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!
9. Lockheed C-130
The test of time is a good way to judge success, and in a marketplace like aviation, utility and reliability go a long way toward keeping customers satisfied and budgets in the black. The C-130 Hercules, a medium transport built by Lockheed-Martin (just Lockheed for much of its production life) is just such a plane. The big, four-engine transport is not only rugged and reliable, but itâs also highly convertible, so it can play several different roles, from search and rescue to troop hauling to cargo transport to surveillance and more. The plane is one of the longest-serving military planes in U.S. history and has the longest military production history of any plane, not just in the United States but also in the world. The C-130 first flew in 1954, and it has stayed in continuous operation since then, in part because it was the lucky recipient of a design well suited to be mated to a technology new at the time, the turbine-powered propeller engine, referred to as the turboprop, that was not only perfect for the C-130 but also became better and better suited for it over time as turboprop power and fuel efficiency improved.
A big, strong, highly reconfigurable platform with a lot of uses, the C-130 was ready for the growth. It has, in fact, been upgraded several times; in all, there have been 12 editions of C-130, some of them special mission models, and several dash-number-specific upgrade programs have been implemented as well. In all, Lockheed-Martin has built more than 2,500 C-130s.
Margin of error: Zero. Contenders: Airbus A400M Atlas; Douglas C-54; Fairchild C-123.
