What is your favorite airplane and why?
Favorite airplane ... ooohhh, that’s tough. I’m a fan of the Wright Flyer (below), simply because it was “first” ... it’s got some pretty cool ingenuity as well, with how they did control surfaces by warping the wings and whatnot.
I’m also a big fan of the YF-23 (above), which was an experimental that never got produced; it was the other finalist in the selection that generated the F-22 next-gen air superiority fighter. I think it wound up not as capable (or maybe it was similar, except for the fact that the F-22 can “super-cruise” ... or travel extended distances at greater than Mach 1, something not many - maybe none? - other aircraft can really do) as the plane that would become the F-22, but damn is it gorgeous.
Beyond that? There’s plenty to like about a lot of other planes ... my Grandad flew F-7Fs in Korea, they’re pretty special for that reason, but they were also one of the first really dedicated night-fighters (along with the P-61, which was the first *designed* for that role). The British Spitfire was one of the first mass-produced planes to really try an elliptical wing, which maximizes efficiency for a wing of defined span; as a result they look super elegant. The B-25 was the plane Doolittle used to make the first raid on Tokyo in WWII, they flew those things off of carriers, if you can believe that ... pretty amazing story in its own right. The Piagio Avanti is just wild. The F-5 is a baller little jet, and served as the stand-in for the “Mig-28s” in Top Gun.
F-7F:
Supermarine Spitfire:
B-25:
Avanti:
F-5:
