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The ugliest planes to have flown

Airline Empires has posted an interesting collection of pictures showing some of the “ugliest” planes that have actually flown. Although there are no clear winners as to which plane is the ugliest, the Caproni Ca.60 Noviplano definitely wins both the “ugly” and the “that thing actually flew” award. Featuring eight engines, three sets of triple wings and two pontoons, this flying boat was meant to be a prototype for a 100 passenger trans-Atlantic airliner. On 4 March 1921, it made one short flight over Lake Maggiore in Italy and attained an altitude of 60 feet before crashing and quickly sinking to the bottom of the lake (killing both pilots).

Caproni Ca.60

1909 Wright Flyer movie

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Extraordinary film of Wilbur Wright demonstrating the Wright Flyer in 1909, including film taken from the aircraft in flight. From the project “Treasures from European Film Archives.”

Aerial Photography

Earth from the Air

I use IStockPhoto.com to get royalty-free images for my other blog, Bad Language, although I took all the pictures on my business site, Articulate Marketing , myself.  It’s a neat site.  However, this week they published a gorgeous looking piece on the art of aerial photography.

It reminded me of this fabulous exhibition I saw a couple of years ago called Earth From the Air.  It was out of doors next to the Science Museum in London.  It was dozens of astonishing pictures taken by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.  I highly recommend it and the books that accompany it.  I seem to recall seeing a documentary about him once and – maybe this isn’t the same documentary – it showed him living in a tree house.  If it is true, how cool is that?