Airplanes

WWII aircraft and airplanes represented a massive leap in speed, power, and sophistication. Many combatants started off flying biplanes and weakly-powered fighters. By the end of the conflict, however, jet fighters were coming into service, along with long-range bombers that could fly thousands of miles. Many nations, especially Germany, developed&nbsp;new planes boasting highly-sophisticated technology. However, even prior to that, some aircraft manufacturers were making planes that were fast, powerful, cheap to produce, and difficult to shoot down.

Many of these planes became iconic thanks to endless movies, newsreels, documentaries, and history books. And thanks to preservation techniques, thousands of WWII planes survive in museums, with some even still able to fly.

The aircraft of WWII&nbsp;saved England from German planes, played key roles in crucial historical events, became famous around the world, and were the only planes to ever drop atomic detonation devices on a combatant nation.&nbsp;

Here&#39;s your chance to vote up the most iconic and important planes of WWII.

Lockheed P-38 Lightning

The Most Iconic World War II Planes

Aircraft

WW2 Planes | Aircraft of World War 2

Mike Rothschild

Lists about airplanes, the best and worst parts of flying, and how to spend hours trapped in an aluminum tube.

Fly the Friendly Skies

World History

When the US government passed the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=tegvPvN6LTAC&amp;pg=PA48&amp;dq=plane+hijacking+in+the+1970s&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi8_uGXj7zWAhUB2IMKHR_aDtoQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&amp;q=plane%20hijacking%20in%20the%201970s&amp;f=false" target="_blank">Anti-Hijacking Act of 1974</a>, it was a direct response to the &quot;Golden Age&quot; of skyjackings. The act mandated that all airline passengers and their carry-on bags be screened before getting on the plane because, in the early '70s,&nbsp;hijackings from the US were out of control. Between 1960 and 1974, there were 240 hijackings or attempted hijackings between the US and Cuba alone.&nbsp;Why?&nbsp;Plane hijacking in the late 1960s and 1970s&nbsp;involved mostly men with political or financial agendas using guns, knives, and bombs to get what they wanted. Though it's hard to imagine in a post-9/11 world, at the time, hijackings were so common that the public grew desensitized to them, and the act of hijacking&nbsp;became&nbsp;farcical at times. For example, when the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=tegvPvN6LTAC&amp;pg=PA48&amp;dq=plane+hijacking+in+the+1970s&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi8_uGXj7zWAhUB2IMKHR_aDtoQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&amp;q=plane%20hijacking%20in%20the%201970s&amp;f=false" target="_blank">host of Candid Camera ended up on a hijacked flight</a>, the other passengers believed themselves to be on an episode of the show parodying the situation. They weren't. This finally dawned on them when Fidel Castro welcomed them to Cuba.&nbsp;Even after the 1974 Act, hijackings continued, but as global security increased, the number of hijacked flights finally began to decline.&nbsp;

In The 1970s, Airport Security Didn't Exist – And The “Golden Age Of Plane Hijackings” Was Born

General

In The 1970s,  Airport Security Didn't Exist – And The “Golden Age Of Plane Hijackings” Was Born

Melissa Sartore

Animals

When you travel by airplane, usually you find yourself surrounded by stinky, slobbering animals who know nothing about etiquette or personal boundaries. But sometimes you luck out and meet actual <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/weird-emotional-support-animals/mariel-loveland?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">animals on planes</a> who&nbsp;make&nbsp;the lack of legroom and terrible airline food worth it. <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/traveling-with-pets-on-airplanes/rachel-souerbry" target="_blank">Pets on planes</a>, while formerly&nbsp;a rarity, pop up more and more frequently as travel becomes more accessible. Animal passengers on airlines&nbsp;come in all sizes and species, especially now that many people take their service animals on planes. Dogs on planes appear the most frequently, but birds and ponies also turn up in the aisle&nbsp;on occasion. One dignified penguin even put to rest the myth that the species is &quot;flightless.&quot; Hopefully when you fly home for the holidays, you'll meet&nbsp;some airborne animals who don't happen to be pulling Santa's sleigh.

In-Flight Pictures Of The Best Passengers You Would Totally Share An Aisle With

Mick Jacobs

Military

They say if it looks right, it flies right. And if that&#39;s true, then this must be the best flying list on Earth. Military aircraft, as a rule, are all about function - just getting the job done, and getting home in one piece. But every so often, some fighter jet, combat aircraft, or hyperspeed recon flier will cross that line from function to form, and wind up looking dead-sexy in the process.&nbsp;On this list, we&#39;re going to take a look at some of the sexiest planes from the Air Force, Army, Marines and armed forces worldwide. 
&nbsp;

North American XB-70 Valkyrie

The Sexiest Military Aircraft

Military Aircraft Photos | Most Attractive Combat Planes

Richard Rowe

Lists of true accounts of real people who survived unfathomable situations and depictions of fights for survival in film, TV, video games, and other media.

Stayin' Alive

Survival

Survivors never enter situations aware they are <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/attempted-murder-survivor-stories/rosa-pasquarella">about to cheat death</a>; instead, they emerge with an <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/7-real-people-who-survived-horror-movie-situations/samantha-wilson">experience few of us can</a>, or ever even will, comprehend. Given the fact that plane crashes are literally a one-in-a-million possibility, these survivors bore&nbsp;witness to a rare phenomenon that nevertheless still occupies <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/most-common-phobias/desertrat89">many peoples' waking thoughts</a>.&nbsp;Now, instead of wondering what it feels like to endure a plane crash, thanks to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/378jm1/serious_redditors_who_have_survived_a_plane_crash/">Reddit</a>, you can read first-hand accounts of people who faced that&nbsp;reality.&nbsp;

18 Plane Crash Survivors Share Their Harrowing Stories

18 Plane Crash Survivor Stories From People Who Cheated Death

Amanda Sedlak-Hevener

Living

Flying may be part of your vacation, but it&#39;s work for some people (and hard work at that). Being an airline employee can have its perks - seeing cities all over the world, flying for free, meeting interesting people - but it is still a customer service job. Below are some horror stories from the sky.

10 Flight Attendants Share Their Most Outrageous Inflight Experiences

Flight Attendants Share Their Most Outrageous Inflight Experiences

Jordan Myrick

Culture

A trip to the airport during the Golden Age of travel was a far cry from what passengers experience&nbsp;today. Instead of a long, stressful day spent waiting in lines and wolfing down&nbsp;fast food before boarding, flying during the 1950s and 1960s&nbsp;involved glamour, lavish meals, and lots of legroom -&nbsp;not to mention cigarettes and cigars for your smoking pleasure. <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/vintage-flight-attendant-and-air-travel-photos/mariel-loveland" target="_blank">Vintage airplane pictures</a> show the sheer volume of perks airlines adopted to entice people to fly.Flight attendants,&nbsp;pilots, and passengers spent their time in the friendly skies surrounded by luxury, but the experience came with downsides, too. Despite the many headaches built into&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/ways-airlines-make-you-miserable/brian-gilmore" target="_blank">modern air </a><a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/ways-airlines-make-you-miserable/brian-gilmore" target="_blank">travel</a>, it remains&nbsp;safe and (relatively) reliable. During the Golden Age,&nbsp;passengers endured a fair amount of noise and danger.&nbsp;So, was the period really a golden one?&nbsp;See&nbsp;what air travel used to look&nbsp;like&nbsp;and decide for yourself.

In Retrospect, "The Golden Age Of Flying" Doesn't Seem So Great

What Your Day Was Like On A Trip During The Golden Age Of Flying

What It Was Like To Fly During The "Golden Age" of Flying

Lists about famous people caught acting like entitled jerks or even committing real offenses—probably expecting to get away with it.

Celebrities Behaving Badly

Entertainment

Celebrities are not known for being patient - and they probably didn&#39;t get famous for being nice. So, not surprisingly, this <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/full-list-of-all-celebrity-mug-shots/celebrity-insider" target="_blank">list of celebrities</a> who have been kicked off planes isn&#39;t short. No, it&#39;s a nice fat list chock-full of examples of celebs going totally rogue and then getting themselves thrown off of flights (not in mid-air, though the crew probably thought about it), apprehended in airports, and slammed in the media by those who witnessed their obnoxious behavior firsthand.

Just because you&#39;re famous doesn&#39;t mean you can act like a jerk, and as this list shows us, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/celebrities-accused-of-horrible-crimes/celebrity-lists" target="_blank">there are consequences</a>.&nbsp;Behold, stars who have been thrown off of flights, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/celebrity-arrests-in-2019/celebrity-events" target="_blank">thrown in the slammer</a>, and even thrown right under the bus by celebrity gossip mongers.

Celebs Caught Behaving Badly on Planes

Person

Celebrity Plane Incidents | List of Celebrity Air Travel Fights

Alby Thompson

Hacks, facts, insider secrets, and horror stories from your favorite retail stores, product lines, and places to shop.

SSHHH! Company Secrets

Let's face it: People are gross. The world is gross. Life is gross. Ugh, go wash your hands.

That's Disgusting!

Travel

If you're a frequent flyer, there are two approaches to this list of airline secrets you may or may not want to know: 1. Ignore it and carry on in your blissful ignorance of duct tape holding the wing of your aircraft together while flying. Or 2. Read about the awful things that happen on commercial flights, and go in with the knowledge of how awful the flight you're on really is (but possibly avoid dysentery). There's no option three, so choose wisely, because some of these airline worst practices can't be unseen.From odd / surprising (hopefully) places you'll find poop on a plane to the things a flight attendant might overlook so they get paid, there are an uncomfortable number of scary things airlines don't want you to know about flying. Culled from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1or6ow/people_who_work_for_airlines_what_are_secrets/?sort=top">the experiences</a> of real pilots, flight attendants, airline staff, ground crew, and TSA officials, these are the reasons logical people are <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/celebrities-afraid-of-flying/celebrity-lists?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">afraid to fly</a> - and even the most seasoned traveler should be at least a bit skeeved out by this list of awful things that happen on planes.&nbsp;

18 Dirty Facts About Flying Airlines Don't Want You to Know

18 Dirty Facts About Flying Airlines Don't Want You To Know

Ranker Travel

Space

List of the best colleges for aerospace engineering. Thanks to these rankings, no rising freshman will ever have to wonder &quot;what are the best aerospace engineering colleges?&quot; Here they are! This list of the top schools for aeronautical engineers can provide NASA's next leaders with all their collegiate options. Building missiles, aircrafts, and spacecrafts should be left to a select few, and these top quality engineering schools offer the best education in aeronautics. Are you looking for the number one college for studying aerospace? Do you have an opinion on what that number one aeronautical engineering school actually is? This is the place for you to check our rankings and rank them to your liking. Every university and educational institution on this page is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Not every school, or even every engineering school, can boast that board's rating -- so you know these institutes are legit. If you are ready to explore &quot;the next frontier,&quot; or help the human race do so, these schools will excite any and every aspiring engineer. Aerospace engineering departments are hard to come by, let alone the highest-ranked ones in existence, but the professors at these colleges and universities have hands-on experience for students to see that the sky really is the limit.

Arizona State University

The Best Colleges for Aerospace Engineering

School/College

Best Aerospace Engineering Colleges | List of Top Schools for Aeronautical Engineers

College Info

Songs for people who listen to the lyrics.

Ranking Songs About Everything

Flight is a modern miracle, and planes gets plenty of love in popular music. Musicians travel a lot, so they’ve written a lot of songs about airplanes. Some musicians fear flying while others write odes to military aircraft. This list of songs about airplanes covers the entire spectrum of aviation-related tuneage. Lots of airplane songs use planes as a metaphor for running away, or simply suggest them as a very real, practical way of running away. However you feel about planes, you’re sure to find a song on this list that’ll have you flying high in no time. The Steve Miller Band cover of “Jet Airliner” was a hit song in the ‘70s. It makes sense Miller would be attracted to the tune: His band’s previous single was called “Fly Like an Eagle.” More recently, Far East Movement coined a phrase with &quot;Like a G6,&quot; which refers to the Gulfstream G650, a popular private jet. Maybe the most famous song about flying, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was written by John Denver and covered by artists including Peter, Paul and Mary, Frank Sinatra, and Liza Minnelli.Which of these airplane songs send you sky high? Vote for your favorites! If there are any songs about flying you love that aren't here, go ahead and add them to the list!

Jet Boy

The Best Songs About Planes

Song

Airplane Songs | The Best Songs About Planes

Ranker Music

The best horror movies in every subgenre of horror. Whether it's evil dolls, terrible vacations, or anything in between, we've got a list for it.

Horror Movies About Everything

As if flying wasn&#39;t scary enough on its own, here are the <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-horror-films-ever-made?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">best horror movies</a> about airplanes, or at least the scariest <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-aviation-movies-list/all-genre-movies-lists" target="_blank">movies that take place on airplanes</a>. Some of the horror films on this list aren&#39;t exclusively about planes, but feature at least one important scene on an airplane. Final Destination, for example, doesn&#39;t take place on a flight, but the airplane is essential to the plot of the film.

What are the best horror <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/airplanes-and-airports-movies-and-films/reference" target="_blank">films that take place on an airline flight</a>? A few good choices for scary plane movies include Airborne, Panic Button, and Dark Flight, a Korean horror film take takes place in the air. We of course have included Snakes on a Plane as well, because although it&#39;s not necessarily a horror film, we just couldn&#39;t leave it off our ranked list of scary airplane movies.

Vote up the horror movies set on airplanes that you would recommend to other movie lovers, and downvote any films if you&#39;ve seen them and didn&#39;t care for them.

The Best Horror Movies About Airplanes

Film

The 15+ Best Horror Movies About Airplanes and Flights

Ranker Film

There's no question about it: airlines want you to suffer. From waiting in long security lines that move at a snail's pace to the struggle to find a cab at your destination, every moment of air travel is an exercise in hellish inefficiency. That's not to mention all the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/the-worst-people-on-planes/ranker-travel" target="_blank">terrible people on planes</a>. Flying really is a nightmare.It would be one thing if air travel had to be the worst for some reason. But in reality, the ways airlines make you miserable are not only calculated, but they are a part of the business model. There are endless ways airlines make flying horrible, and they do it to make more money. These are just some of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/airline-secrets-flying/ranker-travel" target="_blank">dirty facts about flying</a>&nbsp;that make it clear airlines care more about the bottom line than they do about the comfort of their customers.

Airlines Are Making You Miserable On Purpose - Here's How And Why They Do It

All The Ways Airlines Are Purposely Making You Miserable

Brian Gilmore

poll

Whenever you board a plane, you hope that everything runs smoothly. Of course, that means safety, but it also means not having to deal with the many types of obnoxious, selfish people that all somehow pile on to your particular flight when we all wish that they were were <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/celebrities-who-own-private-jets/celebrity-lists">private jet owners</a>. The wide variety of awful people come in various shapes and forms and can range from adults to toddlers. That said, this list points out the bottom of the barrel when it comes to air travel, and believe us, there are A LOT of people who fit these stereotypes. Yes, there are a few more of these people that could have made this list, but these frequent flyers can truly <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/things-that-will-ruin-your-childhood/jacob-shelton?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">ruin your</a> traveling experience.Who are the worst people on every flight? That's up to you to decide, since different things anger different people. Take a look and upvote the people who manage to bother you the most.&nbsp;

The Worst People on Planes

Lists about the period between July 28, 1914, and November 11, 1918, during which the Allied Forces fought the Central Powers for control of the developed world.

World War One airplanes began as primitive, unarmed artillery spotters that could barely take offensive action - and ended as powerful bombers and sleek modern fighters. Germany, the UK, and France led the way in aircraft development, creating iconic aircraft like the SPAD, Sopwith Camel, and the scourge of allied pilots, the German Fokker. This was a time when air-to-air combat was quite literally being made up as pilots went along. The first fighter planes were little more than lumbering artillery spotters with an extra man carrying a revolver. Soon, the interrupter gear was invented, giving aircraft the ability to shoot through their propellers. German technology quickly took control of the skies, first in the &quot;Fokker scourge&quot; of 1916, then &quot;Bloody April&quot; 1917. But Allied pilots fought back, and by the end of the war, both sides had thousands of the most sophisticated planes available, and experienced pilots to fly them. Aircraft technology developed so quickly that fighters would be rolled out in mass quantities, and be obsolete by the time they were actually used. Even so, the war pioneered many of the tactics used in World War 2 aircraft, including heavy bombers escorted by fighters, deep-penetration reconnaissance planes, night fighters and bombers, and innovative technology. Here are some of the most important, widely-produced, iconic, and effective planes of World War 1. Vote up your favorites or add your own.

Airco DH.2

The Best World War 1 Airplanes

World War 1 Airlanes | List of WWI Planes & Aircrafts

No matter how many times mustachioed demi-god pilots such as “Sully” Sullenberger go on CNN and tell us it’s normal, there’s something unsettling about the experience of airplane turbulence. Why do planes&nbsp;experience&nbsp;turbulence? Why do passengers freak out about it? Unlike the totally normal sensation of, say, being behind the wheel of a two-ton hunk of steel going <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-songs-with-highway-in-the-title/ranker-music?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">down the highway</a> at 80 miles per hour, being jostled at 37,000 feet, even just a little bit, feels like a death sentence. But why? Is it really that scary? What causes airplane turbulence, anyway?The science of airplane turbulence is pretty basic physics, but there are plenty of nasty variables (climate change, pilot error, unbuckled passengers, etc.) that make avoiding it a huge concern for the airline industry. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/11/cost-bumpy-flights-air-turbulence-global-warming-united-airlines">Guardian</a> says&nbsp;“the damage, delays and disruption from turbulence already cost more than $500M a year” in the US&nbsp;alone. Read on for more airplane turbulence facts that might&nbsp;make you feel better about your next flight.

Everything You Need to Know About Airplane Turbulence

Kellen Perry

Aircraft lists at Ranker - the ultimate source for hundreds of aircraft lists and rankings.

Aircraft lists at Ranker - the ultimate source for top 10, top 100, best of, funny, factual lists of any kind