The Ugliest Airplane: An Appreciation

> airtruk

You got to love that even its name is utilitarian.

This is such a cool story. Airplanes seem such a complex, standardized, full of red tape and elitist thing that such stories of hackers starting to pull random beams together and you get a thing that flies are pretty inspiring... And yet it also sound quite well thought. As usual, there is more than meets the eye

I was lucky enough as a young child to see one of these working a high country farm - it was operating off a sloped runway and I was convinced it was going to crash as it landed uphill, then convinced it was going to crash after it took off after reloading due to how slowly it climbed - I can't find a definitive number, but I vaguely recall it had a take off speed that lurked around 50kt...

On the subject of top-dressers... ...I was privileged to see a turboprop equipped Fletcher FU-24 in action a couple of weeks ago, those pilots are very darn good at flying very low in hill country. Very loud and notable engine sound.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_FU-24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL_M-15_Belphegor

The M-15 is still uglier. Also intended as a cropduster, though unlike the AirTruk it was really bad at that job in every way.

Steve Death does sound like a Mad Max name.

Did anyone else think the first photo was AI-generated at first, due to how unusual it looked?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transavia_PL-12_Airtruk

aussie plane makes me think of the aussie flyer in the road warrior. (not even the same, but spiritually)

"He started with a large, steel, barrel-shaped tank and began adding."

I thought everybody used aluminum?

…can I still get one?

It looks kinda cute if you ask me