@Mustang51 I'm still amazed, honestly. I was hoping one of my builds would be featured in the future, but I was definitely not expecting it to be this one, nor so soon.
I cannot help but wonder whether it was the aesthetics, or the performance/functionality, or both, lol.
@MSGamezYXZ360 I just eyeball things, no blueprints. I do use reference images on my phone, and try to replicate the features in my aircraft sometimes to get the feel. I've tried using blueprints in SP and it just isn't for me, I prefer eyeballing things. When you're doing fictional aircraft, this also helps as you're more free and not bound to a blueprint.
Also, no, I'm not in any SP server (I assume you mean Discord and the like), at least not for the moment.
@MSGamezYXZ360 Thanks! It should be noted, however, that I don't actually build planes daily. As I've said a few times before, I've been building planes in and off for quite some time now (Almost 2 years, I believe), but very sparsely, and only a few days ago did I decide to create an account and share the ones I took to be worth posting. I have many more, but a lot of them are very crude, have poor flying characteristics from when I was still learning, or are just overall not worth it to post here. the Flecha right here, for instance, was the first fighter I made which I felt "whoa, okay, now this is decent". Naturally, I've done small touch-ups in some older planes before posting them.
As such, in a few days you'll probably see me suddenly stop posting and then you're only going to see me very rarely around these parts - that's when the pile of stuff I'm sitting on to post ends, lel. I'm almost there, in fact. Of course, I still build stuff, but not all the time.
As for inspiration... I love planes! That's about it. I really love planes, and they decided my career choice. I love reading about them, I love looking at them, I love drawing them, and I love creating my own in SimplePlanes. The inspiration just comes by itself. This one, for instance, was obviously inspired by the Super Tucano; I think I got the idea planted in my head after watching a documentary on the Tucano family, called Tucano 35... It's on Youtube if you want to check it out (put there by the company that made it themselves, by the way; they made the documentary as a free-to-watch collaboration with the Brazilian Air Force to commemorate the 35 years of the T-27), and though it's in Portuguese there are subtitles in English. They're a bit wrong at several times, but hey, it might be worth the watch.
@RailfanEthan Yeah, and the external shapes are coming along nicely too IMO. It'll be a while until I finish and post it, but I can tag you when I do if you'd like me to.
@Mustang51 If it looks right, it will fly right, someone once said. I gotta admit I made this one mostly for the looks of it, but I was surprised when I took it out for a spin and saw it handled pretty well.
@Brields95 Doesn't it? I ended up growing attached to this little thing, lol. I think it's the prettiest plane I've ever built, even compared to more recent ones. Glad you liked it!
@Mustang51 Thanks! The handling this thing has at low speed surprised me a bit, but my favorite parts are those torpedo/missile tubes. They really give the look that extra "oomph", IMO.
@Mustang51 I feel your pain, I'm trying to do aircraft with simple cockpits as of lately and changing to that has been... interesting. Dunno if I'll stick to it as it consumes a lot of time (and parts), lol.
In any case, enough about that, since I dropped in to comment, might as well talk about your ship right there, lel. Great lines as always, part count doesn't seem too large for the level of refinement its shape has. I'm a big fan of the Skipjack's looks, with that nearly perfect teardrop. Not exactly the best engineering compromise ever, but it does the job very well and damn, it looks great.
@MintLynx I'm not the guy who made the comment but thought I'd clear things up, lel. No, it wasn't built yet, though they might have started building the sections (I don't think so though, would have to look into it). The SN-10 Álvaro Alberto, which is the enlarged Riachuelo-Class (which itself is a longer Scorpène) with a nuclear reactor is going to be the last of the Riachuelo "family", so to speak, to be built. The Riachuelo was finished last year, later this year they're planning on launching the second (I think it's the Humaitá), and then there's going to be other two to go before we even get to the Álvaro Alberto. Needless to say, given the complexity and utter seriousness of everything involved in building a country's first nuclear submarine and preparing the Navy to recieve it, we're probably looking at several years between the comissioning of the last diesel-electric Riachuelo-class and that of the SN-10.
Original plans were for this sub to be delivered in 2020, but that's from way back. More recent chronograms had its delivery planned for 2025, which is a realistic number considering the Riachuelo was delivered in late 2018; however, due to recent budget cuts, that was postponed to 2027. With the Navy getting more cuts this year, who knows when that's actually going to happen. I'm betting in somewhere around 2030, personally.
@Mustang51 Thanks a lot! I should have a "I can't believe it's not a Tucano" coming out on a few days, if you're interested in COIN birds. It's one of my most recent ones though, so it's pretty far down the list.
@Mustang51 Thank you! By the way, I uploaded that boat I was talking to you about some days ago. I did put a VTOL engine and a lot (in exeperiments, more than what's in the uploaded version even) of RCS nozzles, but sadly that didn't correct control inversion at high speed. It did improve low speed handling though, so it was a great help!
@Liensis To be fair, most land-based maritime patrol aircraft are indeed airliners adapted for military use. The P-3 Orion is built upon the Lockheed Electra, the P-8 Poseidon is built upon the Boeing 737-800. Purpose-built maritime patrol aircraft sometimes end up looking like airliners too, like the Kawasaki P-1.
@Mustang51 Thanks! Had some predator vibes, but it was mostly me messing around with fuselage parts and eventually a shape came up which I thought, "hey, I could make a drone out of this", so I did, lel.
@atgxtg Oh, I did mess around with that too. I used all sorts of angles on the canards, and with one of them I got really good trim, but I found it didn't turn as sharply anymore. Decided to keep it as is. If you want straight flying though, setting the canards to 0.5 to 0.7 degrees, or making it a semi-symmetrical airfoil does the trick nicely indeed.
@RareHeroicDancer Oh, for now I'm posting the pile of designs I've got sitting around, planes I did quite some time ago. I've still got a lot to go through in that list, lol. Next up is a maritime patrol aircraft.
I have no idea what I'm gonna do after I'm finished with all these, I do things when the ideas pop up in my mind, lel.
It gives me some slight Cutlass vibes, if the Cutlass had been developed a few years later with supersonic aerodynamics and all. Its design screams late 50's, I love it.
@Denniscx With the landing gear it currently has, I wouldn't put it anywhere near a carrier, lel. But if you want to mess around with it, sure. SimplePlanes has the "sucessor" system for that exact purpose, I think.
@Mustang51 oh yeah, simplicity has a beauty all of its own. Keep in mind though, that the lower part count is also due to the lack of things like custom landing gear, custom cockpit, etc., as these tend to add a lot of parts.
@Mumpsy I see, I suspected it was going to have something to do with airfoils, these have caused me much trouble in the past, lel. Thanks for the heads-up!
@Mumpsy just a disclaimer, it's one of my older birds and I didn't bother messing around with it much before posting. But please do, I'd love to know and would really appreciate it. Glad you liked it, btw!
@BlackhattAircraft This was one of my first birds I felt was worthy of sharing, lel. In fact, I did this one right after I had just learned how to balance things out properly. I've given it a few touch-ups here and there since then, but it's mostly the same.
@Mustang51 Yeah, I thought about adding some wing struts last second but couldn't think of a way to get them to look right. Perhaps one day I'll rework this little thing into an "older" version with fixed gear, struts and a serious remodelling on that nose, which I'm not quite happy with.
@Mustang51 Yeah I did back in the day, and at least then, they didn't allow corrective surgery either. I'm happy with the path I chose instead though, so there's that.
And it's funny you mention that, our version of the "Thunderbirds" flies A-29s! They're a blast to look at, and because prop aircraft have unique characteristics such as torque they can pull off some crazy stunts at near stall speed. My favorite one is an adapted variation of the Lomcovak.
As for the F-35, that's a complicated subject, lel. We meme a lot about that plane, but honestly it's a pretty damn good aircraft, and with the way it's being conducted it's not going to end up being too expensive for countries to buy (let's see how operation/maintenance will turn out), especially considering the capabilities it brings to the table. It's been through some troubled development, sure, but I'd wager a good part of that is higher ups wanting to rush things. At the end of the day I think it's going to be an amazing fighter. I used to dislike its looks but it's grown on me lately.
@Mustang51 Oh, I do plan on getting a license on day, but flight hours are expensive around here (well, I suppose around the world as well, avgas ain't cheap) but right now I've got my hands full with trying to get to be able to build them, lol. I passed the written exam for the Air Force Academy but couldn't cut the physical ones (got eliminated by eyesight, it's just good enough that I don't need glasses but AFA around here doesn't accept anything less than 20/20. We've got few planes and the folk flying them have got to be the best of the best) so since I've always had an interest for figuring out how stuff works and why, and a lot of interest in the subject, I decided to go for engineering.
Also yeah the Mirage 2000 lags behind a bit, especially on electronics and payload, but with its looks I can definitely forgive it for that! Pretty good lift at high AoA though, vortex generation in slender deltas is nothing to scoff at.
Also yeah, sadly there's not much that can be done once we get part a certain point, where combat is decided mostly by electronics and you've gotta get a radar as big and powerful as possible on that plane, enough ECM gear, etc. Still, there are some pretty good planes that still follow the general outline of that concept - adapted to today's reality, where you can't make things so simple or cheap anymore, but you can reduce maintenance time/requirement and operational cost. The F-16 itself and the Gripen are two neat examples of this.
And yeah, light attack aircraft have a special place in my heart. The Universal/Tucano family also has quite the interesting story that would make an entire post on its own, but suffice to say it's got some German influence in it and a man named Heinrich Focke is involved. I quite like the Skyraider (though it's not exactly "light") and the Bronco too, the guys who flew them back in Vietnam had guts.
And likewise, it's great to talk to someone who enjoys planes that much, as well. It's a rare opportunity, even for a guy doing aeronautical engineering. Most people here want to work in banks and such.
There are, of course, many other great guys with amazing stories, Rex Beisel, Jack Northrop, R.J Mitchell, Jack Northrop, the aformentioned Jiro Horikoshi and Willy Messerchmitt, the list goes on. Just like with the planes, there's too many to count.
A plane that gets special mentions for the looks alone is the Mirage 2000, beautiful bird. The F-16 and MiG-29 also get a special mention for having marked my childhool (thank you Novalogic) and to this day they're among my favorite modern-day fighters.
Then there's the planes I'm biased towards - the PBY-5 Catalina and P-47D Thunderbolt are planes I absolutely love but a good part of that is probably because Brazil used them in combat during WWII, lel. Then there's the planes designed here (or in partnerships like the AMX A-1/A-11 Ghibli), especially the Tucano family, with the T-25 Universal, T-27 Tucano and A-29 Super Tucano. They're amazing birds in their own right, and they follow that design philosophy of simplicity, low cost and effectiveness - I guess you could call it advanced simplicity, if it makes any sense - but then again, I'm biased, lel.
Btw, sorry for over-extending myself like this, but this topic really gets me going, lol. I love talking about planes.
@Mustang51 Hard question right there. I like all of them, but I suppose I have a strong preference for military aircraft and, somewhat, for general aviation/sports aircraft. I have some specific planes that rank among my favorites but that's too many to list, lol. For the most part though, I generally have a weak spot for planes that are simple but high-performance nonetheless. To me, that's the essence of engineering, make things as simple and easy to maintain as possible while keeping their effectiveness, and it requires a great deal of effort. So there's stuff like the A-4, Folland Gnat, F-5 and derivations, well, most fighters around. Why not, the Bf 109 and the Zero as well. The Zero was designed with several restrictions due to Japanese industry at the time, especially on the engine department, yet Horikoshi made such a well-refined design that it was one of the best fighters out there for quite some time until it just couldn't keep up anymore. The 109 was also designed to be as smooth, simple and high-performance as possible; Willy had experience with gliders and sports aircraft, and took the lesson of keeping weight down to the heart. Even after it had long been surpassed by other designs, its more advanced late variants could keep up a fight with some of the best Allied fighters around. And since I got myself started of WWII planes, why not mention the F4U Corsair - it doesn't exactly follow this "philosophy" I've been describing so far, but something about it just drags me in, lel. IMO, it's the finest fighter America produced during WWII.
And the men behind these aircraft are also something I enjoy reading about. Both the pilots who flew them and the engineers who designed them. There are many great engineers behind these machines who I admire a lot, and in the specific case of light fighters, these guys were going against all trends and made something that was absolutely successful. Ed Heinemann with the A-4, Ed Schmued with the F-5, W.E.W Petter didn't have much luck with the Gnat (though it was a plane that proved a point and led to many follow-ons like the G.91) but he had the very successful Canberra, and then we've got the absolute legend that is Kyle Johnson, which also made something following these principles, kind of a light fighter: the F-104. It gets a lot of bad rep, but when you really look into it, it's an amazing little machine too.
There are, of course, many other great guys with amazing stories, Rex Beisel, Jack Northrop, R.J
@Mustang51 Thanks! I didn't have the Vautour in mind, but now that you mention it, there's definitely a resemblance with how the engines are spaced apart, and the way the intakes are made. Might have been my subconsious after one hour too much of War Thunder...
Thanks a bunch, I'll try to stick as close to that as I can, though 3-6PM CET is a bit early for me most of the times. Still got one to go today though.
@Mustang51 Now that is something that might be pretty useful for one design in particular I have waiting up there in the queue. I did a fast patrol craft (my first and only ship, lel) some time ago, but one of the big problems I never managed to solve was that at high speed, the primary control system I had devised was ineffective as aerodynamic forces countered it so hard it actually inverted controls a bit, and using the secondary control system (underwater rudders) caused it to flip over! I'll definitely try that out on that little thing before I get around to posting it.
@XxHELLCAT2GOOD4UxX Sure thing.
@Mustang51 I'm still amazed, honestly. I was hoping one of my builds would be featured in the future, but I was definitely not expecting it to be this one, nor so soon.
I cannot help but wonder whether it was the aesthetics, or the performance/functionality, or both, lol.
@Aeromen @Sadboye12 Thanks a lot, guys! In fact, let this comment be directed to all of you who upvoted or just enjoyed this aircraft.
It blows my mind that this was featured in the front page, seriously. I'd like to thank every single one of you guys, you're awesome.
+1@MSGamezYXZ360 I just eyeball things, no blueprints. I do use reference images on my phone, and try to replicate the features in my aircraft sometimes to get the feel. I've tried using blueprints in SP and it just isn't for me, I prefer eyeballing things. When you're doing fictional aircraft, this also helps as you're more free and not bound to a blueprint.
Also, no, I'm not in any SP server (I assume you mean Discord and the like), at least not for the moment.
@SakuraSaku Thanks! I hope you had as much fun with this as I did.
@Mustang51 Original plane, do not steal lol
Thanks man!
@MSGamezYXZ360 Thanks! It should be noted, however, that I don't actually build planes daily. As I've said a few times before, I've been building planes in and off for quite some time now (Almost 2 years, I believe), but very sparsely, and only a few days ago did I decide to create an account and share the ones I took to be worth posting. I have many more, but a lot of them are very crude, have poor flying characteristics from when I was still learning, or are just overall not worth it to post here. the Flecha right here, for instance, was the first fighter I made which I felt "whoa, okay, now this is decent". Naturally, I've done small touch-ups in some older planes before posting them.
As such, in a few days you'll probably see me suddenly stop posting and then you're only going to see me very rarely around these parts - that's when the pile of stuff I'm sitting on to post ends, lel. I'm almost there, in fact. Of course, I still build stuff, but not all the time.
As for inspiration... I love planes! That's about it. I really love planes, and they decided my career choice. I love reading about them, I love looking at them, I love drawing them, and I love creating my own in SimplePlanes. The inspiration just comes by itself. This one, for instance, was obviously inspired by the Super Tucano; I think I got the idea planted in my head after watching a documentary on the Tucano family, called Tucano 35... It's on Youtube if you want to check it out (put there by the company that made it themselves, by the way; they made the documentary as a free-to-watch collaboration with the Brazilian Air Force to commemorate the 35 years of the T-27), and though it's in Portuguese there are subtitles in English. They're a bit wrong at several times, but hey, it might be worth the watch.
+1@Mustang51 this is the one I was talking about the other day
Not!-A-Tucano
@RailfanEthan Yeah, and the external shapes are coming along nicely too IMO. It'll be a while until I finish and post it, but I can tag you when I do if you'd like me to.
@randomusername You should probably go get something to eat, lel
I hope I didn't disappoint with false hopes
@Mustang51 If it looks right, it will fly right, someone once said. I gotta admit I made this one mostly for the looks of it, but I was surprised when I took it out for a spin and saw it handled pretty well.
@BlackBoA yee, with 54 parts no less
I now recall I had been asked to tag ya, so here we go.
@Mustang51
@Brields95 Doesn't it? I ended up growing attached to this little thing, lol. I think it's the prettiest plane I've ever built, even compared to more recent ones. Glad you liked it!
@Evenstsrike333 Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
+1@OmegaDestroyer Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed fliying it! I know I had a lot of fun building this thing.
@Mustang51 Thanks! the Vought "pancakes" always fascinated me. I had to do it at some point, lel.
@asteroidbook345 Imagine my shock the first time I pitched up in this thing, lmao.
@Mustang51 I try! Thanks, man.
@Mustang51 I feel this might be my build. Thanks for letting me know.
+1@Mustang51 Thanks! The handling this thing has at low speed surprised me a bit, but my favorite parts are those torpedo/missile tubes. They really give the look that extra "oomph", IMO.
+1@Mustang51 I feel your pain, I'm trying to do aircraft with simple cockpits as of lately and changing to that has been... interesting. Dunno if I'll stick to it as it consumes a lot of time (and parts), lol.
In any case, enough about that, since I dropped in to comment, might as well talk about your ship right there, lel. Great lines as always, part count doesn't seem too large for the level of refinement its shape has. I'm a big fan of the Skipjack's looks, with that nearly perfect teardrop. Not exactly the best engineering compromise ever, but it does the job very well and damn, it looks great.
+1@MintLynx I'm not the guy who made the comment but thought I'd clear things up, lel. No, it wasn't built yet, though they might have started building the sections (I don't think so though, would have to look into it). The SN-10 Álvaro Alberto, which is the enlarged Riachuelo-Class (which itself is a longer Scorpène) with a nuclear reactor is going to be the last of the Riachuelo "family", so to speak, to be built. The Riachuelo was finished last year, later this year they're planning on launching the second (I think it's the Humaitá), and then there's going to be other two to go before we even get to the Álvaro Alberto. Needless to say, given the complexity and utter seriousness of everything involved in building a country's first nuclear submarine and preparing the Navy to recieve it, we're probably looking at several years between the comissioning of the last diesel-electric Riachuelo-class and that of the SN-10.
Original plans were for this sub to be delivered in 2020, but that's from way back. More recent chronograms had its delivery planned for 2025, which is a realistic number considering the Riachuelo was delivered in late 2018; however, due to recent budget cuts, that was postponed to 2027. With the Navy getting more cuts this year, who knows when that's actually going to happen. I'm betting in somewhere around 2030, personally.
+1@Mustang51 Thanks a lot! I should have a "I can't believe it's not a Tucano" coming out on a few days, if you're interested in COIN birds. It's one of my most recent ones though, so it's pretty far down the list.
@Mustang51 Thank you! By the way, I uploaded that boat I was talking to you about some days ago. I did put a VTOL engine and a lot (in exeperiments, more than what's in the uploaded version even) of RCS nozzles, but sadly that didn't correct control inversion at high speed. It did improve low speed handling though, so it was a great help!
+1Now this is what I call a high-effort, high-performance meme
@Ultra0 It's not small, it's tiny! It packs a punch a lot larger than itself, though.
@Liensis To be fair, most land-based maritime patrol aircraft are indeed airliners adapted for military use. The P-3 Orion is built upon the Lockheed Electra, the P-8 Poseidon is built upon the Boeing 737-800. Purpose-built maritime patrol aircraft sometimes end up looking like airliners too, like the Kawasaki P-1.
+2@Mustang51 Thanks! Had some predator vibes, but it was mostly me messing around with fuselage parts and eventually a shape came up which I thought, "hey, I could make a drone out of this", so I did, lel.
+1@atgxtg Oh, I did mess around with that too. I used all sorts of angles on the canards, and with one of them I got really good trim, but I found it didn't turn as sharply anymore. Decided to keep it as is. If you want straight flying though, setting the canards to 0.5 to 0.7 degrees, or making it a semi-symmetrical airfoil does the trick nicely indeed.
@RareHeroicDancer Oh, for now I'm posting the pile of designs I've got sitting around, planes I did quite some time ago. I've still got a lot to go through in that list, lol. Next up is a maritime patrol aircraft.
I have no idea what I'm gonna do after I'm finished with all these, I do things when the ideas pop up in my mind, lel.
It gives me some slight Cutlass vibes, if the Cutlass had been developed a few years later with supersonic aerodynamics and all. Its design screams late 50's, I love it.
@Denniscx With the landing gear it currently has, I wouldn't put it anywhere near a carrier, lel. But if you want to mess around with it, sure. SimplePlanes has the "sucessor" system for that exact purpose, I think.
@MSGamezYXZ360 Thanks man! Glad you enjoyed it.
@Mustang51 oh yeah, simplicity has a beauty all of its own. Keep in mind though, that the lower part count is also due to the lack of things like custom landing gear, custom cockpit, etc., as these tend to add a lot of parts.
+2@Mumpsy I see, I suspected it was going to have something to do with airfoils, these have caused me much trouble in the past, lel. Thanks for the heads-up!
@Mumpsy just a disclaimer, it's one of my older birds and I didn't bother messing around with it much before posting. But please do, I'd love to know and would really appreciate it. Glad you liked it, btw!
@Mustang51 Perhaps attached to these wing sections between the aleirons and the flaps? I guess that'd work.
@BlackhattAircraft This was one of my first birds I felt was worthy of sharing, lel. In fact, I did this one right after I had just learned how to balance things out properly. I've given it a few touch-ups here and there since then, but it's mostly the same.
@LlamaIndustries Thanks man! Hope you enjoy flying it around.
+1@Mustang51 Yeah, I thought about adding some wing struts last second but couldn't think of a way to get them to look right. Perhaps one day I'll rework this little thing into an "older" version with fixed gear, struts and a serious remodelling on that nose, which I'm not quite happy with.
@Mustang51 Yeah I did back in the day, and at least then, they didn't allow corrective surgery either. I'm happy with the path I chose instead though, so there's that.
And it's funny you mention that, our version of the "Thunderbirds" flies A-29s! They're a blast to look at, and because prop aircraft have unique characteristics such as torque they can pull off some crazy stunts at near stall speed. My favorite one is an adapted variation of the Lomcovak.
As for the F-35, that's a complicated subject, lel. We meme a lot about that plane, but honestly it's a pretty damn good aircraft, and with the way it's being conducted it's not going to end up being too expensive for countries to buy (let's see how operation/maintenance will turn out), especially considering the capabilities it brings to the table. It's been through some troubled development, sure, but I'd wager a good part of that is higher ups wanting to rush things. At the end of the day I think it's going to be an amazing fighter. I used to dislike its looks but it's grown on me lately.
This is a friend-shaped plane. It's adorable, and I love it.
@Mustang51 Oh, I do plan on getting a license on day, but flight hours are expensive around here (well, I suppose around the world as well, avgas ain't cheap) but right now I've got my hands full with trying to get to be able to build them, lol. I passed the written exam for the Air Force Academy but couldn't cut the physical ones (got eliminated by eyesight, it's just good enough that I don't need glasses but AFA around here doesn't accept anything less than 20/20. We've got few planes and the folk flying them have got to be the best of the best) so since I've always had an interest for figuring out how stuff works and why, and a lot of interest in the subject, I decided to go for engineering.
Also yeah the Mirage 2000 lags behind a bit, especially on electronics and payload, but with its looks I can definitely forgive it for that! Pretty good lift at high AoA though, vortex generation in slender deltas is nothing to scoff at.
Also yeah, sadly there's not much that can be done once we get part a certain point, where combat is decided mostly by electronics and you've gotta get a radar as big and powerful as possible on that plane, enough ECM gear, etc. Still, there are some pretty good planes that still follow the general outline of that concept - adapted to today's reality, where you can't make things so simple or cheap anymore, but you can reduce maintenance time/requirement and operational cost. The F-16 itself and the Gripen are two neat examples of this.
And yeah, light attack aircraft have a special place in my heart. The Universal/Tucano family also has quite the interesting story that would make an entire post on its own, but suffice to say it's got some German influence in it and a man named Heinrich Focke is involved. I quite like the Skyraider (though it's not exactly "light") and the Bronco too, the guys who flew them back in Vietnam had guts.
And likewise, it's great to talk to someone who enjoys planes that much, as well. It's a rare opportunity, even for a guy doing aeronautical engineering. Most people here want to work in banks and such.
There are, of course, many other great guys with amazing stories, Rex Beisel, Jack Northrop, R.J Mitchell, Jack Northrop, the aformentioned Jiro Horikoshi and Willy Messerchmitt, the list goes on. Just like with the planes, there's too many to count.
A plane that gets special mentions for the looks alone is the Mirage 2000, beautiful bird. The F-16 and MiG-29 also get a special mention for having marked my childhool (thank you Novalogic) and to this day they're among my favorite modern-day fighters.
Then there's the planes I'm biased towards - the PBY-5 Catalina and P-47D Thunderbolt are planes I absolutely love but a good part of that is probably because Brazil used them in combat during WWII, lel. Then there's the planes designed here (or in partnerships like the AMX A-1/A-11 Ghibli), especially the Tucano family, with the T-25 Universal, T-27 Tucano and A-29 Super Tucano. They're amazing birds in their own right, and they follow that design philosophy of simplicity, low cost and effectiveness - I guess you could call it advanced simplicity, if it makes any sense - but then again, I'm biased, lel.
Btw, sorry for over-extending myself like this, but this topic really gets me going, lol. I love talking about planes.
+1@Mustang51 Hard question right there. I like all of them, but I suppose I have a strong preference for military aircraft and, somewhat, for general aviation/sports aircraft. I have some specific planes that rank among my favorites but that's too many to list, lol. For the most part though, I generally have a weak spot for planes that are simple but high-performance nonetheless. To me, that's the essence of engineering, make things as simple and easy to maintain as possible while keeping their effectiveness, and it requires a great deal of effort. So there's stuff like the A-4, Folland Gnat, F-5 and derivations, well, most fighters around. Why not, the Bf 109 and the Zero as well. The Zero was designed with several restrictions due to Japanese industry at the time, especially on the engine department, yet Horikoshi made such a well-refined design that it was one of the best fighters out there for quite some time until it just couldn't keep up anymore. The 109 was also designed to be as smooth, simple and high-performance as possible; Willy had experience with gliders and sports aircraft, and took the lesson of keeping weight down to the heart. Even after it had long been surpassed by other designs, its more advanced late variants could keep up a fight with some of the best Allied fighters around. And since I got myself started of WWII planes, why not mention the F4U Corsair - it doesn't exactly follow this "philosophy" I've been describing so far, but something about it just drags me in, lel. IMO, it's the finest fighter America produced during WWII.
And the men behind these aircraft are also something I enjoy reading about. Both the pilots who flew them and the engineers who designed them. There are many great engineers behind these machines who I admire a lot, and in the specific case of light fighters, these guys were going against all trends and made something that was absolutely successful. Ed Heinemann with the A-4, Ed Schmued with the F-5, W.E.W Petter didn't have much luck with the Gnat (though it was a plane that proved a point and led to many follow-ons like the G.91) but he had the very successful Canberra, and then we've got the absolute legend that is Kyle Johnson, which also made something following these principles, kind of a light fighter: the F-104. It gets a lot of bad rep, but when you really look into it, it's an amazing little machine too.
There are, of course, many other great guys with amazing stories, Rex Beisel, Jack Northrop, R.J
+1@Mustang51 Thanks! I didn't have the Vautour in mind, but now that you mention it, there's definitely a resemblance with how the engines are spaced apart, and the way the intakes are made. Might have been my subconsious after one hour too much of War Thunder...
Thanks a bunch, I'll try to stick as close to that as I can, though 3-6PM CET is a bit early for me most of the times. Still got one to go today though.
@Mustang51 Now that is something that might be pretty useful for one design in particular I have waiting up there in the queue. I did a fast patrol craft (my first and only ship, lel) some time ago, but one of the big problems I never managed to solve was that at high speed, the primary control system I had devised was ineffective as aerodynamic forces countered it so hard it actually inverted controls a bit, and using the secondary control system (underwater rudders) caused it to flip over! I'll definitely try that out on that little thing before I get around to posting it.