Well, I suppose beauty is also to do with the whole experience of flying in an aircraft as well as the aesthetic lines. In the case of a Viscount my opinion is that it had pretty good lines once they did away with the eyesore of the little DV windows and large under belly air scoop of the early 700s. As for flying in the machine you had to compare it to the alternatives of the time – mostly Convair 240/340/440 or Daks. It was smooth enough to balance an old 3d coin on edge on the tray table and have it stay upright. It cruised in the mid levels above the worst of the turbulence, had huge picture windows to admire the passing scenery and a generous seat pitch which you could only dream about nowadays.
As a pilot it was extremely reliable, the Dart engines seldom gave any problems and the systems were rugged if rather old fashioned. It was pretty quiet in the cabin and only slightly noisier in the cockpit and if the prop synchronisers were properly used there was none of the droning audible as in other turboprops (to this day even). I frequently did 6 sector days amounting to 8 hours and never felt too fatigued especially compared to my colleagues who flew the Ambassador which could be compared to a large vibro-massage machine.
So yes – to me she was the Queen of the Skies – one of the few British post-war successes and a sea change in air travel for the flying public. The ultimate development as pictured above was pretty swift too and I am disappointed that such an icon of UK aeronautical development has only a couple of potentially flyable examples worldwide, neither of these of course in the UK.