Branding our war planes

We might call it branding today, but a lot of aircraft companies had a “signature style” to differentiate themselves from one another, even in the earliest days of aviation. No doubt, a big reason for this signature look was because most, if not all of an aircraft company’s designs were penned by the chief designer, who would certainly have stylistic preferences. There were also practical reasons, though. Not looking like the airplane your enemy flew went a long way in keeping you from being shot down by your wingman.

The cold war era saw a flurry of high-style design activity from dozens of aircraft companies. Convair was busy putting delta wings on everything, while McDonnell had its twin-engined duo of the F-101 Voodoo and the F-4 Phantom II, with very characteristic tail sections and wing planforms. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was in charge of developing the super-sleek F-104 Starfighter and YF-12A Blackbird for Lockheed, which shared many design features, such as the engine air intakes and vertical stabilizer shapes.

Of course, aeronautical advances helped shape our airplanes; we know that much of the development of jet aircraft in this era was due in large part to captured WWII German research and development information, but it is very evident also, that each company had a unique philosophy about aircraft design that heavily influenced their planes’ appearance. And it is surely not a coincidence that each aircraft manufacturer’s airplane models had visual similarities, while they also had visual differentiation from competitors’ offerings.

The cold war era had a major aesthetic impact on our warplanes, which subsequently influenced many of our consumer products, even architecture and automobiles. American aircraft manufacturers seemed particularly good at crafting attractive, but menacing silhouettes. Perhaps the ultimate expression of sleek, nuke-wielding power was the North American Aviation XB-70 bomber (largest, pictured above).

If this seems a little far-fetched; and you think that that aeronautical engineering is all form-follows-function, remember this: the aeronautical term “fairing” comes from the old days of ship building, where a draftsman would cheat a curve “to make fair” (as in “fair maiden”) Even today’s technological tool box of CAD, stealth requirements and computerized flow visualization can’t prevent an aerodynamicist from putting a little “signature style” into the design.