Marecki on 14/11/2019 at 16:52
Here's something that has been rattling inside my skull for a while now, possibly due me having got back into modelling lately: what in your opinion are the most evil-looking aeroplanes? By which I mean planes which give you the most jibblies when you look at them even when they aren't coming at you at speed, which I bet could make even a Piper Cub seriously scary.
For me the winner has always clearly been (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87) Ju-87 Stuka. Something about the combination of those inverted gull wings, the exhaust pipes and the cockpit... Ick. Terrifying enough even while not diving at you, complete with the wailing sound produced by sirens many Stukas had mounted on the undercarriage precisely to scare the crap out of people.
Among the more modern planes, I think A-10 Thunderbolt deserves a mention. On the one hand, nowhere nearly as evil-looking as the Stuka. On the other, (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A10WarthogFront.jpg) this. Enough said.
SubJeff on 14/11/2019 at 21:55
Junkers look evil because Nazis.
Messerschmitt Bf 109 too. In fact look at a Panzer Panther, or a Tiger. They all look evil. We've been programmed a bit, but grey as your uniform and vehicles does look less "good guys" than green.
caffeinatedzombeh on 14/11/2019 at 23:06
I think pretty much any straight winged fighter-bomber type aircraft looks pretty evil, especially with a bloody huge gun on it. the more stuff hanging off the bottom the scarier. the A-10 gets bonus points for "well we would have loved to put the nose wheel in the middle but the gun was more important"
de Havilland Venom would be my suggestion.
Every aircraft looks a bit scary when it's heading straight at you, or even just anywhere near you if you don't know what they're going to do next.
Pyrian on 14/11/2019 at 23:22
Do helicopters count? 'Cause a fully loaded Apache looks like a bunch of weapons with some airplane attached.
demagogue on 14/11/2019 at 23:24
Thanks to viewing Red Dawn at an early age, the Mi-24a Zvezda Crocodile, and by extension the Hokum Ka-50 Black Shark sleek version of it, attack helos were always the scariest aircrafts. They have their weapons laid out on a kind of faux wing.
There's the scene in that movie where the kids are being hunted by them, they're running and can hear them, and at times a Zvezda will pop up for the kill. They still evoke a kind of elemental terror. The video game Hokum where you get to fly one is also one of my favorite sims ever.
Starker on 15/11/2019 at 05:24
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Do helicopters count? 'Cause a fully loaded Apache looks like a bunch of weapons with some airplane attached.
Yup, Apache wins hands down.
demagogue on 15/11/2019 at 06:10
I was touring the Aerospace museum in DC with a friend (he was in the Navy FWIW), and he was commenting how German, US, Japanese, and Soviet war planes (and for that matter trucks, cars & motorcycles) had a characteristic look you could tell, and it'd maintain that look over eras. Like even if it was the first time seeing a plane, you could still tell just by the look of it whether it was German, US, Japanese, or Soviet, and it was funny because as we went through the museum, from early planes through WWII through the Cold War and into the post-Cold War, it rang true.
German planes were high end, meticulously crafted and sleek. Japanese planes had tiny frames meant for performance and maneuver but also vulnerable. US planes were ridiculously bulky and over armored, like tanks in the air. And Soviet planes were cookie-cutter models that look thrown together but scrappy and mean. Oh, I guess I should include British & French planes being hybrids between the US & German ones, with UK closer to the US side and French closer to the German side.
In those terms, US aircraft never really struck me as evil looking. They always strike me as looking like the slow, way over-muscled blonde kid on the block that irons his t-shirt and jeans and is ready to slug things to solve problems, but had a kind of boy-scoutish self conception that he was doing the slugging for honorable (if stupid) reasons.
Soviet craft always struck me as more inherently evil-natured because their M.O. was subterfuge. The US navy is built around the over muscled aircraft carrier group, open and blaring for all to see, and the Soviet navy was built around submarines and constant denial that they're even there. And between the Apache and Hokum, I mean look at them side by side. The Apache is like a fat bee, well fed and ready to pulverize; but the Hokum is like a scrappy wasp that's hungry and mean. I can understand the Apache invoking more terror in the moment being on the receiving end maybe, but more with some kind of sad regret that the boy scout behind the controls doesn't know better, whereas being on the receiving end of a Hokum, I'd be thinking about some cold sob behind the controls that is cynical to his bones.
If I'm going to say that, I should mention Nazi planes then. One thing is that the Cold War just connected with me more directly. I lived under the flight path of B52s that flew in from and off to the Arctic Circle twice a day for years and years. But I think it's just the craftsmanship of German planes & tanks, et al, doesn't evoke the evil part to me. It's what happens inside that's the evil. Whereas the Soviet military wore it more on their sleeves so to speak. They kind of owned it in the design. And Americans wouldn't want to believe it exists at all, and the design revolved around adamant self-deception about it.
Edit: If one were going with the Apache narrative, the A-10 Warthog would also be in the running, although the Apache still probably has it beat just by packing more muscle into a smaller space, and the fact it hovers over you and turns and spits fire when you try to run around it.
Starker on 15/11/2019 at 09:06
I guess things look scarier if you're potentially on the receiving end of it. Doesn't really help that my father was in the air force either. For me, planes like the F-117 or even the B-2 Spirit or most of the US planes, really, never conveyed anything remotely approaching boyish naivete. Rather, they look like they mean business.
demagogue on 15/11/2019 at 09:29
Well it's dumb of me to stereotype too much. I was thinking of Saving Private Ryan types. Naivete isn't the word; more like sincerity maybe. They mean business, but the do-gooding brand?
If I think about it, the more concrete reason US planes don't fall in the evil category is just because I grew up making models of them. So they're really connected to being a kid being awestruck by how cool they were. I mean something like an SR-71 strikes me as so frekking awesome from an '80s kid point of view that the idea of terror or evil wouldn't even make the list, and add to that the F-4, F-16 (which they make in my hometown), F-14 (Tom Cruise, I feel the need..., I mean come on), the F-15 coin/op game, the aforementioned F-117 (Stealth Fighter! Another favorite childhood sim). and even the Apache and Warthog get that kind of halo. Whereas the Soviet models were always alien and the bad guys. No need for me to read too much into it; it's just what struck me as super cool vs. alien & scary as a kid making models and watching Hollywood movies.
Marecki on 15/11/2019 at 17:33
Quote Posted by SubJeff
Junkers look evil because Nazis.
While it definitely plays a part, I am quite sure it's not just that. In my book (just a random sample by the way, by no means a complete list):
* Ju-87 Stuka - evil
* Me-262 Schwalbe - formidable but not really evil
* Horten IX (Go-229) - elegant, barely evil or not evil at all
* Me-163 Komet - kind of cute, actually!
* Gotha Glider - mostly silly
I
so agree on the Panther and the Tiger.
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Do helicopters count? 'Cause a fully loaded Apache looks like a bunch of weapons with some airplane attached.
No, helicopters don't count - they would easily dominate the contest :-) That said, to me (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-24) Mi-24 Hind looks at least just as, if not more, menacing than an Apache. The latter indeed looks mean but the Hind gives of a serious "I could vaporise you without slowing down a bit, or indeed noticing".
BTW. Oh, I was also going to mention (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vulcan) Avro Vulcan here - shame on me! The Vulcan is an interesting beast - from far away it looks positively elegant but the closer to it you get, even when it's just standing there, the higher it scores on the "oh bugger" scale. Especially with one of those ginormous nuclear cruise missiles they used to carry fitted in the bomb bay.
Quote Posted by Starker
I guess things look scarier if you're potentially on the receiving end of it. Doesn't really help that my father was in the air force either. For me, planes like the F-117 or even the B-2 Spirit or most of the US planes, really, never conveyed anything remotely approaching boyish naivete. Rather, they look like they mean business.
Funny you have mentioned these two, to me these two do not look evil at all. All business? Yes. Elegant in case of B-2? Absolutely. Evil? Nah.