If you look at military planes, particularly fighter planes, from the Cold War era, there is a really noticeable difference between the American/Russian planes and the British planes. The American and Russian designs are subtly distinctive from each other, but the British designs are way on a different aesthetic wavelength. I’m not saying they look necessarily cooler than the others, but there’s something about their designs that’s more rounded, curved, and futuristic. Anyone who knows about fighter planes will know what I’m talking about.
Surely the British did not need to adopt this kind of style for their planes. The American and Russian designs, which were much more angular, clearly were aerodynamic enough to accomplish the roles that they were designed for.
Regardless of what actually led to the planes looking so stylistically different - when military planes are designed, do the designers literally sit around and talk about “making it look cool/interesting/graceful” and factor that into their designs, and then among the military personnel who ultimately choose which aircraft designs are to be produced on a large scale, to what degree does the appearance factor in? When the military brass sat down with McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed and North American and so on, choosing from among many prototypes to be developed further, were they ever like “this one just looks cooler than that one”?
Are aesthetics given any consideration at all in the design of military aircraft? Does anyone have a factual answer and some kind of aeronautical or military knowledge to back it up?
Not being an airplane buff, I believe I’m a reasonable observer. Looking through those pictures, I’m sure I can find US planes that look similar to each of them.
Only if you’re referring to prototypes or failed designs.
The Vought Cutlass is the only American jet that comes close to looking like the De Havilland Vampire or Venom; and the latter were in regular service while the former was phased out almost as quickly as it was introduced.
America’s only delta-wing strategic bomber was the B-58 Hustler, which was far more angular and pointed in every way than Avro’s Vulcan.
I’m not aware of any American jet fighter design that is similar to the Hawker Hunter or the Blackburn Buccaneer.
Yeeeaaahh, I just liked at those and decided you’re not an objective judge. They’re just planes. While they may be distinguishable from other planes, it’s nothing to do with them being particularly stylish.
Aircraft are shaped by the demands of their mission and the state of aeronautical technology at the time of their design. At least for warplanes, there are no aesthetic design considerations.
What, are you kidding … that De Havilland Vampire is a complete knock-off of the P-38 … I thought the Avro Vulcan was an F-106 at first … anyway … I’m guessing the engineers design the aircraft to be the perfect aerodynamic shape for the intended purpose … any styling features would reduce the aircraft’s effectiveness … the military generally won’t do that …
In the small civil aircraft arena … we have Piper making low-wing aircraft and Cessna making high-wing aircraft … here perfect effectiveness isn’t so important and we have two styles of aircraft to choose from … I don’t know all the differences just that throwing big rocks out of a Cessna is easier …
Military planes define the cool look … it doesn’t have to be designed into them …
Doesn’t seem like an unreasonable idea to me at all - the plane’s first “mission” surely is to get its design selected and funded over those of its competitors during the procurement phase.
(For example, to me, all pickup trucks pretty much look the same and do the same thing - yet people laying down the money for one will often prefer the “style” of a Ford or a Chevy or a Dodge or whatever.)
It’s not a bad question - when you look at military planes, some of them stand out as quite extraordinary pieces of design - and some look cooler or more imposing than others, for example the Saab Viggen, the B2 Bomber and the SR-71 Blackbird - all pretty ‘cool looking’ planes in my opinion.
But the ‘cool look’ of the plane is almost always founded in some design choice such as stability, stealth, speed, range, handling, etc.
I think there probably are examples of ground vehicles where ‘looks imposing’ could have been part of the design, but with planes, it seems like all of the design effort has to be invested in making them good at what they do. Sometimes, that accidentally makes them look cool.
Remember the JSF competition? Lockheed Martin presented the X-35 and Boeing had the X-32.
Each had its strengths and weaknesses. One constraint was the STOVL capability – basically the ability to hover. Each company had chosen a different approach, and somehow that dictated the shape of the planes. The X-35 looked like a badass jet plane from a near-future sci-fi movie, the X-32 looked like… some sort of household appliance. One journalist said it had a shape only a mother would love.
I’m not saying that nobody used objective criteria when comparing them. But I’m pretty sure some people at the Pentagon eventually said “We’re not going to be striking fear in the hearts of our enemies using those!”. The X-35 became the F-35.
British planes may have put less emphasis on speed, in which case you would expect rounder shapes. Look at the E-2 Hawkeye or the C-130, they’re designed to go slower than fighters/interdictors/supersonic bombers and they’re rounder too.
British main battle tanks also put less emphasis on speed than their US and USSR counterparts.
It’s quite possible that the YF-22 was preferred to the YF-23 at least in part because the YF-23 looks a little unconventional and not as aesthetic as the YF-22 even though the YF-23 was arguably a better design overall: Lockheed YF-22 - Wikipedia
There may be design habits which countries hang on to if they don’t have a pressing need to change, even if may now be suboptimal. Warsaw pact tanks usually have round turrets whereas NATO tank turrets tend to be angular. You can also tell that the AK-47, AK-74, Dragunov and PKM come from the same country. Germans have kept a very high rate of fire on their infantry GPMG all the way from WWII. They also tried to adapt that very high rate of fire principle to assault rifles with the G11 program.
That’s true. After all, no engineer starts a project with a completely blank page. Every individual, every organization has its own preferences and institutional habits, based on what worked before, what they know how to do and what they believe is the best way to do things. Couple that with the inherent conservatism of large organizations, and they’ll eventually develop different “looks”, even they didn’t plan to.
Yes, and aircraft in general. Aircraft are overwhelmingly symmetrical because symmetry appeals to the human eye, and people tend to dislike and distrust asymmetrical aircraft designs regardless of any technical advantages they have. As a result asymmetrical aircraft are a tough sell, and mostly relegated to experimental one-offs.
In general, appearance does matter to the extent it affects the likelihood of the aircraft getting funding. The military is unlikely to pick an aircraft design just because it looks cool, but they’re only human; it’s inevitable that there’s going to be a tendency to pick the good looking aircraft over the ugly one, all things being equal.
