Two of the most popular questions, at least for pilots and other students of aviation history, are: What are the top 10 planes of all time, and which one’s the greatest of them all?
At first glance, it seems a silly idea that you could even come up with an answer. After all, planes come in so many different shapes and sizes, with an equal number of mission types to match. How could you possibly choose just one?
This is how.
We started with a group of really great airplanes, or at least we tried to. We started with 10 of them before deciding, as they did in Spinal Tap, to make this one go all the way up to 11. We thought of consciously working to make it a cross-section of aircraft types, but that happened automatically.
But looking at the different kinds of mission types, i.e., training, personal transportation, commercial transportation, fighters, bombers, reconnaissance and more, we decided to narrow things down even more by asking ourselves if there were a top dog among those planes. Surprisingly, the answer to that question was often an unequivocal, “Yes!” Who knew?
Before you begin, consider these bizarre facts about the most outrageous top 10 list of planes you’ll ever see. For starters, there are only two non-American planes on the list. There are five planes that are advertised as supersonic, one other that might have gotten there, four with propellers, three with rocket motors, eight that are no longer being produced, and one that was first built in 1956 and is still in production today.
Finally, after our Greatest Airplanes Of All Time, we present 25 others that a lot of you will argue belong on the main list. In many cases, you’d have a strong argument. Enjoy!
2. Piper Cub
Before you get started, this is not a nostalgia pick. The Piper Cub is a much-beloved airplane, one that many of us associate with a bucolic image of aviation in simpler times. And it is that. But itâs also one of the most revolutionary airplanes in history and one of the most important. When C.G. Taylor designed the first Cub in the late 1920s, he was trying to do what many others were attempting at the same time: to build an affordable, easy-to-fly personal aircraft that would be useful for a wide variety of trips. Other attempts to design such a plane failed.
Some, like Aeroncaâs C-3, nicknamed the âflying bathtub,â were ungainly, underpowered and uncomfortable. With his âCub,â Taylor hit upon a magic recipe that resonated with customers. But it was the Depression, so the Cub might never have become the icon it is without the intervention a few years into its life of William T. Piper, who bought the company and updated the plane to that imperfect thing of beauty we know as the Piper J-3 Cub. The Cub has issues: The pilot in command, both when solo or with two aboard, sits in the rear of the two tandem seats, and getting into and back out of the thing was and is a young personâs exercise. The Cubâs flying manners are more than a little kite-like, and visibility while taxiing is limited. But somehow these liabilities were nothing compared to the overall joy of the J-3, because once youâre in a Cub, and especially once youâre flying it, itâs the epitome of the joy and beauty of bare-bones flying. Thatâs why, for 85 years now, the icon of personal flying is as beloved as ever.
But thatâs not all. As a plane that an ordinary person could buy, learn to fly and keep in good shape on a shoestring, the Cub gave rise to what we now know as personal aviation. It wasnât long before the J-3 was supplanted by improved Pipers and a host of competitors, some of which got faster and more sophisticated, and the whole thing evolved into a segment of aviation that is for all the people, one that, in our view, is one of the crown jewels of America. And all of that can be traced back directly to the Piper Cub.
Margin of error: Zero. Contenders: None. Pretenders: Aeronca Champ; Taylorcraft; Erco Ercoupe.
