The F117 is a small bomber. Perhaps they had to designate it "F" in order to get the funding for it. .

I've read, in a real book, not on the internet, that the F-117 designation was pure subterfuge, based upon fact.

In the old USAF scheme of numbering fighters, F-117 was up next. The F-4 actually started out as the F-110. The F-111 snuck through. The F-15 and F-16 took up a few of those numbers, and they were at F-117 and used it.

F-19 was also up at the time, so it could have easily had that designation.

You are correct though, it isn't much of fighter.

[mistermullens]

My favorite. F4U Corsair

[superbadj]

My fave WWII fighter: Known by the japs as "Whistling Death".

[Joe-Bob]

As far as meanest looking, I've always thought that went to the F-4 Phantom. Those things look pissed off even sitting still.

[superbadj]

The Phantom is pretty mean looking.

So is this:

[casterway]

From Canada, the magnificent Avro Arrow.

From Wikipedia:
The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-wing interceptor aircraft, designed and built by Avro Aircraft Limited (Canada) in Malton, Ontario, Canada, as the culmination of a design study that began in 1953. Considered to be both an advanced technical and aerodynamic achievement for the Canadian aviation industry, the CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at 50,000 ft+ altitude, and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's interceptor for the 1960s and beyond.

Following the start of its flight test program in 1958, the Arrow, and its accompanying Orenda Iroquois jet engine program, were abruptly cancelled in 1959,[1][2] sparking a long and bitter political debate. The Arrow is still the subject of controversy, almost 50 years after it was cancelled.

We're still mad about this. There are no surviving examples of this revolutionary aircraft. Every one in existence was dismantled and destroyed. There are only photographs, and a replica in a museum.

[superbadj]

These truly look like a pissed-off cat about to pounce:

[superbadj]

These look pretty tough:


Of course, so does this:

[martyb1]

I still think the F-14 Tomcat is one of the meanest looking jets



How could this not scare the poop out of you coming at you at Mach 2.34





Beat me to it superbadj

[superbadj]

A nice shot of a pair of tough aircraft:

[superbadj]

Originally Posted by martyb1

I still think the F-14 Tomcat is one of the meanest looking jets

Having seen those fly a ton, along with F-16s (LOVE them), F-15s, F-22s (full demos....freaking amazing), and just about everything else out there.....

The F-14 is, by a long shot, the meanest-SOUNDING of the lot. It is just flat-out smack-yo-mamma BRUTALLY bad-ass sounding. It thumps your chest when it kicks in the afterburners. Just pure muscle.

[Rumble]

While the F14 and F15 are absolutely mean and have everything to back it up, my vote goes to the A10, a highly maneuverable (if slow) flying tank with a huge arsenal on its wings and a huge cannon on its nose.

As far as helicopters, this is it, although it was so expensive that it caused the Soviet Union to go bankrupt when we put hand-held Stinger missiles in the hands of barbarians in Afghanistan and they started knocking them out of the sky left and right:

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9G_bHKWMF...ht/2323729424/

[superbadj]

Originally Posted by martyb1

Beat me to it superbadj

But you found much better photos!

[martyb1]

and to think this was once the most feared

[Nick JD]

Meanest looking aircraft? Probably these: ICBMs