Defense Aircraft We Love

An airshow crowd-pleaser because of its famous engine howl and ominous shape, this impressive delta-wing British Cold War warrior traced its roots to a Royal Air Force nuclear bomber requirement issued in 1946. The prototype Avro Vulcan first flew in 1952 and became operational five years later. Nicknamed the “Tin Triangle,” the type’s only combat missions occurred in 1982 in the twilight of its career, when the Vulcan was deployed in Operation Black Buck against Argentine forces, which had occupied the Falkland Islands. The last airworthy Vulcan, a specially restored B.2 variant later converted into an air refueling tanker, was retired from the show display circuit in 2015. Credit: RAF

This attempt by BAE Systems to turn the original Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, already a maritime patrol aircraft, into a novel-design aerial early-warning platform resulted in a truly beautiful-ugly result. In just six years, the aircraft went from first flight to retirement with three prototypes and a mass of disappointments. The Boeing E-3 Sentry ultimately filled the gap the Nimrod was intended to fill. The program’s cost overruns reached nearly three times the original estimate, making it one of the all-stars of defense procurement scandals in the UK. The incident forced Britain to open itself to outside competition. Credit: Mike Freer/Wikimedia

What isn’t there to love about a Moose? These strategic airlifters do anything, go anywhere and the engines suck up puddles when reversing! Originally designed by McDonnell Douglas, the C-17 took to the skies for the first time in September 1991, and 277 of the 279 produced still grace our skies today. Credit: Daniel Williams

The Chinook stands out compared with all the rest. The CH-47’s tandem rotors create a “wokka-wokka” soundtrack that you can hear before a Chinook is visible in the sky. Even with its first flight in September 1961, the Chinook remains in production and is still a valuable asset to armed forces around the globe. Credit: Daniel Williams

Finally retired by the Royal Air Force in June 2006, after 55 years of service, the English Electric Canberra started life as a Westland concept for a fighter-bomber. When designer W.E.W. Petter left in 1944 to join English Electric, the Canberra became a light bomber. And the rest is history. More than 20 variants were developed, with 950 built in the UK and Australia, plus another 400 in the U.S. as Martin B-57s. The simple Canberra proved supremely adaptable—and almost irreplaceable; the RAF’s photo-reconnaissance PR.9s operated over Iraq and Afghanistan up to 2006.Credit: Royal Air Force

“Able Dog,” “Spad,” “Sandy”—the nicknames given to the Douglas A-1 Skyraider indicate the affection and admiration bestowed on Ed Heinemann’s slow, simple and solid attack aircraft. Famously designed in the space of one night in June 1944 as a carrier-based bomber-torpedo aircraft, the “AD” was too late for World War II but saw much action in the Korean and Vietnam wars, retiring from U.S. Navy and Air Force service by the early 1970s after 3,180 had been built and used as attack, airborne early-warning, electric-warfare and combat-rescue aircraft. Credit: U.S. Navy

Sound is one of the five major senses humans use to create memories, along with sight, taste, smell and touch. For me, growing up on an island and attending a school so close to an airport that a runway approach light stood in the playing fields, it is the sound and sight of the Douglas DC-3 that makes this one of my all-time favorite aircraft. The DC-3 was the first commercially practical transport but earned its stripes during World War II as the military C-47 variant. One of more than 10,000 built for wartime service, a former U.S. Army Air Force aircraft turned over to the Royal Air Force as a Dakota visited the island every week to pick up cargo. After taking on its load, the tired old “Dak” would wheeze slowly to the holding point with a squeal of brakes before accelerating down the runway, its Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radials echoing with guttural urgency around our classroom walls. Years later, as a student one winter night, I miraculously snagged a free ride home to the island on another C-47 bringing that day’s newspapers. After takeoff, I unstrapped from my jump seat and went back to sit on the netted bundles of cargo, totally transfixed by the unexpected beauty of the blue light flaring from the exhaust stacks as we droned through the predawn darkness. My best DC-3 memory, however, was a special flight from Long Beach, California, in December 1995 to mark the 60th anniversary of the aircraft’s first flight. The guest of honor was none other than lead Douglas and DC-3 designer Arthur “Art” Raymond, by then a frail but highly accomplished 96 years old. Credit: Wikipedia

The A-10 Thunderbolt, aka “Warthog,” possesses more firepower than finesse. It is the first aircraft designed by the U.S. Air Force to provide close-air support for forces on the ground with long, fat wings that enable the 1970s vintage aircraft to maneuver nimbly at low speeds and low altitudes. The Warthog also has a large glass cockpit providing the pilot a wide view of the terrain below. Of course, its most memorable feature is the rip of the General Electric GAU-8 Avenger cannon, the sound of which is a deterrent in and of itself. Although the Air Force has tried multiple times to retire the A-10, it has top cover from U.S. lawmakers and a legion of faithful ground troops. Credit: U.S. Air Force

Mention TFX over cocktails, and most aviation historians and procurement analysts will launch into a rant about the perils of joint-service aircraft programs, segueing without pausing for breath to the Joint Strike Fighter. Mention the Aardvark over beers and most Australians will weep over the capability surrendered when their F-111s were retired in 2010. As maligned as it was troubled, the “swing-wing” General Dynamics F-111 was a magnificent beast that matured from a technical nightmare into a strike aircraft with a regional capability that remains unmatched today. Are you listening F-35?Credit: Wikimedia

The first-generation versions of Hawker Siddeley’s Harrier or McDonnell Douglas’ AV-8A are arguably some of the most handsome versions of the distinctive short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing combat aircraft. Nearly all these early-model machines have now been long retired: The Royal Navy’s distinctive Sea Harrier FRS.2 was phased out in 2006, and the Indian Navy retired its Mk. 1 model Sea Harriers in 2016. Early-model Harriers were challenging to fly, yet the type served on the front lines of the Cold War, ready to operate from short strips and supermarket parking lots in Germany, from wooden carrier decks in the Spanish Navy and from Royal Navy aircraft carriers to shoot down Argentine Mirages from the skies over the Falklands. Credit: Tony Osborne/AW&ST

The Grumman F9F Panther is one of the first fighter aircraft integrated into the U.S. Navy carrier air wing. Developed during the end of World War II, the Panther came into its own during the Korean War, flying some 78,000 sorties. Before they were astronauts, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong flew the F9F. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A common assertion that a Lockheed Blackbird was never hit by enemy fire is false. SA-2 shrapnel was found buried in the wing-tank support structure of an A-12 Article 129 after a CIA-operated sortie over North Vietnam on Oct. 28, 1967, a fact Paul Crickmore, the foremost Blackbird historian, first revealed in a 2014 book. But that single incident underscores, rather than undermines, the Blackbird’s legacy as the greatest family of aircraft to enter service. At a peak moment of the Soviet Union’s technical prowess, Kelly Johnson’s A-12, the elder sibling of the Air Force’s slightly slower SR-71A, roamed the skies at will, and nothing could shoot it down. Credit: CIA

When it comes to the best of best aircraft, nothing equals two of the world’s fastest: the Concorde supersonic airliner and the high-altitude, stealthy reconnaissance aircraft that was built to fly more than three times the speed of sound. And a fun fact about the pair: they now exist in three places around the world side by side, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia; Imperial War Museum in Duxford, England; and if you count the SR-71’s predecessor, the A-12, at New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Credit: Nigel Howarth/AW&ST

Imagine you are 18. You have flown quite basic—albeit enjoyable—piston singles such as the Socata MS880 Rallye. Then you are offered a small grant to learn a bit of aerobatics. Why not go? The Cap 10B, the typical two-seater used for basic aerobatics in France, is the quintessence of wooden airframes. The aircraft’s shape gives an impression of perfect balance, notably thanks to the elliptical wing. The power-to-weight ratio is very favorable. The controls are sharp. Yet, it does not feel too wild, and it gives you self-confidence. After three flights, you can perform a decent roll. Credit: Bastien Otelli

The Belphegor was a 1970s Polish design for a Soviet Union agricultural aircraft requirement for 3,000 Antonov An-2 replacements. Sadly only 175 were built because they have exceedingly disappointing performance. In fact, the aircraft was never used outside the Soviet Union. Its appearance at the 1976 Paris Air Show led to its name, Belphegor, one of the demon princes of hell. The PZL M-15 is the world’s only jet-powered crop duster as well as the world’s only jet-powered biplane and the world’s slowest mass-production jet.Credit: Dennis Jarvis/Wikimedia

An aircraft that began development in the 1940s, the Saab J 35 Draken served on the front lines of the Cold War for 35 years, somehow pioneered both data link technology and operations from austere locations, and taught the Russians how to do the cobra maneuver. The Saab J 35 Draken was a trailblazer for modern combat aircraft, which helped lay the foundations for the JA 37 Viggen and JAS 39 Gripen. Oh, and it just happens to look like something out of a sci-fi movie Credit: Saab.

At the time of its introduction in the early 1950s, the S-56/CH-37 was the largest and fastest helicopter in the western world, setting three world records: a speed record without payload of 162.7mph (261.8 kph), a record altitude of 12,100 ft. (3,688 m) and a load-carrying record of 13,227 lb. (6,000 kg) to 6,561 feet. It was also Sikorsky’s first multiengine, retractable main landing gear helicopter and is the largest piston-engine helicopter ever built. The S-56/CH-37 was in active duty service and then National Guard service through the 1970s. Credit: Sikorsky Archives

Probably the preeminent small-ship naval helicopter, the Lynx was something of a triumph for Westland, now Leonardo. The naval version of the twin-engine machine has appeared in the colors of 17 navies around the world, and the type remains in service with many of them, with several upgrades to the aircraft. Less successful was its land-based brethren, the Army Lynx, which served only with the British Army and briefly with the Qatari Police. The Lynx also broke the world speed record for a conventional helicopter with a speed of 216 kt. (249 mph), that’s nearly 40 kt. more than the cruise speed sought by the U.S. Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. Credit: Tony Osborne/AW&ST

The Polikarpov I-16, a Soviet single-engine, single-seat fighter aircraft from the 1930s, was one of the world’s first low-wing monoplane fighters with retractable landing gear. This ugly-looking fighter nicknamed “Ishak,” or “Donkey” in English, had a wooden fuselage and was armed with a pair of machine guns or cannons. The I-16 was used by the Soviet Air Force in the late 1930s and took part in several armed conflicts, including the Spanish Civil War, Battles of Khalkhin Gol on the Soviet-Japanese border and the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland. The I-16 became outdated in early in World War II, but it remained one of the symbols and first aircraft that boys in my Soviet-era childhood would draw on the margins of their copybooks. Credit: Wikimedia Commons