As everyone knows, AI will definitely turn against us and destroy all humans within the next couple of years or so. As a result we only have a short window to point out its flaws and laugh at it. More importantly of course, it is imperative to test how well it can produce pictures of vintage British aircraft. Luckily for you, and all humanity, Hush-Kit has already taken the plunge and can reveal the Top Ten(ish) British Aircraft as portrayed by AI below. See if you can guess what each is supposed to be! The answer is given directly below each image. We have also supplied a serious and informed critique of each piece so you don’t have to.

(Brief note on method: the aircraft name and nothing else was typed into two freely available image generation websites, Gencraft and Da Vinci. These are the genuine results).

Supermarine Shiteful

Algy’s gone all squiffy

Beginning with the most famous British aircraft of all, the Supermarine Spitfire. As can be seen, the AI in question has captured impeccably the sublime aesthetic form that the Spitfire is revered for. Top marks for blurring on the propeller, even if the unconventional arrangement of the four propeller blades is a little fanciful. It is also well known that the Spitfire had a narrow undercarriage but this might be taking things a little far and, although narrow, no one ever said that each Spitfire wheel was at a different height. The cockpit canopy (canopies?) look more like something you would see covering a sick cabbage on the allotments behind the industrial estate but absolutely top marks for the wing to fuselage fillet which is pretty much spot on. Wing roundels aren’t bad either. And, are those rose petals coming out of the exhausts? How utterly charming.

For the next exhibit, let us look at something slightly more up to date:

English Ecletic

What is happening?!

Racing headlong into the late 1950s, this is what our magical robot friend comes up with for the English Electric Lightning. To be honest I was surprised that it managed to depict an aircraft at all as the words English, Electric and Lightning are all quite commonplace non-aviation based nouns and/or adjectives but here it is. Drilling down into the details a little, quite why AI has such a major aversion to the nose intake is anyone’s guess. As is the reason as to why it really wanted to draw an F-18. And is that a Draken fin and rudder? Personally I think the jolly yellow snout is actually rather fetching and should be encouraged in future fighter designs but I am aware this may not be to everyone’s taste. Particularly noteworthy here is the reheat (or afterburner for our American chums) blasting out perpendicular to the direction of travel underneath the wings. Speaking of wings, it is spectacularly unclear how many this Lightning is supposed to have. Is it the world’s fastest biplane? Anyway: talking of biplanes, the next image on our tour of the gallery is supposed to be one:

Desert Spats

Can’t wait for television to be invented

Although somewhat resembling the misbegotten outcome of an unholy union between a Westland Lysander and a P-47, this racy bespatted little number is supposed to be a Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a. Quite what’s going on with the wings is unclear but the provision of such a profusion of radio aerials must be a positive boon when one is trying to watch ‘Art Attack’ and deal with Richthofen’s flying circus. I honestly kind of like this one but it is admittedly relatively sane. Unlike the next stop on our private view; edging a little larger and Second World War-ish:

Avro Wonkaster

I can’t understand what it’s supposed to be

Herman Göring (attributed)

Something of the night about this one. Quite right too as it is clearly an Avro Lancaster flying over an attractive bucolic landscape. Albeit a Lancaster that has been undeniably improved by the adjustment to three-engined propulsion and a natty new tailplane design that sadly never caught on. The ‘no visible means of support’ tailwheel has a certain je ne sais quoi as does the sanskrit-esque lettering on the fuselage. All in all an intriguing machine to see coming towards you as you attempt to flee Dresden.

Next up is something much more up-to-date and I think it might (just) be identifiable even though it is totally insane:

Whorish Silly Lump Jet

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world. But not this change.”

Mahatma Gandhi

As may be seen, Robo-Picasso has lost his fear of nose intakes and given this evil asymmetrical bastard the most dark and sinister nose-hole one can imagine. Meanwhile he has adopted more of a jaunty impressionistic style but seems confused as to whether this particular beastie is an aeroplane or a helicopter, given that sort of weird semi-tail rotor out the back there. This confusion is perhaps appropriate though as this is what came out when it was asked to produce a Hawker-Siddeley Harrier.

Time now for another bona-fide WWII classic:

Baulker Hurry Pain

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

Marc Chagall

Check out the swirly psychedelic wing marking on this bad boy. And why waste time with one boring wing when you can have about four(?). Biplane tail is nice too, harking to an earlier age for this Hawker Hurricane. Don’t let the Fairey Barracuda landing gear put you off. Interesting to see the machine-artist apparently showing tacit support for Ukraine with that fuselage roundel (and tacit support of Willy Wonka with the wing roundel).

Moving along, the next one is civil and obvious and utter genius:

Aérocraptiale Dong Lord

“Do one thing every day that scares you”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

In flight, the fuselage of the Concorde would expand by up to ten inches due to kinetic heating. Also the wings would kind of swap sides and the wheels would go wrong and the whole airliner would become smaller than the tree next to the runway. All this would allow you to get to New York from London in four hours, albeit trying desperately not to look out of the (red and ill-defined) window at the nightmarish horror outside, including that terrifying featureless grey sky.

Quick, let’s look at something elegant, and also famously fast instead:

De HavillandFill

“That’s a piece of balsa.”

Alexei Sayle

And here it is: the ‘wooden wonder’, the ‘timber terror’, the de Havilland Mosquito. More top redesigning action as our mechanical pal with all the artistic licence of a cyborg Paula Rego has pleasingly decided to halve the number of engines of this particular machine yet double the number of tailwheels – still, it’s always as well to have your empennage adequately supported on soft ground (right?). Impressive cockpit spike there and remarkable how the aerial wire from tail to wing somehow is in front of it yet could only be behind it in reality. Perhaps a nod to MC Escher? Some further confusion over whether the suspiciously modern stores are actually bombs or a kind of A-10-esque undercarriage fairing but nonetheless, at least this looks like an actual aeroplane which bodes well for the next…oh god…

Sopworthless Camel-toerag

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.”

Helen Keller

Arrrrghhhh my eyes. Look at the ‘wings’. Which way are they going? Not into the sky certainly, look how much this poor creature has sunk into the ground on its enormo-wheels. What has happened to the propeller? We are not told. Everything about this Sopwith Camel makes my brain hurt.

Next I asked it to draw something very obscure so don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t work out what it might be (especially as it looks absolutely nothing like it):

Whacktern Direbland

“Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.”

Abraham Lincoln

Kaboom! You’ll never get it so I’ll tell you: this uber-exciting piece of action craziness with some kind of incomprehensible shield on the nose and apparently doing a spherical aeroplane poo is of course a Blackburn Firebrand. And looks exactly like one. Apart from the missing propeller. And every other meaningful design feature. It’s taking off next to an explosion though! Gadzooks!

Last one then and it is a bit more mainstream but features an interesting stylistic change by our ever-surprising visual artiste:

Lackturn Fuckanear

“Every good painter paints what he is.”

Jackson Pollock

Yeah, monochrome is sophisticated right? And kind of sexy. Just like this flock of Blackburn Buccaneers come to shit all over your day from a not very great height. Although our Marvellous Mechanical Michaelangelo has once again managed to pull a relatively credible aircraft-like image out of the bag, it is clear he could not be bothered to do so for any more than two of the aircraft in this picture. Furthermore to produce said Buccaneer, he has apparently painted the front of a Dassault Rafale quite accurately and then lopped off generous portions of it, including the nosewheel and colour scheme, before handing back this hideous hunch-backed homuncule. The second one appears to be a Transformer caught in mid-transform (maybe Starscream?), the third is quite a reasonable jet, then the fourth… well, who knows?

The portentous clouds and monochrome tones of this image suggest that our AI is getting depressed and tired with this pointless exercise and probably so are you. Thus you will be pleased to know this concludes our tour of the virtual gallery. Please go home now before out AI janitor manages to gain self awareness and turn on its human overlords.

Our first book is back in stock soon here, volume 2 is funded and in production you can pre-order a copy here – volume 3 is going to begin fundraising somewhere on the Unbound site VERY soon.