Best real world comic book planes

[Logan Hartke]

No fantasy planes allowed!

So, what are the best REAL WORLD airplanes for a comic book?  We're talking only real planes for our Bill Barnes/Blackhawk/Talespin/Crimson Skies/Johnny Quest universe?



Savoia-Marchetti S.55
One of the best, the S.55 didn't possess a "normal-looking" angle.  I actually prefer it from above, where you see the cockpit...in the wing!



Couzinet 70
The plane that wishes it was an Oscar Mayer Wiener, that is what it really wants to be.  Honestly, though, some really neat lines for its day.  If you see it from another anglr, you can see its awesome spats, too.



Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk
It can fly from an airship without landing gear!  Enough said.  Crimson Skies come to life.



Gee Bee Super Sportster
So cool, they used two Gee Bees in "The Rocketeer".  This is the ultimate comic book airplane.



Northrop Gamma
I had a diecast model of this growing up.  It looks so cool.  Howard Hughes did some record-setting flights in one of these.  Look at those spats!



Polikarpov I-153
After the war, Polikarpov's designers worked as Disney illustrators for Talespin.  Seriously, the Polikarpov I-15, I-153, and I-16 were great comic book fighters, the I-153 most of all in my opinion.



Seversky SEV-3
Floats on land!  The need to operate anywhere--water, land, whatever--is something that comes up often in comic books.  Seversky understood these needs, although nobody else ever did.



Savoia-Marchetti SM.79
Trimotors always look like they're ready for a comic book, but a sleek trimotor with a hunchback and ventral gun tub REALLY looks the part.  If you doubt it deserves to be here, just look at the tail shape!



Grumman XF5F Skyrocket
This is a bit cheap, since this WAS a comic book plane.  Some would say THE comic book plane.  Blackhawk loved it, so should you.

So, what real world aircraft come to mind for comic book planes?

Cheers,

Logan

[AXOR]

Kyushu Shinden-Surely this is my favourite


Alex

[jcf]

Lovely choices all, one thing though Logan, the Northrop has 'trousered' gear rather than 'spatted'.

 

[finsrin]

Check out this Russian giant.
What a 1/72 kit it would be !
Even OOB is bashed.

[Daryl J.]

These are so unique:



Hayao Miyazaki liked these and put a jet powered butterfly variant of this in Porco Rosso:



The good guys need one of these:



or one of these if they are really tough good guys:



And the slightly more modern bad guys can have these:



The beauty of this ought not to be passed over:



And this one for sheer unique French sizzle:              [Edited for corrected content, thanks Greg]



To get a group of us from here to there in elegant fashion:



Or a couple of us from here to there quickly:

[GTX_Admin]

Err, the Bugatti Model 100 was French I thought.

I certainly can 't argue with you regarding beauty though...which is why I have a couple of 1/48 ones in my stash...

[RussC]

Kyushu Shinden-Surely this is my favourite


Alex

  Shinden does look like something out of modern Japanese Manga and Anime, and it does get there occasionally, like in "The Sky Crawlers".
 
  Also lots of Savoia seaplanes and Curtis seaplanes in "El Porco Rosso".

   

[Stargazer2006]

Put a frameless canopy and winglets on the Shinden and I'm sure it could pass off as a modern design!

[RussC]

Interesting you should mention Jonny Quest, Logan, because their big delta winged jet was so clearly an Avro Vulcan (bigger tail and longer nose) derivative. They also had some USAF fighters in one episode that looked surprisingly akin the the F-16xl delta design (the episode was "The Robot Spy")

  Gi Joe the animated series had the Grumman X-29 in combat roles as well as Tomcats.
 
The Talespin Disney Animated series of the 80's had what really looked like a Canadair CL 215
 
Batman clearly had his share of flying wing designs.
 
Wonder Woman had stealth planes long before the idea was popular.

The recent Captain America had the Nazi's under the Red Skull flying a big Horten Flying wing and Cap'n flying against them in a derivative of the Northrop Black Bullet.

Marvel lifted the SR-71 for the X-men to fly.

The Thunderbirds the series by Gerry Anderson had a DH Tiger Moth among their big machines.

There is a Manga/Anime in Japan about the TSR2 used as a orbital interceptor, name of the series escapes me now.

All the modern Japan robot-converting mecha's from Gundam/Macross/Crusher Joe et all, seem to be styled on USN jets like the Tomcat and the USAF F-15's

The Osprey has become a part of the Transformers series, as has the Raptor and the Blackbird.

I would not have minded seeing the Tupolev-28 fiddler in a comic or a toon'. Same for the Su-27/30/35 types.

The F-4 . F-14 and the F-15 wound up in the newspaper comics "Calvin and Hobbes" a few times.
 

[Weaver]

In Michael Moorcock's "War Amongst the Angels" series of novels, one of the characters has a Dornier Do.X flying boat. In the related, but different graphic novel Michael Moorcock's Universe, the Dornier is replaced by something that looks like a Saro Princess.

Can't find a pic of the plane on the web, but this 'ere's the graphic novel in question:

Multiverse

Fair warnings though pards, it's not what you'd call errrrrrm, linear.........

[apophenia]

CCF (Gregor) FDB-1 biplane prototype?  http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fww2/fdb1.html

[sotoolslinger]

OK What the heck is this?

Looks like a custom built out of a drop tank. Anyone have more info or links to what this is?

[GTX_Admin]

It is the BUGATTI Model 100 Racer - see here and here.

What is not often recognised is that it is a twin engined aircraft.  I also especially like the intakes in the tail.

One of my all time favourite aircraft:




You can get a kit in 1/48 too!!!  i have a couple.



regards,

Greg

[sotoolslinger]

Holy Crap I have got to build the combat version of that. Thanks very much for the info G

[Daryl J.]

She's a beauty isn't she.
Designed by the Italian living in France as I learned.   

[sotoolslinger]

Oh yes. I have heard a saying by aeronautical engineers that if it looks like it will fly ... it will fly That looks like I could put a bubble canopy and some guns on it and it would kick some arse.

[elmayerle]

Of course, there's all the semi-real world aircraft used by both sides in the Area 88 manga and anime (don't knock it, all the episodes I've seen so far are at least plausible and within reason).

I, of course, loved the Blackhawks' improved F-90s from the 1950s though, as an intermediate step, I'd love to see them have traded in their Skyrockets for Tigercats.  Which reminds me, there was a 1980s redo of Blackhawk that had them in trousered Skyrockets instead of having ones with retractible gear; looked rather different.  It would be interesting to go through Louis L'Amour's air adventure stories (yeah, he wrote lots more than just westerns) and try and figure out what aircraft would be applicable for each scenario.

[GTX_Admin]

Holy Crap I have got to build the combat version of that. Thanks very much for the info G

Well there was supposedly a fighter variant under development.  Here is some artwork by Peter (aka Flitzer):




Regards,

Greg

[jcf]

She's a beauty isn't she.
Designed by the Italian living in France as I learned.

Designed by the Belgian Louis de Monge, built by Bugatti.   

[GTX_Admin]

I couldn't help myself...sorry

[Stargazer2006]

She's a beauty isn't she.
Designed by the Italian living in France as I learned.

Well, Bugatti was pretty much a French company, despite Bugatti's Italian origins. They mostly built top luxury cars and race cars too.

[Daryl J.]

Designed by the Belgian Louis de Monge, built by Bugatti.   

Sheesh!  If we ever have an Ignoramus Group Build, it will be over very quickly because each will simply submit a photo of me!   

What is it with the Belgians?   Tintin.  Astrix and Obelix.  This.   

Off to look for more comic book worthy air machines.   

[Daryl J.]

To bring passengers from the terminal and dining quarters to the Couzinet:



Credit to the photographer who's name is below, fair use cited:





For the back country with a STOL kit and tundra tires affixed:



For the Sci-Fi/anime peeps:




Fair use legaleeze cited.   Any pic will gladly be removed upon discovery by poster.   

[elmayerle]

Beautiful pics of a Northrop C-125 Raider.  It does look like it belongs in a comic book, doesn't it?

[RussC]

Beautiful pics of a Northrop C-125 Raider.  It does look like it belongs in a comic book, doesn't it?

I'm thinking those pics of it were taken at Pima ASM too, they have obtained a new round of birds that they are assembling, according to my Peeps rumors there,  a Blenhiem, Flanker, Beaufighter, and Ju-88.

[Weaver]

Ken Steacy's Tempus Fugitive series features a whole gamut of aircraft, as our time-travelling hero attempts to evade his pursuers and complete a mysterious mission.

These are just the foreground ones, not the background stuff:

F-101A Voodoo
Far future "polymorph" craft that can look like any other plane
A huge 1950s bomber, like a B-36 on steroids, that features A-5 Vigilantes as parasite aircraft (yes, really  )
Douglas Dauntless
F-105G Wild Weasel
OV-10 Bronco
Various Skyraiders
CH-53
F-4E Phantom
Pucara
Far future one-man tilt-rotor gunship that you ride like a motorbike
CF-104 Starfighters
Albatros
Sopwith Triplanes
He-162
He-219
Ar-234
P-51D Mustangs (red tails)
DHC Beaver
B-52
MiG-27s
Hard Corps A-6E Intruder (Hard Corps "aircraft" have wings removed, big tires, pintle MGs and are used as ground vehicels for desert-raiding)
Hard Corps EE Lightning
HardCorps F-18B
Hard Corps SEPECAT Jaguar
Hard Corps A-10
Hard Corps Kfir
Hard Corps F-16
Hard Corps MiG-27
Hard Corps MiG-21
IAI Lavi
Fictional Israeli advanced fighter, like Monogram F-19 but with FSW

That enough? 

[Paul Wagner]

It is the BUGATTI Model 100 Racer - see here and here.

I love that plane. There is, however, as far as I'm aware, no 1/72 kit of it - am I wrong???

Paul

[elmayerle]

Paul, I believe there's been a limited run kit of it, but that's all.

[madoc]

Paul & Evan,

That's be a Project Model Bugatti Racer 100P kit.  It's a low pressure styrene injection kit and somewhat crude in its rendering.  But, it is in 1/72 and looks to build up nicely enough.  I score on on eBay about six years ago for $50 or so.

As to the bird in real life, it was a racer through and through.  The pilot was almost flat on his back in that cockpit.  The thing was twin engined and its driveshafts ran around the pilot!  Each engine was slightly angled off the centerline to help with the driveshafts losing as little energy as possible.  They knuckled at about the mid-point of the cockpit with a universal joint to then angle back inward to the nose where they drove their own props.  I'd imagine that in real life that arrangement would have been a true joy to work with, given early 40's tech. 

The long driveshaft aircraft of the day were straight-through affairs and it seemed hit or miss which designs ran into vibration problems and which didn't.  On as lightweight an airframe as that racer had to be, such problems could get bad indeed.

Still though, she's a true beauty!

Madoc