Photographer Kirk McMenamin, who submitted this image to National Geographic's "Your Shot" writes:

This is a shot of an FA-18 performing a high-speed pass that resulted in a vapor cone forming around the back half of the plane. When viewed head-on, it made the plane appear to be coming out of a porthole. The photo was taken during the 2009 Gold Cup Races on the Detroit River.

I think McMenamin meant "portal," not "porthole." Like in Stargate or Lost.

via Your Shot

Hayon, a Spanish designer best known for his flamboyant furniture and funny little ceramic teddy bears, created this prototype for Milan Design Week. The top may look sort of like a toilet bowl, but it's really the lap of luxury. And presumably the plane flies low enough, and slow enough, that you won't actually suffocate up there. Says Hayon:

The installation's spectacular atmosphere, created by the use of reflectors, is reminiscent of a scene from an old Hollywood movie. At the heart of the aircraft is a circular lounge. I can imagine this thing flying, with a couple of lovers on board sipping champagne, the atmosphere charged with positive energy and emotions during their flight. Jet Set is a sitting room cum aeroplane.

According to the Mark Perry, who nominated the Velos as Ugliest Plane in Popular Aviation:

What happens when airplanes are designed by committees (No, really, a Canadian government committee laid down the specs for this turkey). Not only does it looking like a flying streetcar, but this Canadian Vickers Velos is on record as being the worst aircraft ever built in Canada - a complete dog. The test pilots flew it only under protest, and it was known as "The Dead Loss" around the factory.

That's why this sucker is totally encased in layers of metal. Scientists at Purdue are experimenting on what they call the X-51A test vehicle, which could become the bedrock tech for ultra-fast missiles or mega-speedy planes. One of the big issues in the research is trying to create a plane body shape that won't get so hot from wind friction that it melts down:

The researchers used a temperature-sensitive paint to measure how hot the skin of the model gets during testing. The paint was coated on a nylon strip inserted into the model. Shining a blue light onto the strip during testing generates a temperature-dependent red light from the paint. The intensity of the red light shows how hot the surface is.