Worst WWII planes

[Chris P.]

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/05/15/top-ten-worst-aircraft-of-wwii-2/

Not posted yet, I think?

[Rob]

Great post.

[TBird1958]

Interesting group of aircraft, there are several I wasn't familiar with - Regardless of which side you flew, for I think it was an extraordinary act of courage.

[uwe]

Some usual suspects there. But some planes did badly in one theater, yet great in another, the Aircobra comes to mind, great (by accident) at freezing temperatures in Russia (generally better flight performance doesn't help you if your plane can't even get off the ground at minus 20 degrees centigrade), rubbish everywhere else. Or the P-38 which did well in the Pacific with its high speed, high altitude, long range and good armament, but was ineffective in Europe guarding the bombers against the Luftwaffe.

I suspect that the Fins' emotional attachment to the Brewster Buffalo was based on its flying ability at even lowest temperatures as well - along with its further ability to make do with even the lousiest landing strips. Sometimes, simple practical aspects beat performance.

[TBird1958]

The Englanders had a rare talent for making really ugly airplanes, several of them are on this list.

[uwe]

For anything you send into "Battle", Fair(e)y  as a manufacturer name is unfortunate too. 

[slinkp]

Nice list, I'd never heard of most of those.... been a long time since I kept up with such things

Here's another fun list:
http://militaryhistorynow.com/2014/05/02/gooney-birds-13-experimental-aircraft-designs-that-were-too-weird-for-wartime/

... buried in which is this:
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=1078

Never thought I would see the phrase "coal-powered ramjet"   

[uwe]

The Englanders had a rare talent for making really ugly airplanes, several of them are on this list.

They improved over time, I thought the Hawker Typhoon/Tempest was a good design. So was the Gloster Meteor. Then again: What can you expect of a nation whose members cannot even distinguish a Hellcat from a Corsair?

Luftwaffe pilots only had issues telling the P-40 and the Hurricane apart, but those two at least shared the common predicament of being lumbering beasts ...

And we got to give them credit for the Concorde! That is still the coolest-looking passenger plane ever.

[Alanko]

They improved over time, I thought the Hawker Typhoon/Tempest was a good design.

The Typhoons were better once they re-designed them to prevent the tail from falling off! You could fill all ten slots on that list with British designs from the era. The Avro Manchester was dangerously crap by most accounts, and we seem to have had a particular skill with coming up with sluggish sitting-duck flying boats like the Saunders-Roe Lerwick.

[uwe]

But there was the Short Sunderland to make up for it!!! When I saw that recently in Duxford for the first time in reality (it was one of my all-time favorite Airfix kits), it warmed my heart, endearingly ugly and with a considerable contribution in keeping the U-Boat wolfpacks at bay. And it was nicknamed "Flying Porcupine" by the Luftwaffe because it always still had another gun lurking at some place where you wouldn't expect it.

The Catalina was no doubt the better looking flying boat - it had a real classy Art Deco'ish design, beautiful and timeless to this day, like a Thunderbird (bass), but the Sunderland gave new meaning to the term "flying boat" and had something of a sea monster.

[TBird1958]

They improved over time, I thought the Hawker Typhoon/Tempest was a good design. So was the Gloster Meteor. Then again: What can you expect of a nation whose members cannot even distinguish a Hellcat from a Corsair?

Luftwaffe pilots only had issues telling the P-40 and the Hurricane apart, but those two at least shared the common predicament of being lumbering beasts ...

And we got to give them credit for the Concorde! That is still the coolest-looking passenger plane ever.

That's the second coolest plane, SR-71 Rules all!

It even has black hardware like most Gibson basses. 

[uwe]

The SR-71 is of course orgi-as-tic (they also have one in Duxford), but last I heard it wasn't a passenger plane (much like a Corsair bears only passing resemblance to a Hellcat, at least when viewed in foggy Scottish skies)! 

"That is still the coolest-looking passenger plane ever."

But standing there in the American hangar in Duxford, I thought that X-Men hottie Jean Grey



was gonna pass by any minute and board it. It is to aircraft what the Batmobile is to cars.

And, yes, together with the Gibson Bass Book, Famke Janssen is a real peak in Dutch exports though her mind reading skills could give, uhum, rise to potentially embarrassing situations. Then again, you never have to be too obsessed about shaving with her ...

[TBird1958]

But there was the Short Sunderland to make up for it!!! When I saw that recently in Duxford for the first time in reality (it was one of my all-time favorite Airfix kits), it warmed my heart, endearingly ugly and with a considerable contribution in keeping the U-Boat wolfpacks at bay. And it was nicknamed "Flying Porcupine" by the Luftwaffe because it always still had another gun lurking at some place where you wouldn't expect it.

The Catalina was no doubt the better looking flying boat - it had a real classy Art Deco'ish design, beautiful and timeless to this day, like a Thunderbird (bass), but the Sunderland gave new meaning to the term "flying boat" and had something of a sea monster.

  Perhaps all the ugly ones had to be made in order to give rise to the Concorde - tho wasn't it a joint project with Frankreich?

Have to say Typoons and Tempests were my fave U.K. single engine aircraft, brutish, ugly for sure, you didn't want to be on the shooty end of either them.

[wellREDman]

As a kid a concorde turned up at tehran airport where my dad was working so i got to have a look around, what most surprised me was that all the elegant design  stopped at the cockpit door, inside the cockpit it was so different from any other airliner, brutish, functional and I guess, looking back, like the cockpit of a military aircraft.

I'm a tempest/typhoon fan too, I think it's the  Muscle car aesthetic, like the F4U, the Fw190 and the Sea Fury too. Ive always found it odd that there hasn't been any on the airshow circuit, the closest Ive seen was a really late model spitfire with the tempest chin intake thing going on.

[uwe]

"Tehran", "as a kid", "airport" - did your dad by any chance work for the, uhum "State Department"?  Wasn't that a vanity landing for the Shah at the time? I believe it only flew to Tehran once. How long did you live there? (I was there a few years ago and charmed by the bustling city and the surrounding mountains as well as the reckless traffic!)

I can attest to your Concorde experience - you were spot on in your description. I never flew in on, but I walked through the cockpit and passenger area of a grounded one, the tube shape reminded of military aircraft where paratroopers sit on benches at the side, grimly facing each other (though the Concorde would be too fast to drop off paratroopers). It looked archaic, prototypish in fact. I'm 1.90 meters in height and the only place where I would not bump my head was in the middle of the aisle (which was incredibly narrow even for airplane standards).

I read somewhere that they want to get one flying for regular service again? The old dream of supersonic air travel hasn't quite died yet, it just ran a little out of fuel!