There are some awesome contenders for this title.
You only have to look and see how many WWII fighter planes are still used after all this time in ‘prop’ driven air races. Man, they were absolutely gorgeous.
So, what do you think. Was the P51D Mustang the sexiest of the lot? Was it the fastest? Were there other lesser known monsters from other airforces which could claim this (albeit subjective) title?
Well, they never got to shine as much, but the FW-190 and the Me-262 were rockin’ rides. The Mosquito was alone in it’s own class
And while the Mustang was cool stuff in the European theater, the Corsair took the last bows in the Pacific.
Unless you want to talk marginally operational items like the Gloster Meteor or the P-80 Shooting Star. I take it you’re talking fighters, so we’ll leave the Arados out of it.
But if we’re talking fighters, we can include night fighters, and I’ve always considered the P-61 Black Widow a primary girl.
I’ll let someone else talk now.
Supermarine Spitfire, anyone?
Someone else mentioned the ME-262, jet fighter which was far from “marginally operational.” Over 2000 were built and had it not been for Hitler’s insistence on using them mostly as ground attack planes on the Russian front, they would have been a serious problem for our air forces.
The Spitfire is definitely the sexiest fighter of WWII. The Mustang was the best fighter if the war, but the Spit was the sexiest.
There’s nothing like the sound of a Merlin V-12 (the Spit and later-model Mustangs), but just to be contrarian, I’d like to nominate the P-38 Lightning.
The Dornier Do 335 Pfeil (Arrow) is generally credited as the fastest piston-engined fighter of the war.
The P-38 Lightning had 2 engines. If one failed in flight, you could still get home on the other.
The Hell with sexiest! Living is better.
Similar arguments could be made for the Mosquito.
Also, both had mucho firepower for the smackdown. Noseguns, too. 
My favs were always the P-51D, the P-38 (I thought the recon version that was minus the guns up front but just a big window would be cool to have now) and the Spitfire.
The Spitfire was the only redeeming thing in the recent Pearl Harbor movie.
But the other day I was watching a program on the HellCat (not sexy at all) but it said something like 70% of the Japanese planes shot down during the war were shot down by Hellcats.
Corsairs were cool but I hated that Black Sheep show and the constantly reused dogfight films. It was as bad as Battlestar Galatica.
Sexiest- F4U Corsair.
Most effective- F6F Hellcat.
Most underrated- (tie) P47 Thunderbolt and the FW 190.
Most overrated- Hawker Hurricanes, P38 Lightenings, P40 Warhawks (the Flying Tigers did well with them early in the war, but the plane was overmatched in most situations.
Well I’ll vote for the P-51D thats why I am building one.
Second choice would have to be the P-40.
Very close third would be a tie between P-38 and the Spitfire.
I have a personal fondness for the P-38. They just look cool.
Mustangs are nice too, they have very elegant lines. And the Spitfire is a classic, of course.
But there is something to be said for the P47, too. There’s just something about that big hog of an airframe. It looks like it means business. I understand pilots were quite fond of them as well, due to their massive pilot-compartment armor. (I think that would be a big selling point for me, too.)
Don’t give me a P-38
With props that counter-rotate
She’ll loop, roll and spin
But she’ll soon auger in
Don’t give me a P-38…
Ahem. A small protest about the Hurricane. This site about the Hurricane has this to say: “In the hands of a skilled pilot, the Hurricane could achieve great success. In fact during the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940, 1.720 of them took part and had the honour of claiming 80% of enemy aircraft [bold added] shot down by Fighter Command.”
Now raw statistics need interpretation and it is possible that Spitfires were sent in first to engage the ME-109’s leaving the bombers to the Hurricanes. But the numbers don’t show that the Hurricane was all that overrated.
Further data about the Spitfire-Hurricane comparison: “The Battle of Britain was fought between 10 July and 31 October 1940. At the beginning, Fighter Command had 27 squadrons of Hurricanes and 19 of Spitfires and it was the Hurricanes that bore the brunt of the fighting. Between the beginning of July and the end of October, 565 Hurricanes and 352 Spitfires were lost.”
So Hurricanes had about 59% of the total planes and lost 62% of the total losses. Not at all out of line.
Now as to the P-38. It was a 1937 design of an unusual configuration and had a lot of growing pains as This P-38 Site says. For one thing, in the beginning its turn rate was terrible because it had been designed as a high altitude bomber intercepter and no high maneuverability was though to be required. Early WWII experience changed that view.
An airplane turns by rolling on its side to that the lift is used to make the turn. The P-38, with its twin booms had a large polar moment of intertia which made for a slow roll rate and it took forever to get into a turn. So they made the ailerons bigger to try to increase the roll rate. But the control forces then were so big that the pilot wasn’t strong enough to take advantage of the large control surfaces. So they added hydraulic boost to the aileron control and the P-38 became a good airplane indeed.
A comparison of bare specifications from this P-51 Mustang site doesn’t show a lot of difference between the two.
Oh “nswgru1”! You must write us a post telling us about your progress! Are you using a real Merlin engine? Are you building the airframe from the ground up or are you restoring an existing airframe and putting on ‘new skins’? I get really excited about such stories.
Oooh! Something I can contribute!
There’s a place up in Everett, WA that is restoring one for display and got the rights to make five duplicates as part of the process. I understand that they are virtually identical to the originals with the exception of safety related improvements to the engines.
I’m here with two “me too’s” - The Spitfire and the P-51D are the finest forms that flew in that war.
And it hasn’t been mentioned yet, but the Japanese Tony is every bit as pretty, I think.
The Zero, FW-190 and P-47D are all beautiful and VERY effective radial engined killahs.
I thought the OP was about aesthetics? The P-38 was a good plane, as was the Me-110. But are twin-engined planes “sexy”? I don’t think so.
So, another vote here for the coolest looking plane ever, the Focke Wulf 190.