Most beautiful machine ever?

[Cliphead]

Is it too many pot noodles :

No such thing as too many pot noodles

[Ruprect]

[Ruprect]

[OwlHoot]

The spitfire is a good candidate.

Did you Know ?
sorry but military history is my speciality

did you know that the Germans captured a few spits. just as we captured a few messerschmitts.They flew them, and we flew theirs, then they evaluated them and worked out the best way to bring them down.
They had the captured spits painted up in German livery, and occasionally had them painted back, in RAF livery to make propoganda film of them being valiantly defeated by the luftwaffe.
Just as we had captured planes being shot down by 'the few' on film.
(im not saying all the footage was fake, just some of it).

The point of all this, is that there were top pilots who flew both aircraft. So if the battle of Britain was won by superior command and control, intelligence and luck, and the spitfire was not actually that much good, these blokes would know.
And their message was clear, the RAF and the luftwaffe pilots who flew both planes said the spitfire was by far the better plane for dogfighting. due to a thousand little design advantages

I read somewhere that messerschmitts had slightly better turning performance than spits, but by an accidental design quirk the latter started juddering when their limits were about to be reached and that let their pilots take them close to the limit. But lacking any similar indication, messerschmitts couldn't, and many German pilots were killed trying and exceeding its limit.

If that makes sense

[EternalOptimist]

I read somewhere that messerschmitts had slightly better turning performance than spits, but by an accidental design quirk the latter started juddering when their limits were about to be reached and that let their pilots take them close to the limit. But lacking any similar indication, messerschmitts couldn't, and many German pilots were killed trying and exceeding its limit.

If that makes sense

this will make CH hair curl

[d000hg]

I think the shuttle and concord are both remarkable but I wouldn't say either is especially beautiful. Even the spitfire I feel is pretty but not beautiful, though I'm sure that's not a popular view.

I shall have to think on what I would nominate, mind's gone blank. I do think the Team Phillips catamaran was pretty lovely:



Except:
a)does it count as a machine
b)it sunk

[SimonMac]

[d000hg]

Don't know about beautiful but this is pretty incredible (found via QI):