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Aerospace engineers have come up with some revolutionary forward-thinking amazing straight-up insane designs. Sometimes these dreams never make it off the drawing board, but sometimes—some wonderful times—they become real. And when these alien bodies lift off into the firmament, it’s like watching a spaceship transporting the human race directly into the future. Check these amazing planes out:
Stipa-Caproni, an experimental Italian aircraft with a barrel-shaped fuselage (1932).
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Vought V-173, the “Flying Pancake”, an American experimental fighter aircraft for the United States Navy (1942).
Photo: San Diego Air & Space Museum/Scribd
Blohm & Voss BV 141, a World War II German tactical reconnaissance aircraft, notable for its uncommon structural asymmetry.
Photo: wwiiaircraftphotos.com
Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster, an experimental bomber aircraft, designed to have a very high top speed (1944).
Photo: U.S. Air Force
Libellula, a tandem-winged and twin-engined British experimental plane which gives the pilot an excellent view for landing on aircraft carriers (1945).
Photo: William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images
North American XF-82. Stitch together two P-51 Mustangs, and you get this long-range escort fighter (1946).
Photo: U.S. Air Force
Northrop XB-35, an experimental flying wing heavy bomber developed for the United States Army Air Forces during and shortly after World War II.
Photo: U.S. Air Force
McDonnell XF-85 Goblin, an American prototype jet fighter, intended to be deployed from the bomb bay of the Convair B-36 (1948).
Photo: U.S. Air Force
Martin XB-51, an American “tri-jet” ground attack aircraft. Note the unorthodox design: one engine at the tail, and two underneath the forward fuselage in pods (1949).
Photo: U.S. Air Force
Douglas X-3 Stiletto, built to investigate the design features necessary for an aircraft to sustain supersonic speeds (1953 – 1956)
Photo: NASA/DFRC
Lockheed XFV, “The Salmon,” an experimental tailsitter prototype escort fighter aircraft (1953).
Photo: U.S. Air Force
De Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle flying platform, designed to carry one soldier to reconnaissance missions (1954).
Photo: U.S. Army/army.arch
Snecma Flying Coleoptere (C-450), a French experimental, annular wing aeroplane, propulsed by a turbo-reactor, able to take off and land vertically (1958).
Photo: Keystone/Getty Images
Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar, a VTOL disk-shaped aircraft developed as part of a secret U.S. military project (1959)
Photo: William “Bill” Zuk/Wikimedia Commons
HL-10, one of five aircraft built in the Lifting Body Research Program of NASA (1966 – 1970).
Photo: NASA/DFRC
Dornier Do 31, a West German experimental VTOL tactical support transport aircraft (1967).
Photo: amphalon
Alexander Lippisch’s Aerodyne, a wingless experimental aircraft. The propulsion was generated by two co-axial shrouded propellers (1968).
Photo: Flying Magazine, Apr 1960
Hyper III, a full scale lifting body remotely piloted vehicle, built at the NASA Flight Research Center in 1969.
Photo: NASA/DFRC
Bartini Beriev VVA-14, a Soviet vertical take-off amphibious aircraft (1970s)
Photo: Alex Beltyukov/Wikimedia Commons
Ames-Dryden (AD)-1 Oblique Wing, a research aircraft designed to investigate the concept of a pivoting wing (1979 – 1982).
Photo: NASA/DFRC
B377PG – NASA’s Super Guppy Turbine cargo plane, first flew in its outsized form in 1980.
Photo: NASA/DFRC
X-29 forward swept wing jet plane, flown by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, as a technology demonstrator (1984 – 1992).
Photo: NASA/DFRC
X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft, a subscale prototype jet built by McDonnell Douglas for NASA (1996 – 1997).
Photo: NASA/DFRC
Beriev Be-200 Seaplane, a Russian multipurpose amphibious aircraft (1998).
Photo: amphalon
Proteus, a tandem-wing, twin-engine research aircraft, built by Scaled Composites in 1998.
Photo: NASA/DFRC
What is your favourite weird aircraft? Tell us!
Some fantastic designs and possibly some of the explanations behind the majority of UFO sightings.
Wouldn’t like to fall off the ‘Aerocycle flying platform’ though – might end up in a Tesco burger…
Yeah, that doesn’t seems particularly safe or effiecient. You’re basically making making yourself easier to shoot too!
Some of these are really interesting, and for someone of my generation, not too weird, quite simply because I’ve grown up with stealth fighters and Predators, and Concorde, but seeing the history behind some weird designs is bloody interesting.
Some of these, i.e. the Avrocar, look like they could be mistaken for UFOs by common folk.
The Bartini Beriev VVA-14 reminds me of the Shagohod. I don’t know why.
It’s because the aircraft in the end sequence that you escape on in MGS3 is the VVA-14.
I hadn’t even thought of that. I just pictured the Shagohod and it’s shape because of the augers.
What about the Sukhoi Su-47? Kind of like the X29 except it looks a lot more deadly. Like some kind of alien spacecraft.
I love the X-36! Which also led me to this piece of awesome wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Bird_of_Prey
Shame they’re not persuing developement of this kind of shape.
Did anybody else see the x-29 and think of Star Wars and Battlestar?!
Saunders Roe Princess – http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Saro_Princess_G-ALUN_Farnborough_1953.jpg
Although it’s not an airplane, I think the russian “ekranoplane” should have been mentioned just because it looks really weird and cool at the same time.
http://goo.gl/GdYzp
+1 was just looking this up to try and remember the name and post it here
Thunderbird 2 should definitely be in this list.