America's Top 10 UGLIEST Aircraft

[Music] the United States of America the most prolific producer of aircraft in the world over the years it has given us some truly iconic machines the P-51 Mustang the SR-71 Blackbird the F-14 Tomcat and the Undisputed Queen of the Skies the Boeing 747 jumbo jet long may she fly but for every gorgeous aircraft produced in the United States there were at least three Abominations lurking in the shadows ready to frighten away small children and most sane adults as well these were not necessarily bad aircraft technological progress cares not for aesthetic Beauty but for today I do today I'm going to show you 10 of America's ugliest aircraft and as a bulk of my audience is from the United States I just know this is going to be a hot topic of debate so without further Ado let's take a look at some of the ugliest planes from the United States beginning at number 10 we have the Zerby air sedan designed by Professor James Zerby in 1918 this interesting quadroplane was one of the country's earliest attempts at a dedicated passenger transport completed with no tail plane and no ailerons and with control coming from linkages that connected to the uppermost wing it appeared to have the aerodynamic stability of a flying staircase and indeed earlier attempts by Zerby with other designs of this nature did not exactly Inspire feelings of optimism nevertheless the air sedan was prepped for its Maiden flight in 1921 and powered by a 110 horsepower rotary engine it lifted into the skies above Arkansas and onlookers were treated to their first glimpse into the future of American air travel had it actually been successful instead the aircraft flew for a few hundred feet at an altitude of either 40 feet or 40 inches there is some debate before crashing into the ground Zerby survived the incident but his aircraft did not and it was probably for the best it looked utterly confused about its purpose and was probably about as unsure as the whole flying thing as much as we were back then at number nine we have the Benelli ub14 proof that you can indeed make a manta ray fly but in all seriousness this was one of the many attempts at producing a lifting body airliner a design concept that became quite the popular niche in the interwar period it was the brainchild of Vincent bernelli who had developed a passion for the lifting body concept built along the concept of if it doesn't produce lift I don't want to see it the ub14 made its Maiden flight in 1934 designed to carry up to 18 passengers benelli's aircraft was intended to revolutionize air travel by producing a more efficient and thus cheaper transport design though efficient the ub14s weren't particularly fast and unfortunately for Benelli one of his Main Financial backers had also supported President Roosevelt's opponent in the previous U.S election so there was basically no official government interest also they say in the end only three of these interesting Innovative but visually odd aircraft were ever built and they didn't last very long the first prototype was crashed in 1935 the second ended its days at the experimental establishment of boscom down in the UK and the third was for a time at least the personal transport for General de Gaulle during the second world war but it was eventually burned as an impromptu bonfire at the end of the war in a drunken celebration coming in at number eight and continuing the trend of offensively ugly lifting body designs we have the vort v173 which evolved into the equally flat xf5u this weaponized pancake was the work of engineer Charles H Zimmerman but why a pancake you ask well he believed that a circular design would offer improved lift stability and maneuverability and maybe he wanted to increase the number of recorded UFO sightings above the U.S Mainland now the v173 wasn't just about confusing in the local populace it boasted some impressive performance abilities thanks to its lifting body and large propellers it could take off and land in a very short distance which could have been a game changer for the US Navy and I'm now Imagining the site of the US Enterprise Fielding a squadron of these in the middle of the Pacific War but as it turned out the militarized successor of the v173 the xf5u was not to be testing of the 173 was marred by serious stability and mechanical problems and the end of the war brought with it the end of the need for such a strange and experimental design the two xf5 used were scrapped with the airframe being so tough that a literal wrecking ball was needed to break them up and the v173 was placed into a museum where it can still be found today baffling visitors with its strange looks foreign we have the McDonald xf85 Goblin this was not your typical jet it was barely bigger than a car had stubby wings and it looked like it was perpetually angry but there was a reason why the U.S Air Force wanted a pint-sized bumblebee of death and that was because it was to be used as a parasite Fighter the goblin was meant to be carried Aloft by and then provide air defense for the lumbering B-36 which was a bit like sending a Chihuahua to protect a Great Dane but the theory was sound at the time escort Fighters had no way to match the long range of these strategic bombers and parasite Fighters seemed to offer a logical solution unfortunately the scheme proved difficult to execute detaching the Goblin from its Mothership was one thing but reattaching was another challenge altogether when tested with a modified B-29 at the wash from the engines caused several mishaps and some very nasty near misses and although most of these problems were gradually addressed the experimental program was canceled in 1949 as by that point the Advent of aerial refueling had rendered the need for parasite Fighters obsolete sauntering in at number six we have the Vault f6u pirate which despite the cool name looked very cartoonish much like the sort of aircraft that a child would sketch out on a piece of scrap paper the f6u was vault's first attempt at a jet aircraft and it was designed for the US Navy in the mid-1940s its design had several Innovations featuring such things as composite construction and an after murder for its engine but sadly the pirate's development was filled with more Misadventures than a Captain Jack Sparrow drinking contest when it finally took to the skies the pirate proved to be both disappointing and dangerous it was slow underpowered about as stable as a drunken sailor and it had a really nasty habit of bursting into flames mid-flight when it wasn't trying to create vault's test pilots the pirate would drive the design team into madness as a whole Litany of stability problems plagued its development from start to finish despite 33 of the aircraft being built the design was deemed totally inadequate for Naval service and none of them were ever issued to operational squadrons [Music] lumbering into fifth place we have the Boeing yc14 developed as a potential replacement for the C-130 Hercules as a short takeoff military transport the yc-14 looks like a poorly assembled airfix kit I mean why are the wings clipping into the back of the engines like that well on closer examination the yc14 was in fact an ingenious design it utilized something known as powered lift the engine exhaust was forced over the upper surface of the wing to improve the wings lift characteristics with the leading and trailing Edge flaps extended this lift was further improved in fact the system worked so well that the yc14 could take off from a short unsealed Runway with a bulky payload under the power of just one of these engines Additionally the design also reduced the aircraft's infrared signature reduced its noise signature and reduced the risk of foreign objects being sucked up into the engines as they were mounted so far above the ground though it was technically a successful design changing Mission requirements led to the cancellation of the program that led to the yc14's development in the first place and in the end only two of these misproportions but highly interesting machines would ever be built in fourth place I'm just missing out on the top three we have the Grumman ov1 Mohawk which was the textbook definition of functionality over four with a pitchfork tail blocky wings and looking like somebody shoved the cockpit of a helicopter onto the nose of a 1940s medium bomber the ob1 appeared to have been designed purely on the grounds of terrifying the enemy with its appalling looks but this was not the case designed as a light attack and observation aircraft the Mohawk proved to be a highly reliable versatile and rugged platform in many ways it was in fact a jack of all trades it could operate from short unpaved runways it carried a variety of cameras sensors and radar systems for reconnaissance missions or it could carry a mix of bombs or unguided rockets for strike missions easy to maintain and easy to fly the ob1 was as successful as it was interesting to look at it served the distinction with the US Army for over 30 years seeing use in Vietnam where one was actually credited with shooting down a mig-17 though this was not formally recognized for nearly 40 years and later on it also saw service during Operation Desert Storm it was in the eyes of many the Beloved ugly duckling of the Army Air Forces and it was finally retired by the US Army in 1996. coming in third place we have the Lockheed xfv [Music] in the late 1940s the US Navy fell in love with the idea of a vertical takeoff Convoy protection aircraft and this Obsession spawned several interesting designs with the Lockheed xfv being the ugliest of the bunch designed to be powered by a 7100 horsepower turboprop engine which would never actually materialize the xfv was meant to be able to take off from and then land back on something not unlike a helicopter landing pad on a cargo ship and this instantly made it lockheed's most insane and most ambitious aerial project that would ever leave the drawing board now testing a design that wouldn't look out of place in an episode of the Thunderbirds carried with it a certain amount of risk and so the Lockheed design team took it slow which resulted in the aircraft becoming even more ugly when a giant fixed landing gear was bolted onto the body unsurprisingly the xfe project didn't last particularly long not only did its intended engine never appear but it soon became blatantly obvious to all concerned that the expectation of Landing this thing on a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean was beyond the realm of fantasy only one prototype was ever completed and the project was canceled in 1955. in second place and coming with a parental advisory warning due to its hideous appearance we have the Great Lakes xsg-1 I have no words somebody sliced the tail of a perfectly goodbye plane bolted its carcass onto the top of an amphibious Hull and then for whatever reason decided to install something in the rear that looks like a greenhouse you'd buy from wish.com the history of this Abomination plays out like it was a practical joke being played on the US Navy the xsg1 was designed to be a naval Scout and needless to say it was an abysmal failure honestly I struggled to comprehend how they could have designed something with a higher drag coefficient without simply bolting some wings onto a giant Cube and to be honest it would probably look nicer it was slow underpowered unstable in the extreme and the water handling trials resulted in so much water coming in that the rear Gunner who was mounted in the wish.com Greenhouse above the hull was almost drowned unsurprisingly only one prototype was built and then it was promptly never discussed again and now coming in first place we have something truly staggering and I'm probably going to cop some Flack for this choice but I don't care we have the Boeing X32 yes I'm aware that Boeing's planned f-32 had several major changes some of which dramatically improved its looks but I don't care about the F32 because that aircraft never entered production I do however have to deal with the fact that the X32 and that air intake exists which is why it takes the number one slot the x-32 was developed for The Joint Strike Fighter competition which called for a new stealth-capable fighter aircraft to replace all lighter weight and attack aircraft currently in the U.S inventory now the topic of the competition is one for another day and one for a much longer video but the x-32 despite its offensive looks wasn't actually a bad design for this competition at all it was also projected to be cheaper than its competitors depending on Whose story you believe but a series of misfortunes with its vertical takeoff system tipped the scale against it Boeing lost out on a production contract to the Lockheed Martin x-35 which became the F-35 lightning II despite its failure the x-32 is deemed by Boeing as a Strategic investment which helped them develop various Technologies but in my humble opinion its biggest Legacy must be the Litany of crude and humorous jokes that arose from its looks it would have entered Service as the f-32 gobbler or maybe the f-32 underbite or perhaps as the f-32 Pelican had it made its way into the Australian Air Force and of course according to many a witty mind it was only capable of stealth because it forced the enemy to look the other way but perhaps I'm being too harsh on the old X32 or perhaps I'm not let me know in the comments below as I'm sure some of my picks today have been most controversial but regardless of my silly opinion I hope you all enjoyed this frightening foray into the world of America's ugliest ducklings please thank you all so much for watching and a big thank you of course to the patreon supporters hopefully uh next weekend part 3 of the Douglas history video will be going up it will just depend on the editing time frame and my voice because I need to record the second half of the video and at the moment it's very difficult for me to record long videos that might take a bit longer so your patience is appreciated and part three will be coming soon a big thank you of course to our wing Commander tier patrons our highest tier supporters I am mulling over the idea of adding another patreons here because it has been suggested some people have messaged me asking you know they would like to pay more they've already pledged higher anyway um I'm thinking about it I haven't made a decision yet so I'll come back to that on honestly at the moment I think I'll just leave it at the three tiers but if support for a fourth tier keeps growing I will think about announcing that probably towards the end of the year so keep an eye out for updates on that front but as always thank you all so much for your continued support and I will catch you all next time goodbye

Channel: Rex's Hangar

Views: 585,171

Keywords: top 10, rexs hangar, plane video, ugliest plane ever built, ugly aircraft, air force, worst planes ever made, horrible planes, weird planes, top 10 ugliest aircraft, Zerbe Air Sedan, Burnelli UB-14, Vought V-173, Vought XF5U, Vought flying pancake, XF-85 Goblin, Vought F6U, Boeing YC-14, Grumman OV-1 mohawk, Lockheed XFV-1, Great Lakes XSG-1, Boeing X-32, America's Top 10 UGLIEST Aircraft

Id: JnKDYsyKD04

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 03 2023