Besides being a personal favorite of mine, the Beaver is one of the most durable and long lived bush planes in the Pacific NW/Alaska.  The youngest Beaver is 40+ years old (the last rolling off the line in 1967).  Many are now refitted with turbine engines in place of the Pratt & Whitney radial gas engine, but don't take my work for it, Harrison Ford says it's his favorite personal aircraft and one was featured in "Six Days, Seven Nights" with Ford and Heche (of all things)

Photo from www.airliners.net  - which BTW is an awesome website and has photo's of nearly all commercial planes, yes individual planes - hard to believe but true

During the Cold War, the Soviets experimented extensively with "Ground Effect"or WIG (Wing in Ground Effect) vehicles.  Anyone who has been on a commercial flight has experienced the ground effect, to me it is most pronounced on landing as the wheels are about to touch the ground.  What's happening is the the wing lift is increasing and drag is reduced - the plane feels like it's working less hard, and that is exactly what is happening.  A plane designed to fly only a few meters above the ground or water can fly at airplane speeds and carry ship like loads.  The Soviets made a huge ground effects plane called the "Lun" Ekranoplan pictured below.  The video is a Russian TV show about the Ekranoplan program and has a cool flyby as viewed from a ship.  Boeing has one currently in design for the US Army.

Lun Ekranoplan floating, the things on top are anti sub missile tubes

Apparently from Belarus

12 Count-Em 12 525hp Engines.  I love the looks of this thing, so damn over the top, it looks like

it should be in a Miyazaki Anime a-la Porco Rosso or something.

This remarkable airplane captured my imagination when it

appeared in Popular Science Magazine in 1981.  What is truly

remarkable about this plane is how ahead of it's time it turned out

to be.  The last project of Bill Lear (of Lear Jet fame), completed shortly

after his death by his wife, the LearFan was constructed of carbon

fiber, and combined near jet speed with astonishing efficiency.

It used 1/5 of the fuel of a Learjet and 1/3 as much as turboprop

planes of the day. It achieved a car like 10mpg and with a full 

compliment of passengers it was less thirsty per person than

most cars.  It failed FAA certification over concerns about it's

innovative gearbox, with which two engines drove the rear pusher

prop and the extensive use of relatively untested carbon fiber.

Fun fact I learned researching this: Bill Lear invented the 8 track !

Click the link for a vintage promotional video and more info on

Bill  Lear  http://www.williamplear.com/learfan_1.html

Originally designed as an airial camera platform for National Geographic, the AirCam and it's

Little brother the Drifter are really nice "Low and Slow" ultralights type aircraft (only the

Drifter is an actuall FAA Ultralight.  I would love to have one of these for sightseeing and

general knocking around.

I've always thought the 1930's Gee Bee racers were pretty cool, but what I did not know is that they were built in Springfield MA