Letters to the Editor
-
Pretty/ugly
Uh, in defense of Patrick, some of us DO care about what a plane looks like on the outside. It's no different, really, than caring about what a ship or a car or a motorcycle looks like. Besides, aesthetic appreciation is about the only thing left to an airplane geek now that the actual experience of flying is, more often than not, something to dread rather than enjoy. For those of us who spent our childhoods doodling airplanes in the margins of chemistry textbooks, the five best-looking jetliners of all time are (in descending order of prettiness) -
Boeing 747
McDonnell Douglas MD-11
Vickers VC-10
Boeing 707
Hawker Siddeley Trident
Honorable mentions: Airbus A340, Tupolev Tu-154, Lockheed Tristar
The ugliest are -
Douglas DC-8
Airbus A380
Douglas DC-9 (and its derivatives)
Airbus A320
Ilyushin IL-96