If it Looks right it flies right?

[Saab Dastard]

Of the airliners flying today, perhaps the 747-400 is the best looking?

My favourite is the A340, it reminds me of the 707 and DC8 - classic airliners!

Sd

[India Four Two]

the engines are a surprise as well, large and powerful but not obtrusive.

Mary, they certainly are large. Here's a 777 GE engine with a 737 nose for scale:

http://myaviation.net/?pid=00130585

SD,

I agree - the A340 looks wonderful, particularly if you are sitting in one, over an inhospitable stretch of ocean. The last one I saw was an Aerolineas Argentina A340 at Auckland. Buenos Aires to Auckland is a SERIOUS over-water trip. 5800 nm with the great-circle route getting down to 58 S.

[dubbleyew eight]

surely the worlds most dangerous aeroplane is the wooden falco.
I saw drew's example sitting there on the tarmac at a flyin and it was doing at least 200 knots just sitting there parked.



the photo is of another falco ....but you get what I mean.

[sablatnic]

Burt Rutan's Boomerang, after you have come over the initial shock.

[Saab Dastard]

Burt Rutan's Boomerang

Which owes much to Messrs. Blohm & Voss, perhaps?

SD

[IFMU]

One airplane that looks right to me, but I have never flown is the Ryan STA.
I don't know if I can say the PA25 looks right. But I have more hours in them than any other single type. They fly right, especially when unburdened by a glider.
I have flown a few different gliders, and owned an L33 Solo and a 1-35C. The humble 1-26 makes up in handling qualities what it lacks in performance.

My favorite is the Pitts. What a delightful machine to fly. Horrible for sightseeing though. But, we have J3's for that.
Bryan

[Dan Winterland]

Glider: The KA6E.



Looks beautiful, handles like it looks. 1:34 glide from a wooden glider, it's just very nice!


Light aircraft: There is only one!



It looks good and it's handling is the best of any small piston I have flown, including the aforementioned SF260 which is nice and powerful - but doesn't quite match the Chippy for harmonised handling.

Fast Jet:



OK, so it's not really a proper fast jet - and I haven't flown many of them. But it flies beautifully and just looks the business. It just could use a bit more power though.


Bomber:



It has the look that says "Death and destruction is coming your way" and flies pretty mean too!

Airliner:



It looks right and is the nicest handling big jet I've ever flown - a real pilot's aircraft. Nicer to fly the 747-400 which somebody mentioned, in fact the Classic 747 is nicer to fly than the 400.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Nice choices, Dan. Especially this one, far and a way the best handling of the many light aircraft I've flown:




I've no airline flying experience, but the VC10 takes some beating in the looks stakes. However, I think this tops it:

[shortstripper]

For me ...

Pure beautiful lines ... Spitfire, Mosquito, Hawker Hunter, Taylor titch and Globe Swift.

A little ugly but beautiful ... Hawker Hurricane (My favourite aeroplane ever), Piper Pawnee, Vought Corsair, Avro Lancaster, Vickers Wellington, Lysander and my old T31m G-BZLK.

Gliders ... Agree with Dan, K6E but also Slingsby Kirby Petrel.

SS

[Small Rodent Driver]

Another vote for the Chipmunk. Nicest handling aircraft I have flown and looks to me "a proper aeroplane".

I think the Cub has an aesthetic charm as well in a caricature kind of way. I love to just look at it in the hangar. Never fails to make me grin.

Fouga Magister does it for me also.

[treadigraph]

Don't think it's had a mention yet; the Fournier RF-4, looks delightful and I have heard it described as an aerial Stradivarius.

[Dan Winterland]

I didn't think to put a motor glider in my list, but if I did it would be the RF3. (Same as the 4, but with a wood spar, smaller engine and no aerobatics). I owned a RF3 for two years and it's a delight. It looks cute, but like many motor gliders is a compromise and the harmonisation isn't great. It needs more bite in the rudder. Also, mine didn't have a decompressor, so if you switched the engine off, that was it. I once landed out and had to hand swing and take off again. It didn't soar very well!

I thought about helicopters, but none look right and none fly right!

[Small Rodent Driver]

The only helicopters I find in any way attractive are the Bell Jetranger and the M.A.S.H. Bell 47.

Probably borne of the dreams I had about flying them at low level when I was a kid.

[surely not]

What's all this anti Airbus stuff?
The Boeing 737 is an ugly aeroplane and the 727 wasn't as pretty as a HS Trident.

The Stratocruiser from an earlier era was horrible to look at.

The A320 is a cute looking aeroplane compared to many modern efforts.

I like the lines of the Piaggio Avanti, classy and sleek.

The Beech Staggerwing is also a favourite.

The Miles Gemini always looked pretty much right. Chunky and business like.

The 777 and the 330 look pretty much the same, but the A350 has a bit of wow about it.

For warplanes I would have to go American and choose the F15 and the B1B

[IFMU]

For helicopters I was going to say the Sikorsky X2. Bit off the original topic of GA but not as far off as some entries.

[Dan Winterland]

The A320 is a cute looking aeroplane compared to many modern efforts

And it flies just like the manufacturer intends - artificially! It's fly by wire controls make it stable and easy to operate with many of the flying skills normally expected of a pilot enhanced by it's systems. And it's handling can be changed by the software engineers - as it has been on several occasions before! I would say it looks functional - which is how it handles. You could only get a measure of how it would really fly with all the automatics disabled in direct law - which has never happened to me in 6000 hours on the type.

[Saab Dastard]

The A320 is a cute looking aeroplane compared to many modern efforts

It may be cute and it may fly beautifully, but I've always thought that the wings looked like they were too far forward for it to be truly elegant. It has a certain bat-like quality viewed nose-on from below.

SD

[effortless]

Is true direct law possible in airbus?

[Silvaire1]

My favourite is the A340, it reminds me of the 707 and DC8 - classic airliners!

I've been doing a fair bit of over water traveling in A340s over the past couple of years, and I agree they're nice looking. Also that having four engines appeals to me in that over water role. That said, I was once in a 757 that had an engine failure on takeoff (bird ingestion) and it appeared to be almost a non-issue from the cabin. I'm glad it was only one...

A airline pilot friend who stuck with flying DC9s as long as he could, has recently been forced to move to A319s. He says its still not a bad job as jobs go, but retirement is looking better...

The Pitts S1S is maybe the most esthetically inspiring plane to me, but it has to do with everything being absolutely minimized in size... something like a 1960s cigar shaped racing car.



The SF260 is wonderful too, but in a more expansive way - like a 1960s Ferrari.



That Schleicher KA6E glider is undeniably lovely.

[jondc9]

if it looks right, it flies WRIGHT!!