If your idea of a ‘strange’ aircraft is the pre-war DH Dragon Rapide, a bloated Boeing Super Guppy or a BA Airbus with an ‘ethnic’ tail design, then think again. What about Horatio Phillips’ Multiplane with its 200 separate wings? Or the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the plane with the longest wingspan ever, which was made entirely from plywood? And who could forget the Caspian Sea Monster – a ten-engine, 550,000kg giant designed to fly at 500kph at a mindboggling altitude of just 4m? Exploring the strangest aircraft ever conceived, Keith Ray reveals the madness of many a designer and marketing guru in this highly entertaining homage to some of the aviation world’s more bizarre aircraft.

If your idea of a ‘strange’ aircraft is the pre-war DH Dragon Rapide, a bloated Boeing Super Guppy or a BA Airbus with an ‘ethnic’ tail design, then think again. What about Horatio Phillips’ Multiplane with its 200 separate wings? Or the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the plane with the longest wingspan ever, which was made entirely from plywood? And who could forget the Caspian Sea Monster – a ten-engine, 550,000kg giant designed to fly at 500kph at a mindboggling altitude of just 4m? Exploring the strangest aircraft ever conceived, Keith Ray reveals the madness of many a designer and marketing guru in this highly entertaining homage to some of the aviation world’s more bizarre aircraft.