Top 10 Worst Aircraft(From Another Website)

[fubar57]

Just found this on a non-aviation site. Top 10 Worst Aircraft of World War 2 | Listverse
Now I am in no way qualified to remark on this list I would be interested to hear some thoughts.
Gentlemen, start quibbling.
Geo

 

[ShVAK]

I'd take the Battle and TBD off. They were obsolete aircraft, not terrible aircraft. Avro Manchester should go on here. Maybe even the He 177, despite that plane's enormous potential and advanced tech.

 

[Denniss]

And the Me 210 should be specified as the short-tail version, once lengthened it became a fine aircraft.

 

[davparlr]

I would also take the TDB off. It did ok at the Coral Sea battle. The few TBFs at Midway also did not fair too well. They also would have needed air cover to be successful. The TBD cannot be blamed for the horrendous torpedoes. It was however, obsolete.

 

[Airframes]

It's a bit of a mixed up question really, as even the author admits some of the types listed were obsolete, outdated or whatever. Should really have been more defined.
There's a really stupid, but annoying, comment from a female in the comments below the main post though!

 

[cherry blossom]

It's a bit of a mixed up question really, as even the author admits some of the types listed were obsolete, outdated or whatever. Should really have been more defined.
There's a really stupid, but annoying, comment from a female in the comments below the main post though!

How well informed was she? She may have been correct about French jet engines and perhaps the F-86 wing. I am not sure about Russian designs. Did the Victor owe much to the crescent wing of the Ar 234 V16?

 

[davebender]

Per the History Channel P-51D was the greatest fighter aircraft of all time. Yet it didn't arrive in Europe before the summer of 1944. How did Britain muddle through almost five years of aerial warfare without it?

IMO such aircraft popularity contests mean nothing unless conducted on a serious aviation forum such as this one.

 

[drgondog]

This may be one of those "flawed discussions" from the very beginning. If the category is all aircraft that flew and fought during WWII? Anybody thank the LaaG3 is worse than the P-26 or Buffalo in the early days? The Finns made the Buffalo work but I suspect the most favorable impression died when the 109 became available. Or the Manchester worse than the B-18 Bolo? Or pick a handful of Polish and Soviet aircraft in 1939 and 1940. There were a lot of military aircraft at the end of their usefulness (or past it) during the early days.

Many good to excellent aircraft in 1940 and 1941 (Hurricane and Zero and Wellington and I-16 and He 111 come to mind) migrated to obsolete before the end of the war and fit among the 'worst' by the time 1945 rolled around.

 

[ShVAK]

This may be one of those "flawed discussions" from the very beginning. If the category is all aircraft that flew and fought during WWII? Anybody thank the LaaG3 is worse than the P-26 or Buffalo in the early days? The Finns made the Buffalo work but I suspect the most favorable impression died when the 109 became available. Or the Manchester worse than the B-18 Bolo? Or pick a handful of Polish and Soviet aircraft in 1939 and 1940. There were a lot of military aircraft at the end of their usefulness (or past it) during the early days.

Many good to excellent aircraft in 1940 and 1941 (Hurricane and Zero and Wellington and I-16 and He 111 come to mind) migrated to obsolete before the end of the war and fit among the 'worst' by the time 1945 rolled around.

Again, obsolete =/= abysmal. Barring the TBD and Battle ALL of those aircraft listed had serious design faults that made them inadequate right out of the starting gate.

The LaGG-3 was a flat out poor fighter: Underpowered, unstable, unreliable. By comparison the P-26 along with the Polish and Soviet aircraft fielded early on were long outdated, but they were mostly pleasant aircraft to fly that had no glaring vices. The Buffalo was a dog in its later USN guise laden down with all the armor and self-sealing tanks but early models were good performers on par with early F4F (and more advanced in some ways). No one at the time expected that the IJN would have a world-class by 1941-42 standards fighter in their roster, of course we'd figure out later on that the A6M was not untouchable and had flaws of its own.

The B-18 Bolo was unsuitable for strategic bombing in the ETO, having been built to obsolete pre-war specs and wisely shelved once the B-17 was available in numbers but it was by all accounts a reliable aircraft and didn't do too badly in western Atlantic anti-submarine patrols, even sinking a few German subs though their service in that role was short. The RR Vulture-powered Manchester on the other hand wasn't getting anywhere except as the embryo for the Lancaster and only served for a paltry two years as a stopgap. It may have dropped about 1,800 tons worth of bombs but with almost a quarter of all Manchesters lost to non-combat causes (45 in total with 30 engine failures) no one had any illusions of it being a good bomber.

 

[zoomar]

"Worsts" lists, while a good source of conversation fodder, are really impossible to compile in a systematic manner. Ask any 100 reasonably informed aviation enthusiasts to name the 10 best WW2 aircraft, and you would probably see a lot of agreement. Ask those same people to name the 10 worst, responses will be all over the map. I think the list on this website is a very bad one, because it mixes together planes that were actually good when designed with planes that were lousy from the start. I think the Me-210 is a reasonable inclusion, as is the Me-163. So is the LaGG-3. I'd also include the He-177, Curtiss Helldiver, and possibly the G4M.

 

[Shortround6]

To make your point about disagreement i would suggest the Curtiss Seamew may have been worse than the G4M.

Curtiss SO3C Seamew - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The G4M may have been extremely vulnerable but at least it could perform it's primary mission.