Germany's Top 10 UGLIEST Aircraft

over the years German designers and Engineers have produced some truly impressive aircraft imposing transports like the daia dox or the Yuna g38 aggressive fighter designs like the wolf 190 and they also designed or had a hand in designing some very very sexy looking Jets but not all of these designs could be considered easy on the eyes indeed some of them were positively vulgar which is why today we are looking at some of Germany's ugliest examples We Care not if an aircraft was successful disappointing or just downright insane We Care solely about its looks so with that in mind I invite you to mentally prepare yourself as we're about to look at 10 examples of an aviation Heritage which could be summed up with without insult as functionality over form now speaking of Heritage today's video is made in partnership with my Heritage the leading global Service for family history research now I was really excited when my Heritage reached out because I've recently been trying to piece together the puzzle of my own family history we've got lots of photos and a lot of postcards but beyond my great-grandparents we have very little in the way of full name names date of births addresses or even just general places of origin but with my Heritage I've been able to find that out and so much more my Heritage is ridiculously easy to use you start your family tree by adding yourself and anyone else you know parents grandparents Etc and my Heritage will then start suggesting people who might be related it does this by referencing over 19 billion records yes billion birth bir records death records marriages Etc and it also Compares your family tree with the family trees of the other 90 million people that use my Heritage as well my Heritage allowed me to trace my dad's family all the way back to the 1700s and I'm still digging for more but the biggest surprise came from my mom's family there had always been a suspicion that her family might maybe possibly have hailed from Germany but we had never found any evidence of this until now it showed me a census record from 1861 which confirmed that her great-grandfather a fur Trader had been born in the Kingdom of Prussia it was really fascinating eventually it allowed me to trace my family line all the way back to the 1500s but for me the cherry on top of everything was the fact that I could finally match up various old photos to the correct people on both sides of my family and my Heritage even lets you colorize and animate them to really bring these old memories back to life so to sign up and discover your own family heritage click on the link in the description below and in doing so you'll get a 14-day free trial and you'll be able to enjoy all of the amazing features that my Heritage has to offer once again a big thank you to my Heritage for sponsoring today's video and solving the mystery of my distant German connections and speaking of which let's look at some ugly German aircraft coming in 10th place we have the VFW fuer 614 which on the whole was aesthetically pleasing with a pair of very odd exceptions a joint venture between West German and Dutch manufacturers in the 1960s it was designed as a short Hall Regional airliner its unique feature was the positioning of its engines instead of being on pylons under the wings or mounted on the tail they were instead mounted on pylons above above the wings to be honest it looks like one of those occasions when you almost assembled some flat pack Furniture just right only to find you'd installed the drawers upside down but this design Choice was not a mistake it was intended to reduce the risk of foreign objects entering the engines during takeoff and Landing which was a legitimate concern as the aircraft would operate out of smaller airports which sometimes might not have the best maintain runways in the world but despite its innovative design and potential for filling a rather niche market the VFW 614 did not achieve Commercial Success only 19 units were built before production ceased and almost all of them were pulled from commercial service by the 1980s with the last operator being the West German air force in ninth place we have the of wolf a16 which honestly reminds me of a fat pigeon that's been smooshed established in 1924 folf would go on to produce some deeply impressive designs over the years but its first the a16 well it was a bit misproportioned designed primarily as a 3 to four passenger aircraft it was a small high-wing Cy lver monoplane passengers got the luxury of an enclosed cabin and wooden chairs that sometimes had cushions on them but the pilot was left outside in the elements sitting in an exposed cockpit above the wing unfortunately the need for an enclosed cabin in such a small design meant that the fuselage was incredibly deep in proportion to its wing size giving it a thick set appearance that being said the wing wasn't exactly the epitome of sleek refinement either all of this meant that performance was modest its 75 horsepower radial engine allowed a blistering top speed of 135 km hour but its cruising speed well that was closer to 100 if it was lucky approximately 20 of these chunky machines would eventually be produced seeing service in the 1920s unfortunately not much is known about these visually challenged aircraft other than a few crash records but in 1988 Airbus built a non-flying replica and today it can be found on display at the Berlin Technology Museum ready to frighten away unsuspecting [Music] tourists coming in at number eight we have the first of several entries that might be a bit controversial and that is the blowman Vos BV 141 an aircraft as asymmetrical as it gets designed as a reconnaissance aircraft for the German to offer in the late 1930s the bv1 141 is one of several designs that has earned Bloom and Voss a particularly strong reputation for interesting appearances when it comes to their aircraft and yes yes I agree the bb1 141 is a really really cool machine and it approached several of the major design challenges of piston powered aircraft in an Innovative way but when it comes to Beauty well it was asymmetrical the crew was housed in a gondola that would make French bomber designers from the 1930s draw with lust half the horizontal stabilizer was missing the wing shape looked like it had been drawn up by an intoxicated draftsman and looking at it from the front triggers some deeply repressed OCD but hey if it works it works despite its confused appearance the 1 14 one handled surprisingly well in that it wasn't a flying death trap but despite its innovative design the BB 141 never entered mass production with only a small number of prototypes and pre-production units ever being built while the aircraft had performed well in tests and demonstrated surprisingly good handling characteristics the lift wer ultimately decided to invest in something a bit more conventional going for the slightly more normal looking Fu of wolf 189 lumbering into Seventh Place place we have the mesmi 323 gigant as its name suggests the gigant was a truly massive aircraft and it was used by the lift waffer during the second world war as a military transport earlier in the war they had operated the mesmi 321 heavy glider which could carry up to 200 troops or 20 tons of cargo but Towing such a beast presented certain challenges the biggest of which was its sheer weight sometimes they had to use three meas Smith bf-110 to tow it into the air a routine that was as dangerous as it was Impractical but then somebody had the crystallizing idea to suggest what if we bolted six engines onto it and simply bullied the laws of physics and aerodynamics into complying the result was the me 323 a six engine monster with a powerful appetite for humans cars buses or even tanks and oh boy was it frightening to look at its sheer size and the boxy cumbersome design coupled with six engines and a fabric covered frame made it look particularly unattractive it was an excellent Workhorse but a pretty one far from it at a glance it looked like it shouldn't even fly and to be honest sometimes it was a miracle that it did it was powered by French gnome engines that the Germans had appropriated and they barely produced 1,000 horsepower in normal conditions the me 323 thus had a cruising speed of just 218 kmph making it a very easy target for Allied fighters who could see the gigant coming from miles away I mean just look at it but to its credit the m323 did put in a lot of service during the second world war almost 200 of these interesting looking machines were built and they were a huge asset to the German air force zooming in at number six we have the Hol H 162 vog Jager the people's fighter this almost didn't make my list with its short Wings compact design and with nose mounted cannons it looked quite aggressive sort of like a hornet except this Hornet had a turbojet engine mount mounted on its back and that sort of ruined the whole look admittedly this was done for both ease of Maintenance and to keep dirt and gravel from being sucked into the engine but the visual result was not exactly graceful designed and built quickly and made primarily of wood as metals were in short supply the h162 was part of World War II Germany's emergency fighter program aimed at countering the endless Allied bombing campaign Not only was it meant to be cheap to produce so cheap that damaged airf frames could simply be discarded instead of being repaired but it was also meant to be easy to fly apparently even Cadet glider Pilots were expected to handle the h162 after a couple of hours of basic training right entering service in January 1945 it was too late to have any real impact additionally it turned out to be something of a flying coffin with its late arrival being partly caused by several disastrous accidents involving prototypes its small fuel load led to many dangerous Force Landings fires were almost always fatal and it had the nasty habit of frequently trying to disintegrate during flight in fifth place we have the aado 232 millipede a highly Innovative design which got its nickname from the multiplicity of Wheels underneath its fuselage design as a replacement for the obsolete Yuna ju52 the aard 232 combined most of the features considered standard in a modern cargo transport today a box-like fuselage slung beneath a high mounted Wing a rear loading ramp a high mounted tail for easy access to the Loading ramp and an undercarriage that consisted of many wheels which helped to spread out the weight the original plan design was quite different from the one that would eventually take take flight for instance it was meant to have two powerful BMW engines not four underpowered humos and it would be the result that you got when Forward Thinking was combined with wartime material shortages still the millipede performed well outstripping the old ju 52's performance by a considerable margin but it was never ordered into mass production as the lift already had enough transports of the 20 that were eventually produced two would fall into British hands thoroughly impressing those who flew it which included Eric winkl Brown they were then operated as transports between Britain and Germany in the Years immediately following World War II which with the way it looks would have made for an interesting site in fourth place just missing out on the top three we have the blo and Voss bb38 it was known as The Flying clog and looking at its whole shape you can understand why the 138 carried on Bloom and Voss tradition of trying to build the most outlandish aircraft possible but despite looking like a piece of weaponized Footwear the BV 138 was a remarkably successful design built for maritime Patrol it was equipped with diesel engines which was uncommon in aircraft design but this was done for good reason though lower powered they had better fuel efficiency and it meant that the 138 could be refueled at Sea by German ships or uots which vastly increased its operational range originally it was planned to have two powerful BMW diesel engines as its power plant but at the 11th Hour they were forced to change this and switch to less powerful Alternatives and this resulted in the design team being forced to bolt a third engine onto the central part of the wing thus spoiling the aircraft's looks had this not been required the flying clog could have actually looked quite Sleek but as we know it does not entering service in the early years of the second world war the bb38 quickly became the lfa's primary Patrol and reconnaissance aircraft in various Naval theaters it was deployed on all fronts where Germany had a maritime presence including the North Sea the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean and eventually almost 300 of these Maritime Oddities were eventually produced now diving into third place and I just know I'm going to get crucified by some people in the comments for this we have the yunas ju87 Stuka did this aircraft play a critical role in the German Blitz Creek yes Did It Strike fear into its enemies with the haunting sound of its Jericho trumpet yes did it become the very symbol of LT waffer air power in the early stages of the second world war yes but and I have to say this though it was a truly menacing aircraft it wasn't very pretty was it viewed from any angle the ju87 doesn't exactly produce a clean profile its cabin pokes out sharply from the fuselage its tail surfaces are square cut and blocky its wings don't exactly scream aeronautical elegance and its fixed landing gear made it look cumbersome and outdated the Shuka was not a looker and things got even uglier with variants such as the ju 87g a tank busting version with a pair of 37 mm cannons bolted under the wings aerodynamic Beauty it was not but I say none of this unkindly the ju87 was a perfect example of function over form and it worked the stuker was a remarkably long-lived design that saw active service from 1936 until the final days of the second world war and its looks though unorthodox make it one of the most recognizable aircraft in military aviation history now coming in second place we have a startling example of late War desperation the barkham ba 349 nata oh boy was this aircraft as ugly as it was insane um where do I begin well this glorified tube was supposed to be a last ditch wonder weapon for the lift waffer one of many actually it was a rocket powered Interceptor that was meant to take off vertically saw High into the sky and blast Allied bombers with anti-aircraft rockets that were installed in its nose a product of desperate times it was built primarily from wood and it had simple control so that new highly unskilled Pilots might have some hope of operating it with a modicum of success to keep construction simple and costs down the NATA had no landing gear after launching and completing his attack the pilot was expected to Glide the aircraft back down to 10,000 ft open his canopy release the nose of the aircraft raft and then pull a lever that opened a pair of parachutes whilst he was still inside I might add the reduced inertia would then eject the pilot from his seat and after a few moments he would then open his own parachute and land safely on the ground yeah that really does sound safe doesn't it unsurprisingly the only manned flight of this rocket powered aircraft ended tragically 22-year-old lothar Sia made a successful launch in his NATA on the 1st of March 1945 but one of the booster Rockets failed to detach and the aircraft lost control during its flight and he was subsequently killed when it hit the ground at over 800 km per hour if the Stuka was as ugly as it was successful the NATA was as ugly as it was [Music] dangerous and now coming in first place we have actually we have a tie I really couldn't decide which was the ugliest of the two so I'll let you will make this decision for me we have the Donia L Delphin and the yunas ju 287 the Delphin was one of Claude donia's earlier attempts at building a flying boat and at least three versions of this interestingly proportioned design were eventually built to keep the propeller clear of the water the engine had to be mounted high but this was before Daria had figured out how to produce strong enough struts for a full overslung engine so it was just stuck onto the front of the hole in a raised position to counteract this heavy weight being mounted so forward and so high the bowel was extended and this gives us a flying boat that looks like it's been punched in the face on the first iteration this layout presented something of a steep challenge for the pilot to navigate as he was initially sat directly behind the engine in an open cockpit later version solved this by putting the pilot in a cabin underneath the engine but they did nothing to improve the delphins looks moving on to the other Contender the yuna's ju 287 if you were to say by golly that looks like an aircraft made from random Parts lying around the shop well you'd be half right developed as a jet power tactical bomber the ju 287 prototype combined the fuselage of a hanle 177 the taale of a Yuna 188 and the salvaged undercarriage of an American B24 Liberator it then had a forward swept Wing installed along with two pairs of yona's Turbo Jets the result was a true Aviation Oddity now there were reasons for its Madness the forward swept Wing improved low- speeed handling and allowed a larger Bombay due to the location of the Wings Spar but this design Choice also meant that the aircraft couldn't have a retractable undercarriage as cutting recesses into the wing reduced its torsional stiffness and it could only support two of the four engines hence why one pair was simply bolted onto the front of the fuselage just behind the nose though it did look like the result of beer fueled kit bashing at 2: a.m. on a Friday night this aircraft actually flew without much difficulty but the chaos of War halted development funding was redirected to the emergency fighter program and although work would restart on the ju 287 in March of 1945 the prototypes were destroyed before they could be captured thus ending the briefest career of one of the weirdest and ugliest aircraft to ever fly but the important question is which one deserves the top spot the slab sided Delphin or the flying spare parts collection let me know what you think once again thank you to my Heritage for sponsoring today's video don't forget to click on the link in the description below to try your 14-day trial and uncover your family history and as always thank you all so much for watching and a big thank you of course to the patrons many of whom voted on the topic of today's video future votes will soon be going up for other various topics so please keep your eyes open open for them as they appear some will be for some special topics and some will be for aircraft overviews as mentioned in the Rex Rambles video a big thank you of course to our wing Commander tier patrons our highest tier supporters and a warm welcome to Bob fry and Hayden Scott Williams who are the newest members of this special group more special videos are due to come out in the Noto distant future so I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did because more are on the way whether you like it or not 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: 178,007

Keywords: rexs hangar, plane video, top 10, top 10 ugliest aircraft, weird planes, ugly aircraft, military history, worst planes ever made, ugliest plane ever built

Id: M-1e3GIRK8Y

Length: 23min 38sec (1418 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024