Next thread’ll be coolest attack aircraft.
My vote: it’s a tie between the Vulcan and the Tu-95 Bear. It looks gigantic and terrifying, even though it isn’t that big, and it’s given every generation of Western pilots their first taste of intercept missions since 1956.
ETA: Rocketeer, I saw a Vulcan at an airshow when I was about 10. It was the only thing I’ve ever heard that made me cry out in pain from sheer volume.
Feel free to start it! 
There were plans to suspend Folland Gnats from a Vulcan, but that never got off the paper stage.
Of course, this idea is pretty cool if real
Wot, no luv for the TSR2? sniffle
How about the Tupolev Tu-22 Backfire?
Or the classic B-17F?
Can’t forget the Dauntless either.
(Too lazy to link images…besides Johnny L.A. would say they were fighters anyway.)
I’ve always loved the Lancaster - This one flew over my softball game yesterday. It has an unmistakable sound, a sort of low, rumbling growl that gradually increases in volume as it gets closer to you.
It’s a beautiful aircraft.
The B-52 wins hands down mainly because longevity. It was conceived in the 1940’s, the first ones were built in the 1950s, and the current crop was built in the 1960’s. Those planes aren’t scheduled to be replaced until at least 2040 when the planes themselves are about 80 years old. You simply can’t beat that.
Well, by that logic, the Rolling Stones are the coolest band ever.
Here is the same plane viewed from my balcony in Hamilton a few years ago on D-Day - I love that plane and I wish I had the cash to spare to take a ride in it! It would fly by nearly weekly during the summer, it got to the point where I could recognize it by ear.
I also love that museum - we went a couple of times a year when we were living out there, and whenever/if ever we visit Hamilton again, that’s one of the places we’ll go to again (That, a Lo Presti’s at Maxwell’s - fantastic Italian restaurant!). I hope to be able to see the Bolly fly when they get it rebuilt.
Came in here to vote for the Vulcan, but someone beat me to it.
Also a fan of the B-52, the B-1, the B-2. . . hell, all bombers are kinda cool, and for the most part, America builds attractive warplanes.
For classics, I’m fond of the German Condor (just pretty lines) and the A-26.
If we’re going light attack, A-6, A-7 and A-10 all make me happy.
Maybe. If you need hope for the next generation, I entered this world right around the same time as the Bone-B did ('85), and I came here to nominate the B-47. There’s just something about it (and the B-58, for that matter). Black is overrated (but then, I used to make little Tu-16s to go with my N-scale B-1s).
The Germans had, in the Ta-154 and the FW-200, aircraft that were singularly beautiful to my mind. Unfortunately (well, fortunately for the allies) they had other problems. Though I suppose this does say “coolest” and not “aircraft you would touch inappropriately”.
I think the Wikipedia entry on “coolest bomber aircraft” is just a redirect to the XB-70.
(edit: dallied on this, so the Condor has been mentioned now which lets me just second that post because OMG I would marry an A-26 if I could. Will just have to settle for Civil (Air Patrol) Unions I guess)
Wasn’t there a prototype of a nuclear powered bomber built as a test project? I suppose that would be ‘cool’ just because of the attempt to use a nuclear engine in an air plane. It was probably bloody dangerous too, assuming it ever got built.
-XT
It’s not really that it was dangerous, just that lead shielding weighs way too much to build a serviceable aeroplane around it.
Unless they made it out of lead lined nerf, it probably wouldn’t bounce when it crashed.
I figured, if they built it, that there would have to be some shielding for the crew. But if it were shot down or something went wrong then it would break up on impact…and that could be a bit messy.
-XT
Well, that’s not really a operational problem. After all, if it’s shot down over Russia, it presumably means you sent it there to irradiate large swathes of the country anyway.
It is a logistical problem because you’d have to base it and run your training missions in Greeland or someplace else with no people to accidentally rain nuclear death on.
I should have known this thread was coming.
i will keep this to operational bombers and not concepts or experimentals.
The B-58 hustler comes in first with the looks that kill, mach speed performance that comes in just under 50 mph of the hottest fighter interceptor of the time. Weapons included the onboard nukes for bombing , plus packages for going head to head with mother russias finest.
The Bone (B1b) clearly takes inspiration from the B-58, long range bombing ability or the time over target loiter capability that has Afgans and Iraqis always looking to the sky wondering. For visits to the Rodina, some curious capabilities, for instance having the same radar as the F-16 means that it can lock on and fire the Aim-120 .
Since so far no one has mentioned this aircraft, I think I should post a link to what our favourite enemies are up to.
Nato code name blackjack , the commies call it the white swan.
Declan
Astounding, when you think about it. If the B-17 had been kept around that long, they’d have seen service in the Gulf War.
My personal coolest: the B-17s one-off big sister, the too-big-for-the-job XB-15.
Another vote for the FW-200 Condor, one of the cleanest, classiest designs of WWII: http://u47.chez-alice.fr/FW200C2.jpg
And of course the Vulcan bomber: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00648/news-graphics-2007-_648377a.jpg
Aaaaaaand another vote for the B-58 Hustler (some great footage of it in the movie Fail-Safe): http://www.military.cz/usa/air/post_war/b58/b58hustler1.jpg
My all-time personal favorite, though, is the B-1B Lancer. Just 'way cool. I wrote a college paper on the Congressional procurement process for it and fell in love with the plane; I still have some little toy ones around my office somewhere: http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/1/8/8/0252881.jpg
Yes, there was (sort of). The Curtiss F9C was deployed with the dirigibles Macon and Akron. In the video it looks like there is an observation deck in the bottom of the tail plane.
Article on finding the underwater crash site of the Macon. Click on the first set of pictures and you’ll see pictures of one of the F9C’s.
That, I did not expect!
