Worst Fighter Plane Of Ww2

This guy was my choice, the Bell P-39 Airacobra.

Again another aircraft that found useful serive in a role that it was not designed for! Chuck Yeager said it was a great little aircraft.

 

Yes it is true to say that the Boomerang had not one confirmed kill, but it did what is was designed for and that as a stop gap fighter until better planes came from the U.S or the U.K, and in that role it performed very well, it had a formidable array of twin 20mm cannon, in the end it was better than nothing, and i love the plane to boot.

 

I read a book a few years ago about the Westland Whirlwind and in it said although when the pilots were told they were being posted to the squadron at which the replies were generaly "O god what have done to deserve this" when they actually got used to the plane they said they would be reluctant to change even for the latest Mk of spitfire as more than once they had been able to gun the engines to escape in a dive and also a lot of chaps had managed to get shot up and still make it back on one engine and it could also take a hefty punishment!......

early P51 get my vote took a decent rolls royce merlin to get the astmatic old dog to get some speed out of it!!!

although its sure was decent when the merlin was fitted.....

Bolton Paul.......has gotta be a contender......that plane was just damn wrong as was the Defiant

 

This guy was my choice, the Bell P-39 Airacobra.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting when they decided on a mid engined fighter

It did however turn out to be a great attack aircraft for the Soviets.

 

was watching Battleplan today and it mentioned a twin engined German fighter that escorted the bombers over for the BoB and Blitz. It was a Heinkel but I can't recall its designation. Looked like a total pup.
He17something?
What was it like up against the Hurricane it was intended to attack?

 

Err, Kitty, I think you mean the Me 110. Heinkel didn't have any twinned engine fighters in the BoB.



And it didn't do well as a fighter. It was too cumbersome against the Hurricane. One favourite tactic for the pilots was for them all to fly in circles, covering their tails - not exactly useful for a supposed fighter protecting bombers.

 

Did'nt custer try that at little big horn!!:indexCAXI2NHN:

 

Why does everyone disparage the poor P-39 so badly? It served with the USAAF in active service through 1944 in ever dwindling numbers and through the end of the war as an advanced trainer in the States. The Soviets racked up quite a good score with the machine in somewhat different conditions that prevailed on the Eastern Front. If anything, its worst attribute was having a short range.

As for Me 110 flying in a circle to cover each other's tail that tactic is called a Luftberry circle after its WW 1 inventor.

 

Ops! My bad. Yes, i was thinking Me, typed Heinkel.

 

While it probably wasn't bad enough to be the worst fighter of WW2, I just can't make myself like the Dewoitine 520. It just doesn't do anything for me.

As far as the P-39, it's downfall was the deletion of the supercharger for the Allison engine. Without it, it's performance at anything other than low altitude was merely pedestrian.

tom

 

And it didn't do well as a fighter. It was too cumbersome against the Hurricane. One favourite tactic for the pilots was for them all to fly in circles, covering their tails - not exactly useful for a supposed fighter protecting bombers.


I remember reading several years ago where an author was lambasting the Me110 as a bomber escort. He ridiculed the Luftwaffe for having to send Me109s to protect the Me110s while the Me110s were supposedly protecting the bombers. Seemed to me that it would have been better to leave the 110s at home and that would leave less of herd for the 109s to have to protect.

 

The 110's were pretty good attack aircraft in North Africa.

 

agreed, the defiant was probably the worst

 

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting when they decided on a mid engined fighter

It did however turn out to be a great attack aircraft for the Soviets.


There are some good engineering reasons to put the engine behind the pilot.

• Its nearer the centre of gravity which leads to nicer handling. You can take more libities with the aerodynamic design when the airframe is inherrently in better trim. Fighter should allways bve on the edge of instability.
• It leaves an unobstructed view over the nose. Less landing and taxiing losses.
• It leaves the nose clear for the foward armanent and ammuminition which doesnt have to compete with engine gubbins or try to fit in a very thin wing.
• you now have space for a nosewheel, you can use a tricycle undercart. Tricycle undercarrige has a lot of benefits but was not easy with large forward mounted pistion engines. Standard thing now, when did you last see a modern with tailwheel?
• The engine makes great armour plate, for crew surviveability (again a hot modern topic)

Kev

 

I've got to go with the Brewster Buffalo.

 

Coming very late to this, but some thoughts...

The Airacobra was indeed crippled by the lack or turbosupercharger. The original prototype viewed and bought by the Air Ministry had it fitted...but when production items were delivered they weren't the Americans regarded the turbosupercharger as a State Secret and didn't export it! Same on the P-38's first supplied to the RAF...which as we all know resulted in major issues for that "stunted" version of the aircraft.
There's another longlasting urban myth about the P-39, that it had a very slow and wide turning circle at its "top" speed; again, on the Eastern front at lower altitudes and slower speeds in dogifghts this wasn't an issue. The Russians also liked it for its reliability.

There actually was a lever in the cockpit of a Boulton Paul Defiant that the pilot used to lock the guns in a forward firing position on either side of the cockpit, and slaved the firing control to a normal button on the control column. So a Defiant in "normal" fighter mode would have been like Luke Skywalker's X-fighter but that mode must have scared the hell out of the pilot, twin Brownings at each ear!!!:mellow:

Over the years it has indeed been said that the Defiant brought down as many LW bombers as any other nightfighting type in 1940 and 1941...which is to say, very bloody few!!! The RAF's inability to conduct any practical nightfighting defence through the last months of 1940 was actually the reason for Dowding's replacement if you read John Ray. In fact...the unsuitability of aircraft types for nightfighting, including the Defiant but also gunpack "fighter" Blenheims and Hurricanes, meant that was a very high accidental-loss vs. sortie rate through the autumn of 1940...

The actual planned defensive tactic of the Defiant was that if attacked by enemy monoplane fighters the DEFIANTS would fly in a tight circle, with guns pointing outwards. The obvious comparison is drawing the settlers' wagons into a circle, but it was actually modelled on the "caracole" tactic of javelin-armed Roman cavalry. It actually DID work because of the suprise element - ONCE, and IIRC accounted for five Bf109 losses in one day - ONLY one day. After that, the Defiant was mincemeat...

The RR Peregrine crippled the Whirlwind. Not only was it very unreliable...it was "unstretchable". There was no way for Rolls to tune the engine beyond its first versions, or alter the engine configuration in any way - IIRC because its cylinders were simply too close together. And thus it was through lack of power at it's planned service ceiling a failure as the high-altitude interceptor it was specified as, and so with work stretching the output of the Merlin rapidly, the Peregrine and the airframe designed for it were simply abandoned.

The Brewster Buffalo....as anyone who knows me knows, I have very strong views on the turkey LOL
Yes, the Finns were very successful with it - but did so by lightening it greatly, curing the oil pressure issues, and changing the guns for Finnish-produced items. In RAF service there were terrible engine reliability problems as too-high oil pressure blew the lubricant out of the engine; guns refused to fire at altitude (cold) and at lower altitudes the interrupter gear was very fragile. IIRC, the USMC and Navy version had the HUGE vulnerability of being "wet wing" aircraft; the aircraft's main tankage was actually THE wingspar (!!!) The alloy wingspar was hard to seal again after it was punctured by even one round, sometimes necessitating swapping out the entire assembly...and of course necessitated the aircraft carrying a heavy CO2 system to purge petrol fumes from the wings as the "tanks" emptied. the dry-wing versions with normal tankage meant the CO2 system could be dropped from the design too.
To all THIS add issues with "slow" aircraft with smaller engine capacities, and hastily reconditioned civilian engines fitted in others as Brewster couldn't get their hands on engines for export orders. Conversely - the Buffalo was regarded as fast in Northern Europe where combat was at lower altitudes normally, and carried a LOT of fuel so had the range for long duration patrols in Finland.

BUT....the real turkey of the war was the ME110. It had a number of inbuilt flaws that the RAF and others, starting with the Poles on the first day of the war - learned to exploit.
The FIRST issue was that the mechanical fuel injectors fitted meant that they were very slow to accelerate from a cruising speed. Therefore when escorting bombers, they could be bounced from behind, and their attackers simply dive away at speed and outpace them as they couldn't pick up enough speed quickly enough to give chase.
The SECOND problem was the manouverability of the Me110. The small tail surfaces meant that the aircraft has to be moving right up within 40 mph of its top speed to be as manouverable as the designers intended. Therefore it simply couldn't outmanouver monoplane fighters - whether British Hurricanes or Polish Pzls - UNLESS it was a very high speed dogfight...and as you can see from above, it took a long time for the ME110 to actually GET to that manouvering speed!!!!:mellow:
As the war progressed - BOTH these problems became worse as the Me110 was converted to a night fighter; for the exhaust cowls fitted to the engines to prevent the aircrew being blinded at night "detuned" the engine and made the acceleration problems even worse.

 

A lot of the RAF guys in 1940 thought it was the Bolton Paul Defiant according to accounts in 'Forgotten Voices' atleast until it was fitted with radar for night fighting anyway.

 

I would say the Boulton Paul Defiant got to be one of the worse fighters made
It had no forward-firing guns.

 

If memory serves me correctly I believe the chaps in the book said that when it went into the night fighting role it was fitted with guns in the wings.