Unusual changes to airframes

Davidth88

Guys

Looking through my photo's I came across on of ' Snoopy ' XV208 , which was a Herc that converted by the RAF to fly through storms

I checked it's since met a digger which is a bit of a shame.

Anyway got me thinking , can anyone else think of airframes that were converted for purposes ( flying ) that made them usual

I suppose you can count things like the Guppy used by Airbus

I was thinking more of the ones that are still flying not the ones converted into restaurants etc

L1011

Any retrofiited early warning system hardware would probably count here; the Saab 340 AEWC is particularly strange looking to me.

The last L1011 flying currently (there are a few that might be reactivated, but its unlikely), the Orbital Sciences Stargazer, has mounts for rocket launch on it.

goingnowhere

The A340 with the laminar flow wing

dashoonage

Air force one had a muppet installed in it a few years back.

Davidth88

Air Force one make me think .....I also remember a 747 SP that had an escape hatch built in

It sat over in the BA engineering space at LHR for a couple of years , when you could drive through the area ( from the Bath Road to Hatton Cross station )

Looked damn odd

Davidth88

L1011 wrote: »

Any retrofiited early warning system hardware would probably count here; the Saab 340 AEWC is particularly strange looking to me.

.

Of course the ill fated AWACs Nimrods , or even the E3 AWACs

Tow

Turbulent Bill

The Grumman X-29. Not strictly a modification, but close enough to an F-5 to count.

JohnC.

Always had a soft spot for the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

HTCOne

I always thought this 757 that was a test bed for various systems on the F22 Raptor looked weird

Tenger

MIT have a heavily modified B707 that it a great source of interest in the New England area when it gets airborne.

Inquitus

Tenger wrote: »

MIT have a heavily modified B707 that it a great source of interest in the New England area when it gets airborne.

Ryath

JohnC. wrote: »

Always had a soft spot for the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

🤣

Stovepipe

There's an Italian Piaggio business jet that had it's radome converted to test radars for their old F104s and then their Eurofighters. There's at least one Buccaneer in Ireland that has the radome from a Tornado fitted,to test the profile of the radome for the F3.It was said that the Bucc gained a free 30 kts.

EchoIndia

Stovepipe wrote: »

There's at least one Buccaneer in Ireland that has the radome from a Tornado fitted,to test the profile of the radome for the F3.It was said that the Bucc gained a free 30 kts.