Poll: best looking GA prop plane of all time?

Thomas Borchert wrote:

Well, in your case, beauty seems to be in the eye of the owner ;-)


Tom,

We were the beholders before becoming the owners of our Cardinal.
It was much harder to locate a Cardinal than a Skyhawk or an Archer but
once we dediced it was the right plane, we kept searching (for almost 2
years) until finding one. We were first interested in the Cardinal for
its lack of struts, the two large doors and big cargo area. It was a
pleasant surprise to see that it was also a swan among its ugly
duckling siblings, the 172s.

Hai Longworth

Haven't you seen a Piaggio P180? The King Air is ugly and so slow that the
radome should be in the rear so the airplane can avoid being run down by
thunderstorms.

Mike
MU-2


"xerj" wrote in message
...
For me, it's the King Air.

Other opinions?

"Seth Masia" wrote in message
...
Swift. Hands down.

I'll second that.

Sylvain,

DH 88. Sound of forehead slap. You're right, one of the sharpest
looking airplanes ever, although I would not care for its forward
visibility in three point attitude.

Cheers,
Rick

In article ,
Sylvain wrote:

wrote:
Twin monoplane: DeHaviland Mosquito

I know it is a matter of taste, but the DeHaviland Comet
(the DH 88 of the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race, not the airliner)
looks a lot better to me in this category (and there is a superb
replica flying in Hollister...)

--Sylvain

I should have included that one in MY nomination list, too! Add in the
Mew Gull, too.

wrote:

.... although I would not care for its forward
visibility in three point attitude.

It has some? :-)

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.

xerj wrote:

For me, it's the King Air.

Other opinions?

Classic Single - Globe Swift
Classic Twin - Grumman Widgeon

Modern Single - Seawind 3000
Modern twin - Beech Model 2000 StarShip

....Ken

wrote:

DH 88. Sound of forehead slap. You're right, one of the sharpest
looking airplanes ever, although I would not care for its forward
visibility in three point attitude.

If you're starting to discuss characteristics other than appearance, I think you
would also dislike the two-speed props the DHs had. Most people hated them.

They were locked into fine pitch on the ground before takeoff. They had a sort
of flywheel arrangement that would shift them into coarse pitch once a certain
airspeed was reached. They could not be changed back to fine pitch in the air.
Invariably, one prop would go into coarse pitch before the other, which I'm told
led to a period of interesting flight characteristics. Occasionally one prop
wouldn't go into coarse pitch at all, and things got *really* interesting.

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.

xerj wrote:

Other opinions?

So many planes .... so little time.

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.

George,

Hadn't known that about the props on the DH88. (Sort of ties in with
the seeming proclivity of British engineers to make things as complex
as possible g.) That could get interesting, especially back then
when the designers seemed to like little bitty vertical stabilizers and
rudders. I also wouldn't much care for it if I had to make a go-around
in coarse pitch when very slow. Differential activiation of devices
that affect yaw and roll are usually just disconcerting rather than
dangerous, but I can't help but wonder how many Allied pilots were
saved because the slats in the Bf-109 usually wouldn't deploy together
when turning tightly, and would throw off the pilot's aim at least
briefly.

All the best,
Rick