(plus one honorable mention)
Beginning in the late 1940s, the spaceships that streaked across the covers of science fiction magazines and books underwent a subtle but definitive change. Artists were no longer taking their design cues from the streamlined look of the 1930s; instead, the bullet-shaped rockets of the pulp era gradually gave way to vehicles with bubble canopies, stainless-steel plate fuselages, aggressive nose probes, and svelte teardrop fuel tanks perched on swept-back wingtips.
In those heady days, when science seemed to be catching up to science fiction one invention at a time (Jet and rocket engines! Nuclear-powered submarines! Space satellites! Television!), it’s hard to tell whether the artists were influencing the engineers, or the other way around. Perhaps, for just the briefest of moments in history, it was an ideal balance of both.
For imaginative kids growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, who wouldn’t want to join the U.S. Air Force and learn to fly the airplanes that looked like they had just flown out of the pages of their favorite stories? Here is a celebratory retrospective of some of the most inspiring — and inspired — designs from that era.
 Can also be used to play the world's fastest game of Jarts. The spiffy XF-92 was the prototype for the delta winged fighters and bombers that came later, but of all its descendants, it’s the one that most resembles a spaceship. The long, tubular fuselage suggests a rocketship heritage, while the wings and tail seem almost comically exaggerated for effect. And yet, it really flew — and flew well, according to Chuck Yeager, who would know. |
 Today is a good day to fly.  XB stood for Extra Bad-ass. |
 Apparently this is the Chance part of Chance Vought. Serious science fiction magazines tended to avoid overly saucer-ish spaceship designs, probably out of a desire to avoid being lumped in with the likes of Fate in the minds of readers. But monster movies relied on the design heavily; most of the creatures that arrived on Earth to terrorize, colonize, or (occasionally) enlighten the human race came via circular spaceships. And occasionally, for example in Forbidden Planet, we returned the favor. The Chance Vought company was known for its radically interesting designs during the 1950s, only a few of which ended up in production before the company struck gold with its super-sleek F-8 Crusader, which John Glenn made famous in his 1957 record-breaking nonstop coast-to-coast supersonic flight. One of the more unorthodox designs — even by Vought’s standards — was the so-called “Flying Flapjack,” the XF5U-1 prototype fighter. Not a true flying saucer in the classic “alien spaceship” sense, it had the makings of a classic fictional design anyway; twin jet intakes, bulbous canopy, and ridiculously oversized propellors. In other words, if the Flying Flapjack hadn’t actually been invented, someone would have had to invent it. |
 The idea was to scare the air out of the plane's way. Unfortunately, the great promise of the design was let down by its engines. The Westinghouse company, better known for refrigerators and elevators than jet engines, promised to deliver an engine that would fly the Stiletto to Mars and back before lunch — so the Douglas folks took them up on the dare and designed the plane to take two of them. But the engines sucked everything except air, and so the plane never flew as fast as it was designed to. Apparently, this didn’t make the Stiletto very happy, because it tried really hard to kill test pilot Joseph A. Walker, who smacked it right back and thereby managed to avoid the fate of fellow test pilot Steve Austin. |
 No, this isn't an F&SF cover by Emshwiller. Really. There’s a reason they called it “the missile with a man in it.” The Starfighter was originally designed to take on high-flying enemy bombers; the pilot’s job was basically to point the nose at the enemy and hit the “go” button. But over the years they discovered that the Starfighter was also a really rugged all-around fighter; ultimately nearly 2,600 (!!!) were built, serving in more air forces than just about any other American jet fighter and lasting an astounding 46 years before the last one was retired. Or, more accurately, successfully chained to the ground. From its looks to its name, the Starfighter is the hands-down champion science-fictional U.S. airplane from the golden age of the 1950s-60s. Because this is what the future once looked like. |
 Your favorite Airbus calls this plane granddaddy. That’s what is truly science fictional about the Stratojet: quite simply, it established the Aristotelian perfect shape for multi-engined jet aircraft. Before the Stratojet, jet airplanes came in every shape imaginable. After the Stratojet, every big jet looked like — well, like the Stratojet. That’s pretty impressive for a design that was conceived right after World War II, isn’t it? In the 1950s and 1960s, science fiction artists showed us what things might look like in the future. The engineers at Boeing showed us what they actually would look like. Thanks, guys! |
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