Planes That Look Alike

[exhausted 55]

Basic features or more, but should not include developments such as P-39 and P-63.

 

Fore example:

 

Su-24 = F-111

 

T-4 = Alphajet

 

J-22 = Jaguar

[SayethWhaaaa 245]

That photo of the Early prototype that eventually became the Su-24 looks more like the JH-7 Flying Leopard...

Edited May 3, 2012 by ZmelliFahrdz

[+Gepard 11,289]

Original

 

Copy

[+Julhelm 266]

I know you're insinuating the Tu-160 is a copy of the B-1B, but what's funny about that is that the TU-160 from a design perspective is in no way related to B-1B. Simply looking at similar planform and saying "that's a copy of that" is silly. The designs look similar because they're made with the same basic requirements in mind. There's only so many ways of designing an effective variable inlet engine nacelle, or VG wing. Interestingly, apart from general layout, in almost every other aspect, they are different from one another.

 

The actual "daddy" of Tu-160 is Myasischev M-18, which looks much more like the final 160 than NAA's winning 1970 B-1 design:

 

 

And I don't see how the SU-24 looks anything like the F-111 except both are VG aircraft and have side by side cockpits. Especially since Su was originally designed as a fixed-wing aircraft. Again, in almost every aspect apart from general planform, they are different from each other. Might as well say the TSR-2 looked just like the RA-5C.

 

How about some planes that really do look like one another?

 

Lockheed Tristar:

 

Douglas DC-10:

 

Boeing 727:

 

Tupolev 154:

 

Ilyushin Il-62:

 

Vickers VC-10:

 

I was going to post the Concorde and Tu-144 too until I realised they don't really look the same at all, except for both being supersonic deltas :(

Edited May 3, 2012 by Julhelm

[CNAF 5]

That photo of the Early prototype that eventually became the Su-24 looks more like the JH-7 Flying Leopard...

 

more like Su-15 actually with a triangle wing .

[+Julhelm 266]

I think it resembles a Vigilante seen from above :P

[B52STRATO 215]

Agree, but there is an older one

 

Papy

 

Original

 

Copy

[+Brain32 265]

Tu-4 looks like B-29

[+Major Lee 18]

Bf109 and Ki61...

 

Oh yes, the Hughes H1 racer and the early Fw190... especially viewed from head on.

Edited May 3, 2012 by Major Lee

[hrc 156]

Super Mystere & Super Sabre

[liamp51 6]

Tu-204

http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acimages/tupolevtu204_oscarlabordasanchez.jpg

 

Boeing 757 series

http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/ed-force-one.jpg

[+whiteknight06604 934]

La-15 and Mig-15

[+Gepard 11,289]

 

F-86 and Ta-183

 

 

and MiG-15bis

Edited May 3, 2012 by Gepard

[Viggen 644]

SEPECAT Jaguar and Mitsubishi F-1 have similar layouts and fuselages.

 

 

[+malibu43 142]

Cessna 172 and P-51 mustang.

 

Both have wings with control surfaces.

Both have a propeller in front.

Both have a place for someone to sit with glass in front and on the sides.

Both have a vertical control surface at the rear of the plane.

Both have smaller horizontal control surfaces at the rear of the plane.

They both use wheels to move along the ground.

 

It's all relative.

[+Gepard 11,289]

Tu-144 and Concorde

[MigBuster 2,884]

Shenyang J-11

 

Sukhoi Su-27

 

Not copies honest

Edited May 3, 2012 by MigBuster

[Toryu 156]

Original

 

Copy

 

 

More like

 

Original:

 

Copy:

 

Edited May 3, 2012 by Toryu

[MAKO69 186]

The Tiger/Talon family.

[MAKO69 186]

The Falcon and her cousins.

[MAKO69 186]

2 prop trainers.

[+streakeagle 871]

MiG-23 and F-4 Phantom. Similar intakes, similar performance, similar radar and missile capabilities. Scaled down to 1 seat and 1 engine with VG wing for short takeoff performance.

 

The A-5 Vigilante certainly set the standard for a practical Mach 2.5+ airframe (as opposed to the SR-71's Mach 3.5+ airframe), but aside from the basic planform and intake arrangement, the A-5, MiG-25 and F-15 have very little in common. look at how the horizontal and vertical tail surfaces are attached to the airframe and the underlying structures that hold everything together.

 

The A-5's fuselage is rather unique due to its intended capability to lob nuclear weapons out of its internal center tube.

 

The MiG-25 has intakes/exhausts necessary for its unique engine configuration and high altitude/speed performance. Its internal structures gave up strength and limited maneuverability to focus on top speed at high altitude.

 

The F-15's budget was justified as a response to the MiG-25, but the original Mach 3 concepts looked nothing like the MiG-25. At the same time Boyd was calling for weight and size reduction, the Navy was trying to trap the USAF into buying the F-14 (as they did with the F-4). So, the resulting F-15 proposals had to meet very complicated restrictions:

1) Give up the VG wing to cut weight, complexity, and look as dissimilar to the F-14 as possible.

2) Add a large bubble canopy to overcome situational awareness issues encountered in Vietnam (didn't we already learn this lesson in WW2?).

3) As high a top speed as possible despite having a large bubble canopy, no VG wing, and minimal high-temperature materials.

4) Have a large wing area and turn like a bandit despite the high speed requirement.

 

The F-14 variant for a fixed wing proposal looked a lot like the F-15/A-5 Mach 2.5 layout and was being drawn up well before the MiG-25s layout was evident.

The original 60,000 lb Mach 3 VG F-15 proposals had spaced engines just like the F-14. I am guessing the engines were pulled back in for two reasons: the change to the fixed wing design with the twin tail booms was more practical and to not look like an F-14.

 

So while the layouts already existed and the A-5 marked the first full-scale production example of that type, it looks like less a case of blatant copying and more a case of engineers facing certain problems arriving at similar solutions. The MiG-25 that landed in Japan gave the US an up close inspection that revealed how different Soviet engineering was to anything the West would have produced. There's a lot more to aircraft design than the basic wing/tail plan view.

 

Now, for a nearly identical external copy:

US space shuttle oribiters versus Buran.

Soviet engineers arrived at an extremely similar solution, too similar!

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

There has always been some copying of basic ideas, since its art after all, and these souls were extreme artists.

 

How about missiles? Okay R-3 = AAM-N-7 but usually everbody had way different looking missiles. I like the Red missles since I like big fins on missiles and old cars. I tend to thinki that auto engineers copied the big fins of early rockets for the 50s cars. Both eventually lost their big fins.

[Derk 265]

I am the happy owner of "The Complete Book of Fighters" by Green & Swanboruogh, containing a couple of hunderds of biplanes looking VERY much like another couple of hundreds of other biplanes.....

Same timeframe, same tasks always produces look alikes......

[+Gepard 11,289]

original: MiG-21F13

copy: J-7

 

 

the original and the very close soviet answer

Edited May 4, 2012 by Gepard