"...In the eye of the beholder"

Flight Journal, Dec 1998 by Davission, Budd

The airplane as a form of artistic by BUDD expression: that's an interesting concept to which "da Vinci" alluded in the last issue, and it can clearly be appreciated just by scanning the pictures on the following pages.

It is in the fighter plane that da Vinci's concept of designing beauty into function is most readily apparent Here, the mission is a relatively simple one: kill or be killed, which, considering the restrictions imposed by the laws of physics, should result in nearly identical shapes. Still, the designers develop flying machines that, in many cases, don't even appear to be of the same species.

The laws of nature that designers must counter are universal. Gravity is the same in Germany as in Great Britain. Drag manifests itself in an identical fashion in Japan and the U.S., and horsepower is horsepower worldwide. Basically, all aircraft designers are painters who have been given identical brushes and palettes. But the traditional painter is restrained only by imagination, and the aircraft designer must exercise imagination within the tight confines of a world very much restricted by physical laws. Designers can't imagine away drag or gravity and must sculpt their creations in the materials available, all of which have limitations of their own. It's these restrictions that make the wildly divergent ways in which WW II designers fit form to function so amazing.

Take the Spitfire and the Corsair, for instance. If you ignore the concept of range, their missions were basically the same: find the enemy and kill him before he kills you. Both aircraft are artistic sculptures in their own right, but their lines say such different things. Mitchell's Spitfire is elegance in the extreme: fine-boned and with a lean musculature-like an aerial ballet dancer. It is a mechanical, aerial representation of Rudolf Nureyev. The Corsair, on the other hand, has a pugnacious, hairy-chested countenance that embodies a blunt, brute solution to the problem. This is Rambo at work.

Many consider Schmued's Mustang to be America's finest contribution to the world of flying art. Even its intrusive belly scoop somehow contributes to its lines. There is a "rightness" to it that pleases the eye. The Hellcat, on the other hand, is arguably America's contribution to the world of tactical tools; visual art be damned. Bob Hall's boys were given a specific mission: design an airplane that could take it as well as dish it out and could be brought on board a carrier by a scared, battle-shaken 19-year-old kid who had just shot two of his nation's enemies out of the air. The airplane was a well designed ball-peen hammer. The art of the Hellcat was in the superb fashion with which it did its job and in the hidden simplicity of its structure. Art takes many forms.

Today, as we dig more deeply into the mysterious realm of molecular-level, aerodynamic behavior and as computers replace previous aerodynamic givens such as stability, designers imagine themselves capable of chipping away at the laws of physics. But that's an illusion, and they know it. The basics are still the basics, and their imaginations must always function within a box. The art, however, remains. Form often flows together until it reaches the unexpected confluence that all viewers agree is art.

The finest expression of the aero designer's art, however, is in the compromise that every airplane represents. The visually successful design is a collage of pleasing compromises that lend themselves to function as well as grace. That kind of imagination requires a very special kind of artist like Reginald Mitchell, Edgar Schmued and select others of their breed. They have given us art that will outlast us all.