The Kalinin K-7 was a cathedral, a battleship- all of the brutality and ambition and darkness and hope of the Soviet Union wrought into a vast bomber. Engines were fitted and it was time to test them. The machine began to vibrate wildly, as if each part longed to leave this monster and become autonomous once again. The machine’s wishes were ignored and the mechanical surgeons brought in. At night welders sparked. Crude steel bracing encased the siamese bodies of the booms.
The 11th August 1933 and the population of Kharkov looked up in mutual awe. An uncanny eclipse powered by seven droning engines. Had Kharkov fortress scorned its comrades and become an angel? No, this was man-made.
Â
The uncanny bird flew on. Each flight it moaned and moaned. On the ninth flight it got its wish and its back broke. It shook itself to pieces.
Semerenko survived. “I counted 15-20 major shudders. Suddenly, to the noise of running engines was added the sound of the left tail boom braking apart.. I was waiting for the end. Controls were still locked still dead. Smash…” He was one of 5 survivors. 15 onboard were killed. The designer, Kalakin was later executed.
“Then silence. Only the sound of the sea, chewing away at the edge of the rocky beach, where the bits and pieces of the Iron Man lay scattered far and wide.â€
Ted Hughes, The Iron Man
Hush-kit is reminding the world of the beauty of flight.
Booo! Hisssss! We all love a baddy, and no machine quite does evil like a flying-machine. Some of the most exciting aircraft have had ‘something of the night’ about them. Here in this Hush-Kit special, we choose the ten most evil-looking aircraft of all time. After you’ve gouged your eyes out on these nefarious monsters, why not pop them back in their sockets and soothe them with the beauty of the ten best-looking British, French, Swedish, Australian,  Japanese and German aeroplanes.
Donate buttons on this page for readers who wish to help this site continue.Â
10. McDonnell XP-67 ‘Moonbat’
9. Northrop P-61 Black Widow
8. Sukhoi T-4
7. Mil Mi-24
6. Shenyang J-20
5. Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
4. Lun class ekranoplan
3. Mil Mi-28
2. Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
1. Boeing AH-64 Apache
Thank you for reading Hush-Kit. Our site is absolutely free and we have no advertisements. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here– it doesn’t have to be a large amount, every pound is gratefully received. Suggested donation £10.Â
At the moment our contributors do not receive any payment but we’re hoping to reward them for their fascinating stories in the future.
Do you have an idea for a Hush-Kit article you would like to write? Get in touch.
What is wrong with you Europeans? Half of the airplanes written about here as favorites are ‘quirky’ or ‘flawed’? I like things because they’re the best, not because they’re crap.
The F-15 Eagle has been the world’s best fighter since it entered frontline USAF service in 1976… I hear you spitting out your martinis as you read that. You leap to your feet. “RAPTOR!†you scream, the buttons on your cardigan exploding off in fury.
I disagree.
The F-22 is the flash, top-of-the-range guitar hanging on a $900 rack on the wall of a wannabe rockstar. It’s too pricey to be played, what if it was scratched?
The F-15 on the other hand is the battered old Fender that has proved time and time again its power to rock the joint. The F-15 is longer-ranged than the F-22, it has better short-range air-to-air missiles (X-Rays)..more vitally, it has a helmet system that can target designate- an entry-level technology that even F-16s have. It has an unprecedented kill-to-loss ratio of 104/0. Nothing else has anything approaching that.
Viva La Eagle!
PS my wife is European.
Come join the fun! Submit your ‘Favourite aeroplane in 2oo words’ entry to hushkiteditorial@gmail.com
  “ When I want to stop feeling inadequate, I think of pole vaulters. Most of us don’t want to be found out to be rubbish, so we stick to the things we’re good at. But pole vaulters, whose only job is to vault over a pole, repeatedly don’t…their only jobâ€Â  Armando Iannucci
The 188 was built to fulfil requirement ER.134. This was intended to support a very high-speed bomber, the Avro 730. When the 730 was cancelled in 1957, work on the 188 continued.
I love the incapable and that’s why I love the Bristol 188. Britain’s ‘SR-71’, was a ‘double-barrelled’ monster made to explore prolonged flight at over Mach 2.6. Aluminium cannot tolerate the heats experienced at such high speeds, so what material should be used?
Faced with the same problem, the US chose titanium for the triumphant SR-71 Blackbird.
Britain had better ideas, and built the 188 from far heavier stainless steel. Instead of adapting the powerful Olympus engine, the rather weedy Gyron was selected.
The Bristol 188 was slower than the RAF’s top fighter of the time the EE Lightning (lined up on the ground). If the 188 had been built from titanium and powered by the Olympus or Avon it may have achieved its goals. The US’ SR-71was built to spy on the Soviet Union, ironically the titanium it was built from was secretly-sourced from the very country it was made to spy on!
It didn’t fly until 14 April 1962 (twelve days before the Lockheed A-12, precursor to the SR-71). The 188 proved barely able to get to Mach 2, let alone flying for extended periods at 2.6. Since its commission in 1954 the project had become the most expensive British research aircraft ever made. It failed to carry out its only job.
The Bristol 188 in flight. Two years after the 188’s first flight, the USSR succeeded in producing a high-speed aircraft from steel; the MiG-25 was capable of flight at speeds exceeding Mach 2.8.
Fighter jets should inspire fear; their vicious appearance should carry some of the beastliness of their task. The Messerschmitt Me 262- a shallow-water killer, looked every inch the flying shark. The F-4 Phantom II was a flying ironclad, billowing satanic black smoke behind it. The de Havilland Vampire..well, it was cute. It didn’t look like it was going to kill anything, if anything it looked like it needed looking after.
Stand next to one and it will cower in your shadow: it is tiny. The happy dog-like nose, jelly bean of a fuselage and fragile twin-boom, give it a very friendly appearance. Over 3,000 were built and today over 20 remain displayed in public places. The eccentric little Vampire seems to enjoy these retirement shows, and even in these conditions it retains its perkiness. Some aircraft become sad lonely hulks when consigned to a life on a display pole, but the plucky Vampire has enough personality to remain positively zingy. I was delighted to stumble upon one in a small park in Switzerland in 1988.
The Vampire was more agile, cheaper and longer-ranged than the Meteor. More importantly, the Vampire was the cheekiest little jet fighter ever made.
Sleek, supersonic and superbly sinister the Lockheed SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft is in a class of its own in aviation terms.
Incredibly, its Mach 3+ performance at the edge of space (85,000ft) came nearly 20 years after 400mph propeller fighters were state-of-the-art in WW2 (its predecessor, the even faster A-12 , first flew in 1962). No wonder people thought we’d be living on Mars by 1980.
Even more astoundingly, this record-beating aircraft was designed using slide-rules, pencils and notepads. CFD computer analysis was unknown and that goes for all the aerodynamics, thermodynamics and one-off systems that the Blackbird incorporated. Pure engineering genius.
Today the US struggles to get a hypersonic scramjet to ignite and run for more than a few seconds at a time. But in the 1970s – Mach 3+ flight was routine for the Blackbird’s highflying spy missions, taunting Cold War enemies with its swiftness. Plus, just LOOK at it – from all angles it looks like an alien spaceship, not of this planet.
Other aircraft may be national icons, or perhaps have greater historical significance, but the SR-71 still looks like it belongs in the future. One day we’ll catch up with it.
Like all the most interesting aircraft, the Wyvern was slightly obscure, not particularly successful, and quite dangerous. Weighing 650 pounds shy of a loaded Dakota it was nonetheless expected to operate off dinky 1950s RN carriers. Tellingly, its main claim to aviation immortality derives not from any superlative quality of the aeroplane itself but a desperate desire to escape it: the world’s first underwater ejection was from a Wyvern. Suffering from the standard post-war British aircraft ailments of lengthy development and unrealised potential but unlike such ‘world-beaters’ as the perennially overrated TSR.2, it did make it into service. Wyverns even flew strike missions over Suez.
But this is by the by, for the Wyvern remains the most fantastic looking airscrew driven aircraft ever to fly, a nose that goes on forever surmounted by contra-props, an elliptical Spitfire-esque wing, slightly cranked a la Corsair, a massive, elegantly curved fin and rudder that is impossible to draw properly (try it) combined with pretty elliptical tailplanes topped off with finlets. (Finlets!) Also it is a post-war FAA aircraft and therefore blessed with the most attractive camouflage scheme ever to grace a military aircraft.
Like its namesake, the Wyvern is unlikely, brutish and wonderful.
Ed Ward is an illustrator, writer, historian and regular Hush-Kit contributor (like the Wyvern, he is unlikely, brutish and wonderful)
6. Shenyang J-20
Fighter jets should inspire fear; their vicious appearance should carry some of the beastliness of their task. The Messerschmitt Me 262- a shallow-water killer, looked every inch the flying shark. The F-4 Phantom II was a flying ironclad, billowing satanic black smoke behind it. The de Havilland Vampire..well, it was cute. It didn’t look like it was going to kill anything, if anything it looked like it needed looking after.
Like all the most interesting aircraft, the Wyvern was slightly obscure, not particularly successful, and quite dangerous. Weighing 650 pounds shy of a loaded Dakota it was nonetheless expected to operate off dinky 1950s RN carriers. Tellingly, its main claim to aviation immortality derives not from any superlative quality of the aeroplane itself but a desperate desire to escape it: the world’s first underwater ejection was from a Wyvern. Suffering from the standard post-war British aircraft ailments of lengthy development and unrealised potential but unlike such ‘world-beaters’ as the perennially overrated TSR.2, it did make it into service. Wyverns even flew strike missions over Suez.
