When we talk about combat aircraft that are so ugly they are brutishly beautiful, aircraft like the A-10, B-52 and the Mi-24 come to mind. Yet an obscure Russian close air support aircraft that lost a competition to the now notorious Sukhoi Su-25 may take the trophy for the must gorgeously ugly combat jet of all time. By the late 1960s Russia was looking for a new jet aircraft that would be dedicated to close air support (CAS). After studying close air support scenarios and data collected since WWII it was clear that the fast, swept-wing jets and heavy bombers...