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I despise all commercial jets, as they're just so plain and boring. Nothing can improve on efficiency, though. I much prefer exotic designs, like the osprey. If I had to pick one aircraft to own that I'd actually be able to, it'd have to be the king air.

Favorite airLINER, on the other hand, is quantas, no comparisons!

That or the starship. I have a bit of a thing for beechcraft, it seems!

u_u you're forgetting Concorde (it's used without an article)!!! That plane...man it's a gorgeous piece of engineering! Who would've thought of supersonic travel at FL 600+ in the 1960s!?

The starship is cute :) But apparently, with all your favorite airplanes, it was never really used :(

Would you believe it...that I actually prefer the TUPOLEV prototype to concorde? I should stop liking new planes that I see, or they'll never get made!

EEKS! The Tu-144 is SCARY! 200+ failures in less than 50 flights? Would you believe it lol, the airframe of the Tu-144 was always filled with huge fault and crack lines due to the monolithic panel design and was always prone to decompressing/losing all structural integrity at 55,000 feet? No thank you.

And, my sincere advice, do not get your eyes on the Lockheed/NASA Green Machine Supersonic Cruiser...this craft has to become mainstream within our lifetimes!

Ah, but of course...design faults and all still don't impact design potential and aesthetics in my mind! Supersonic transport canards :o

Bizarre. I've gone through the wikipedia page on the Tu144 several times in the past and I still don't get how the hell that THING went at Mach 2.26. What's the rationale behind the canards anyway? I certainly don't see them providing any lift at such high speeds and altitudes, maybe they were used for stabilizing the climb to FL 500+?

Correct; the canards were retractable. Because of the lack of elevators, the wings would control all lift; but to put the nose up you'd have to tilt the elevators up, decreasing lift. Canards kept the nose up while elevators were down. Also powerful engines! The russians never fail to make fast jets :D

Feast your eyes upon the fastest aircraft ever created http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-25

Don't believe the lies of the blackbird! This was limited in its speed as it would have torn its engines apart

Holy shit, the Russians make crazy planes. What on EARTH is this number for the Mig-25 (and i thought Mig's were meh):

Rate of climb: 208 m/s (40,950 ft/min) :O :O !!! I have NEVER seen RoC speeds like that before.

Haha, and if you want to see powerful engines, check out the 777-300ER. Two GEnx engines, clocking out 514 kN apiece!

Oh, and how would you go about retracting the canards on the Tu144 mid-flight without destabilizing the plane? I imagine that would break a lot of aerodynamic surfaces very quickly while retracting at Mac 2+.

ahahahahahahahah

AHAHAHAHHAHAAH

F-22 RoC: 68,897 ft/min. 350 m/s in a CLIMB

Migs are beautiful stuff, man, even I envy their work. First strake wings, early canard work, forward sweep, massive speed, supermaneuverability...all invented before US did.

And why not just go for RAMJETs instead of turbojets with the Mig 25? Looks like the perfect candidate for those beastly engines!

And then when the US made the raptor, the russians sat back and let us show it off, then make their version 1/3 the cost with lower stealth capabilities but greater ability to destroy the raptor. Hilarious.

I'd imagine the canards on the Tu144 would be retracted far before even mach 1! They were only used for climbing.

what the actual fuck...climbing VERTICALLY at Mach 1, that has got to be a record for non-rocket propelled craft.

Now you know why cylindrical airliners bore me!

Okay, I concede, military planes are absolutely incredible! The way the airframes survive all the g-forces, there's no wonder you love them! But um, I actually really like commercial airliners because the huge wings flexing is one of the sexiest things about aviation.

Well, all planes are amazing, but some are just a little more amazing than others! Did you know you can actually see the wing flex during flight? Kinda scary; during takeoff you can actually see the tips of the wings rise 6-10 feet.