Thursday, August 09, 2007

flight of the manatee

Patrick Smith of "Ask A Pilot" has nothing nice to say about the Airbus A-380:
As it prepares to enter scheduled service, the Airbus A380 has been busy with so-called proving runs and public relations junkets, flying around in the colors of Singapore Airlines and Emirates, its first two operators. There are hundreds of new photos posted over at Airliners.net, all of them confirming what we already knew: that the plane is grotesquely ugly. There are no flattering views of an A380. It is without question the most hideous airliner ever conceived.

So I looked around and Ah, Sweet Time-Traveling Jesus, he's right.

Look at that sad-ass lumbering beast. It's like a crying manatee coming at you.

photo by Sergy on Airliners.net

Or try this one out. I'd never seen a plane that looked like it was going to vomit before, until I found this photo.

photo by Ian Heald on Airliner.net

Did they get a blue whale drunk, paint it up and stick on some wings? People: if you die on this plane, you will die in the ugliest, most ungainly kerosene-spewing hulk that ever dropped from the sky.

3 comments:

sgazzetti said...

Thanks for posting these photographs and settling the issue of aesthetics.

I'm cancelling my order.

Tom said...

Um, does it fly? That's the thing I'm most concerned about in an aircraft. I'd much rather have an ugly plane that flies well than a pretty one that's going to immolate me in some Nebraska corn field.

Also, the king air turboprop that they use at the jump zone I frequent is much uglier, though mostly because it's never been repainted.

palinode said...

It seems to fly. But plane manufacturers can make a plane with an appealing design that flies just as well as El Uggo there in the pictures. But I think its ridiculous bloat is what offends, and what that bloatedness implies about commercial flying.