Cool Plane



""If Kim Basinger was a plane, this is what she'd be.""

- Tom Clancy, describing the F-22 Raptor

The aerial equivalent of the Cool Car, Cool Boat, and the flying, usually metallic (but increasingly composite) incarnation of the Rule of Cool. Allowing you to rule the skies with pizazz, the Cool Plane will not break down, rust, or ever go out of style (unless the plot demands it). This is a plane that doesn't serve peanuts to its customers, it serves a Vesper martini, a buffalo steak burger, and a side order of whoopass given by a very pleasant stewardess. Please keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times while reading this play and take note of the exits. You may need to parachute out.

Cool Planes are probably piloted by a Danger Deadpan. They will frequently include stealth technology, which in reality does not make a plane invisible to radar, but reduces the detection to such that enemy reaction times will be reduced so much they cannot really do anything bar getting the hoses out.

Oh, also: Helicopters are included in this category. If you're looking for Real Life Cool Planes, they're right over here. For the Cool Plane IN SPACE!, see Space Fighter. See also Those Magnificent Flying Machines, where the "cool" aspect comes from an older aesthetic reflective of the first discoveries of flight.

Anime and Manga

 * In Hellsing, an SR-71 Blackbird is used to stop the naval invasion of England by Millennium.
 * In the popular fan webcomic And Shine Heaven Now, this is lampshaded with people referring to it as the Incredibly Awesome Plane, except for Alucard, who refers to it as a Deus Ex Machina.
 * Almost every aircraft in Sentou Yousei Yukikaze, friendly or enemy, especially the FFR-41 Mave which the main character, Rei Fukai, pilots (and thus give the most screentime).
 * The VF-1 Valkryie from Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and its successors such as the YF-19 and Jetfire from Transformers (No, really): Cool Planes that transform into robots.
 * As mentioned below, the YF-19 is the basis of Animated Starscream.
 * From the same franchise but different lineage the VB-6 König Monster. Boxy, and ungainly in flight mode it earns its cool points when it transforms into an updated version of Monster Destroid with the firepower to take down escort cruisers and a recoil that can buckle a warship's armour plating.
 * Combined with Rule of Cool and More Dakka with the VF-25 and its full armor pack. A few previous Macross fighters had armor packs that, when equipped prevented them from transforming back to fighter mode, the VF-25's not only allowed them to transform with the armor pack on, but they also had the largest missile load of any main fighter in the series.
 * It's safe to say that any Macross series will have Cool Planes.
 * The God Phoenix from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Imagine a large bright red and blue plane that can go into space, submerge in water, take off and land vertically, goes supersonic, carries about 30 missiles and 2 large super missiles and carries 4 secondary vehicles inside it. Most spectacularly of all when the plane's really in a jam, it can transform in to a giant flaming phoenix to escape, although this takes a lot out of the team.
 * Ken himself has the G1. A Cessna plane in civilian form that transforms into a supersonic jet. Later in the series, it gets mounted with a heat laser cannon.
 * Porco Rosso's trademark red Savoia Marchetti seaplane and Curtis' Curtis racer are both actual historical aircraft that would have been considered "cool" planes in their time.
 * Actually, most Hayao Miyazaki's works have them. Monsley's Falco and the Valley of the Wind Gunship come to mind.
 * The AH 88 Hellhound from the Patlabor movies. Functions mostly like an Apache, but looks way cooler.
 * Seto Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Jet...
 * Brai-Star, Braiger's plane form.
 * The amphibious plane that brought Ash Ketchum to the Unova Region in Pokémon.
 * The Umidori in Zipang a fictional VTOL naval scout craft which looks like the result of a tryst between an Apache attack helicopter and an Osprey.
 * The Swordfish II from Cowboy Bebop.

Comic Books

 * Wonder Woman's infamous Invisible Jet.
 * The SX Swordfish from Blake and Mortimer.
 * The X-Men's trademark Blackbird. (See its inspiration, the SR-71, in the Real Life section.)
 * The Batplane, and sometimes Batcopter.
 * Batman's small one-man copter, The Whirly-Bat has its own legion of fans.
 * The Blackhawk Squadron flew a great many Cool Planes over the years, most notably the '40s-era XF5F Skyrocket whose distinctive looks made it the definitive Blackhawk plane.
 * The Great Ten's Immortal Man (Men?) In Darkness flies one of these, the Dragonwing, that's based on alien technology and is phenomenally powerful. The current Immortal Man in Darkness isn't ashamed to admit that he's in love with the old girl.
 * The Avengers' quinjets count as a Cool Plane Fleet.
 * The Fantastic Four's Fantasticar is a Cool Plane that splits into four Cool Hover Crafts.
 * The Atlantis in Franka.

Films -- Live-Action

 * The titular hypersonic stealth fighter jet from Clint Eastwood's Film of the Book Firefox is considered by many to be the Trope Maker
 * The titular high-tech, stealth helicopter from Blue Thunder.
 * Slightly more realistic is Tony Stark's private jet in Iron Man. Comes with a wide-screen television, a fully equipped bar and luxurious leather seats, and the stewardesses double as strippers, complete with poles.
 * And, of course, the Man himself.
 * The MiG-28 flown by the villains in Top Gun, while in reality a Northrop F-5 with a (pardon the pun) jet-black paint scheme and red star markings, gave the heroes a serious run for their money and even terrorized one pilot so bad he resigns.
 * The Incredibles gives us a few, like...
 * The "Manta Ray" jet. It flies in the air and swims under water and even serves Mr. Incredible shrimp cocktail and mimosa all by itself... with no flight attendants! Its creator is an annoying inventive fanboy turned bad, who also happens to be the creator of...
 * The Velocipods—a Mook-flown, and also crazy baddie invention. Being small, fast and agile, it's basically your car-sized one-man helicopter that can fly tight circles around people. Its arsenal of twin machine guns gives it some raw firepower at a healthy distance, but you know what? It's the blades that make it really incredible: we mean, it cuts entire palm trees without hurting itself, guys!
 * And the Big Bad has more! There's even an unpowered glider housed inside a rocket that carries a Humongous Mecha called the "Omnidroid". But other than its incredible mass for an aircraft, there isn't much to speak of it since it demonstrates nothing else.
 * The good guys, however, get a "really fast" private jet. Although it's not up to the incredible standards set by the rest of the other aircraft, it can do some very extreme maneuvers and, if really necessary, jettison flares to confuse SAMs.
 * Another Pixar film, Cars, has several. The first film has Rotor Turbosky, Strip "The King" Weathers' helicopter, Barney Stormin, a red and white biplane seen sponsoring the final race, and a quartet of fighter jets at the same race composing of Marco, Stu Bop, and two unnamed jets, while the sequel has Siddeley, Finn McMissile's stealth fighter jet and his archenemies, the Lemons' Black Helicopter, as well as Everett the passenger plane and an unnamed Samairai passenger plane. Even the spinoffs featured more aircraft: Rescue Squad Mater features a pair of rescue helicopters, Mater the Greater has Props McGee, a blue and red stunt plane, UFM: Unidentified Flying Mater has Captain Munier the attack helicopter, and Air Mater has the Falcon Hawks.
 * Currently in production is the Spin-Off film Planes, which will feature an entire cast of these.
 * And Graves' giant cargo plane, equipped with the controls for his satellite superlaser
 * Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow (2004). The Royal Navy's amphibious squadron can transform in mid-dive into submersibles armed with cluster-torpedoes. They also have an Ejection Seat with built-in Jet Pack, leading to a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for Angelina Jolie.
 * Sky Captain's modified Curtiss P-40 would also qualify, as it carries the usual six machine-gun loadout as well as grapnel cables and magnetic bombs. Also, it can fly under water and perform aerobatic feats that the real P-40 would be hard pressed to do.
 * The F/A-37 Talons from Stealth, as well as the modified model used by HAL EDI, or Extreme Deep Invader. Just how agile they are/can be is vividly highlighted by the CMOA where EDI turns on a dime to track and shred a Sukhoi bird flying past.
 * COBRA from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra has a cool gunship that is not only agile, but Immune to Bullets up to .50 cal and has the Dakka to shoot missiles out of the air. They also have the Night Raven (no relation to the Ace Combat bird), which looks rather like Firefox, does Mach 6 and has voice-operated weapons.
 * In Captain America the First Avenger, we have HYDRA's massive Flying Wing aircraft and rocket-powered helicopter, which were both based on actual designs from the period, even.
 * The "Little Nellie" autogyro from You Only Live Twice. Flamethrowers? Check. Missile pods? Check. Heatseekers? Check. Aerial freaking MINES? Check and double-check. Oh, and don't be fooled by the fact that itlooks like a flimsy toy plane and can be packed into four suitcases, it curb stomps four of SPECTRE's attack helicopters in a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * The Super X-III in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah is one of the few human-built vehicles to go up against a Kaiju and come out the victor. Moreover, the Super X-III manages to do this twice.

Literature

 * One of the earliest, and almost certainly still to this day the greatest, has to be the MiG-31 "Firefox" from the novel and film of the same name, which was capable of Mach 5, stealth (called "anti-radar" in the book, which pre-dates the term "stealth technology") and carried thought-controllable weapons.
 * The original cover had the aircraft look like the MiG-25. The distinctive design was a creation of the film and features on all later re-prints.
 * Here's a rarity. The writer of the book liked the movie better than his own novel. Mr. Eastwood, Badass Planes. You're doin' it right!
 * In fact, Craig Thomas changed its description in the sequel novel Firefox Down to match the cinematic design.
 * At least one aeronautically-knowledgeable fan drew up its technical specifications in a journal-worthy white paper, thus making the Firefox one of the most realistic cool machines ever seen in a Hollywood film.
 * The F-19 Ghostrider from Red Storm Rising.
 * The Dale Brown novel Flight of the Old Dog and the series after it is about a junky old B-52 used as a testing platform for state-of-the-art military technology, a dichotomy reflected in its two names, "Megafortress" and "The Old Dog". When a Soviet laser system shoots down a US satellite and a squadron of sleek B-1 bombers, naturally it's the ramshackle B-52 and its rag-tag crew which comes to the rescue. Although it's valuable enough to be overhauled and eventually replaced in the continuity, the Cool Ship naturally never becomes mass-production, because that would cripple its mojo (and would make little sense militarily, anyway). Eventually the Dreamland team switches to heavily-modified B-1 Lancers with, amongst other things, LADAR, "plasma"-warhead missiles and armed UAVs. Later still the Black Stallion spaceplanes show up. The Russians also have some entries of their own, like the Fisikous/Metyor-179 Tyenee/Shadow stealth bomber in Warrior Class. Of course, there are some IRL ones flying around.
 * The science fiction novella Steam Bird, about how the crew of the titular huge nuclear-powered bomber—die-hard steam enthusiasts to a man—are so keen to have an excuse to finally fly the damned thing, during every diplomatic crisis they tool up and wait in the plane for The Call. When it finally comes, they're rolling in seconds, much to the President's dismay five minutes later when he realizes that he's just ordered a large nuclear reactor into the air. Due to the way the thing's built, once it's moving, it's got to take off Or Else (and set a whole bunch of world records in the process.) Such aircraft were actually proposed by the US Air Force in The Fifties.
 * Matthew Reilly's book, the Seven Ancient Wonders (Seven Deadly Wonders for US readers), features the Halicarnassus, an extensively modified 747 used as a militarized transport aircraft. It's modifications include VTOL capability, minigun and missile pods, radar-absorbent black paint job, and an impressive military-spec sensor and communications package. Oh, and the best part? It was actually a custom order by Saddam FREAKING Hussein, and the protagonist single-handedly stole it from him during the first Gulf War.
 * Matthew Reilly's previous books feature the Silhoutte (a fighter prototype with a cloaking device), and the Black Raven (a modified Sukhoi S-37 with more weapons than a Bond car). Both include radar-absorbent paint and VTOL. The S-37 was an earlier name for the Sukhoi Su-47, which counts as a cool plane before the modifications.
 * The Wingman series by Mack Maloney has the main character's F-16, with which he leads the forces of America's restoration. It's the last remaining F-16 in the world after the Soviets won World War III and destroyed most of America's modern equipment during the forced disarmament. It's modified to carry more and more missiles until, in the end, it can lug over twenty, and its performance is somehow not hampered in the least. It later ends up traveling back in time to World War II, then later into the far future -- IN SPACE—where it's modified to become a starfighter. The series is even more silly than all of that sounds.
 * From the Same series is the gunship known as 'Nozo' A modified C-5 that takes the gunship Up to Eleven, as it is armed with a full 21 GAU-8 Avengers.
 * In Zero History by William Gibson, Eccentric Millionaire Hubertus Bigend owns an Ekranoplan - specifically, an A-90 Orlyonok
 * The Javelin training jet from Honor Harrington. Two overpowered engines (Capable of at least mach 6), minimal computer support, no inertial compensation, a deliberate technical anachronism, and extremely fun to fly.

Live-Action TV

 * The supersonic Airwolf helicopter, star of the show of the same name. Capable of exceeding Mach 1, stealthy and an unrefuelled range that most fighters can't get near.
 * The SHARC (Special Hydro-Aero Recon Craft) from Power Rangers Operation Overdrive. Can fly or skate across water, and don't the Rangers look awesome jumping down from it in their circle formation? Eventually, they get a Humongous Mecha version called the Sonic Streaker, but the SHARC still popped up now and again.
 * The F-302 Mongoose from the Stargate Verse, reverse-engineered from an alien craft. What makes it even more awesome is the naquadriah-powered miniature hyperdrive that makes it capable of short-range tactical hyperspace jumps - and that one's an entirely human creation as no other race would even consider strapping a miniature nuclear reactor powered by an insanely unstable isotope onto a fighter. That's actually justified as the prototype almost blew itself to hell when its first hyperspace window was unstable but later proved wrong when O'Neill hyperspaced through an enemy ship's shield and missile'd its main gun directly.
 * Thunderbird 1 from Thunderbirds. The ultimate aerial hot-rod if you don't count space-planes. Reputed to do 15,000 mph, which is 86 per cent of escape velocity and will get you anywhere on Earth in just over an hour, even allowing for acceleration and slowing down at either end of the trip.
 * The Fireflash nuclear-powered airliner - based on designs of the time, until people realised any crash would result in an unhealty dose of isotopes over a wide area from the crash site.
 * Thunderbird 2. Not only hypersonic, but capable of carrying very large loads.
 * Subverted by the real Grumman Goose used in the short-lived Live-action TV show Tales of the Gold Monkey, which inspired Tale Spin.
 * The Flying Submarine from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which is a Cool Plane and a Cool Boat at the same time. Likely inspired the similar Manta Ray jets in The Incredibles.
 * From Doctor Who series 5:
 * The Luxury Liners in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica don't do much to warrant coolness but they still look pretty awesome. Technically they are starships but they are modeled after present-day airplanes and fill the same function so it kinda counts.
 * Well, being able to fly constantly for 4 years with little maintainance and taking off from a warzone while dodging fighters is pretty cool too I guess.
 * what about the Vipers themselves? Designed for maximum maneuverability and capable of taking down eight Cylon raiders in one go or even a Resurrection Ship in the hands of the right pilot, they're the best examples of this trope in the Fleet.
 * The Vipers are also a partial subversion of this trope : the most advanced Mk. VII models turn out to be susceptible to Cylon hacking at first, so the pilots have to use older Mk II models to get any fighting done.
 * The Modern Marvels episodes Extreme Aircraft and Extreme Aircraft II are dedicated to several Real Life examples of cool planes.
 * The Thunderwing jet fighters from Chouriki Sentai Ohranger. They have drop-deployment hatches for the Jetter Machines, and laser cannons in the nosecones to blow up Baranoia Takonpa fighters with in addition to a fighter jet's usual weapon loadout.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer40000 and its spinoff game Aeronautica Imperialis have their fare share of these.
 * Special mention goes to the Eldar Nightwing, which in the words of one reviewer "looks like something Batman would fly".
 * It's page in Imperial Armor contains a background note on an Eldar squadron that shot down more than sixty Chaos fighters in the course of one campaign. Particularly awesome given that that squadron was four Nightwings strong.

Videogames

 * Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere runneth over with Cool Planes, including the XFA-36A, the UI-4054 Aurora, the R-352 Sepia (a space fighter), the R-201v Asterozoa (a double artillery airplane), the XR-900 Geopelia, and the X-49 Night Raven. Just to hammer down the point, the Eurofighter Typhoon, which is one of the Coolest Planes in Real Life nowadays, is one of the lamest planes in the game!
 * Other Ace Combat titles have their share of Cool Planes; recurring examples are the XFA-27A, the X-02 Wyvern, and the ADF-01 FALKEN. Other games in the series have had Cool Planes that only appeared in a single title.
 * Not to mention Zero's Morgan, a plane so utterly degenerate it can actually complete several entire missions with a single subweapon shot. Later succeeded by X's Fenrir, whose subweapon has an even bigger blast radius.
 * The Arkbird from Ace Combat 5. Though you don't get to fly it, you do get to use it as a Kill Sat.
 * And then the 6 planes that provide the picture for this trope, they are (from left to right and top to bottom), YR-302 Fregata, XR-45 Cariburn, XFA-27A (a recurring example), Fenrir, XFA-24A Apalis, and the YR-99 Forneus.
 * The F-22 Raptor isn't the signature plane of the series for nothing folks. You can ace four of the toughest enemies in the series with one shot. Yeah, the Real Life Cool Plane outshines even it's fictional counterparts.
 * Ace Combat's competitor, the Airforce Delta series has its own share of both real and fictional cool planes and—unusual for a flight sim shooter—features Chinese fighter designs.
 * Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, from the developers of Ace Combat, has several Cool prop planes, with special honors going to the Sanka M-B.
 * Act of War, a modern warfare Real Time Strategy game, features loads of awesome real-life planes like the F-117, the Su-27 and the B-2, just to mention a few.
 * Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X contains several cool planes from the Real Life page, but there are some cool ones not mentioned in that page like FB-22 (F-22 bomber variant), SR-71 combat-capable prototype YF-12, and the fictional XA-20 Razorback.
 * The Razorback is a really cool one. It is officially designated as a ground support plane but it has the loadout to give even Raptors a really hard time. Especially since the Razorback is stealthed which means slower missile lock against it. And with the exception of one mission, no one in the singleplayer campaign flies this girl; after finishing the game though, you do.
 * Miles 'Tails' Prower started out piloting the Tornado, a red WW 1 biplane that got regularly upgraded over the series. It's been seen as the Tornado-X, named for its ability to shift into an X-shaped wing mode for speed, modified into a heavy armed walker, and in the Sonic X anime it gets upgraded into a huge Macross-style transforming jet. (in the second episode)
 * Pretty much every playable vehicle in Sonic Wings / Aero Fighter (not related to Sonic the Hedgehog), the Vic Viper from Gradius, the R-9 Arrowhead from R-Type, and many other Shmups.
 * And speaking of fighters reverse-engineered from alien craft, there's also the Raiden from the same-titled series of shooters.
 * Any of the "superfighters" of the Wing Commander series, and arguably some of the non-super variety as well.
 * All 4 Air-frames of the MMORPG Ace Online are Cool Planes in their own right:
 * The Anima Mortar (A-Gear) is a VTOL-capable hovertank, with a high-velocity Mass Driver cannon and shields thick enough to withstand fierce pounding, as well as an emergency barrier that blocks missiles, a Snare to slow their targets, and a Shield Paralyze skill that negates regeneration. A rarely-seen but awesome ability that A-gears may possess is the mighty Hyper Shot.
 * The Brandy Burg (B-Gear) is a Gradius-inspired fighter-bomber with Charged Shots, the ability to fire its missiles as proximity-fused Bombs against both Air and Ground targets, and can cast the deadly self-destruct attack known as the Big Bang. They also get Option-like Chaff for defending against missiles.
 * The Idle Sniper (I-Gear) is a high-speed dogfighter which can be tuned towards evasiveness or raw destructive power; their signature skills Berserk and Frenzy lets them rip loose with missiles, lots of them, while Chain Rolling lets them do continuous Barrel Rolls.
 * The Meadow Bugle (M-Gear) is the toughest Air-frame known to man, with the ability to sustain punishment that would crumple an A-10 Warthog like a paper plane. They can use the Call of Hero to mobilize whole formations rapidly, and can cast ranged repair and resupply skills, as well as Purify buffs from enemy Air-frames.
 * Crimson Skies is all about these.
 * Hard War's moths (think a plane meant for another planet's atmosphere) are generally squat-looking, boxy, function-over-form utility machines. Then you get the Swallow: sleek, aerodynamic, elegant and very deadly, it owns everything else in the skies with ease.
 * The Arwings from Star FOX.
 * The Steam/Dieselpunk mini-flyers used by the heroes in Sky Gunner.
 * Command & Conquer's Tiberium saga is loaded to the brim with Cool Planes -- fictional ones, that is. The most iconic of them all is the GDI Orca of the Tiberian Dawn era. Its twin tiltjet technology was so useful and reliable that in Tiberian Sun, GDI derived five different variants from the original Orca. Nod eventually catches up with GDI's technological advancements, though, namely with the introduction of the Scrin-based Banshee attack aircraft and in Tiberium Wars, Venom gunships and the Vertigo stealth bomber.
 * Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 gives us the Allied Vindicator. It's stubby, not terribly fast, carries just two little bombs, and can't even kill other aircraft. What it can and will do is consistantly and constantly knock out enemy resource collectors, vehicles, buildings and just about anything else. It's like a little sniper rifle you point at whatever you want dead and let fly. Entire strategies were built around the reliable little guy, and it pretty much entirely defined Allied strategy throughout the patch cycle.
 * And for something even bigger, get a load of the Allied Harbringer gunship. It's more or less the Real Life American AC-130H Spectre on steroids... and the Harbringer's very much based on it.
 * Oh, and speaking of which: Command And Conquer: Generals Zero Hour's Spectre gunship is also based on the AC-130H Spectre. The only difference is that while the Real Life counterpart runs on somewhat slow turboprops, the fictionalized one runs on jet engines and takes a huge amount of punishment!
 * Fallout's Enclave uses the infamous Vertibirds, and yea, verily, they are cool. Also, there's a quest in Fallout: New Vegas where you can restore a crashed B-29 use it to rain death on your enemies. Awesome.
 * The absolutely giant passenger airliner in Ace Attorney Investigations. The passenger compartment in First Class is two full stories tall (one "story" for passengers and one for a lounge area and in-flight shop), and the cargo compartment is also two stories tall. The first class seats are extremely luxurious, equivalent to what one might enjoy on a private jet. Given the layout that we see, that means that the airliner is at least 3 stories tall, possibly 4. As a result, this plane would be larger than any passenger airline flying today (compare the Airbus A380, currently the largest passenger airliner in the world, but somewhat less than 3 stories tall; it almost certainly could not have supported the giant cargo hold depicted in the game). Implausible to be sure, but who wouldn't want to sit in a first-class seat that comfortable?
 * In Secret Agent Barbie, Barbie and her team have their own, very large and very pink, private jet, which acts as their primary mode of transportation, as well as their secret headquarters.
 * Kirby's Starship, as seen in Kirbys Epic Yarn and Kirby Super Star. A different version of it appears in Kirby Air Ride and the game's anime adaptation.
 * The X-COM games are full of these. Specific aircraft include the Interceptor, the Firestorm, and the Avenger from Enemy Unknown, and the Barracuda, Manta, and Leviathan from Terror From the Deep.

Western Animation

 * The Javelins from Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. (If Wonder Woman's flying, count on her to have it cloaked whether necessary or not, a Shout-Out to the invisible jet.)
 * Most of the aircraft on Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines.
 * The SWAT Kats' custom-made jet, the Turbo Kat, from Swat Kats.
 * The "X-1" in The Venture Bros used to be a cool plane, in the 1960's. Now it's just the supersonic daily driver for the family.
 * Jonas' EX-X-1 however, is a cool plane. It can pilot itself, has Space Invaders in the lounge... and at that it has a lounge!
 * By default, virtually every Transformer with a plane alt-mode is one of these: Starscream (F-15, F-22, something that looks suspiciously like the Su-47 Berkut and a YF-19 "Alpha One") and Blitzwing (some sort of tank-plane thing) only being two examples. (An obvious drawback to listing them all is the fact that many of the flying Transformers are just repainted Starscreams.) Megatron also has an Osprey (Not that kind! A double-bladed helicopter) altmode.
 * Optimal Optimus' flight mode in Beast Wars, while looking a bit cumbersome, was definitely badass, and what it lacked in speed it made up for in armor and firepower.
 * Transformers Cybertron gives us a fair few. Earth planes (and one helicopter): Jetfire turns into an Antonov An-225, Thundercracker (Not a Starscream mold-mate, for once) turns into a Sukhoi Su-37, Evac turns into a Eurocopter Dauphin rescue chopper, and Wing Saber turns into a modified A-10. Cybertronian and other non-Earth: Megatron has a very menacing, evil-looking jet mode, Starscream's altmode is an homage to the pre-earth Tetrajet modes of the G1 Seekers, Sideways' looks distinctly alien, as does Soundwave's bomber mode (though his is similar in shape to some Earth stealth bombers). Mashup: Optimus Prime's Flying Fire Truck mode. Thanks for killing our wallets, Hasbro.
 * The Sea Duck in Tale Spin is a large cargo seaplane that can pull off some amazing stunts in Baloo's hands. Many other planes in the show can be just as awesome.
 * The Batwing from Batman the Animated Series. Capable of flying through a tunnel and spearing a car, and ripping off its door with a claw. Of course, it's Batman, so Rule of Cool is in full effect.
 * Subverted on Jimmy Two-Shoes with the Misery Flyer. It's hyped up throughout the episode as a great plane, and is used to try and rescue Jez. It is quickly crashed.
 * The episode "Air Force None" plays this strait.
 * The enormous and extremely luxurious plane in the Totally Spies! episode 'Evil airline much?'.
 * The "Mega Death-wing of Doom", a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird-esque bomber plane that attacks Donald Duck at the end of the episode of Quack Pack where Donald is forced to go back into the Navy.
 * The Thingamajigger from The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, which is a bizarre helicopter-like vehicle in which the Cat flies around in.

See the Real Life page for non-fictional examples.