Worst aircraft of WW2? (1 Viewer)

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Ideally, a really bad aircraft should kill its pilot as well as being useless. Unfortunately, few seriously dangerous aircraft were placed in production and those that were sometimes had some uses, for example the Ar 240 was used as a reconnaissance aircraft as it was fast. The Bachem Natter has some merit as it managed to kill its only pilot. The only test pilot who flew the Bristol Buckingham loaded with ballast to represent bombs survived but refused to try again. However, alas, this aircraft could be used fairly safely unloaded. May I propose a late WW2 research glider from General Aircraft, the GAL-56, whose characteristics were described by Eric Brown although he flew it after the war had ended "It was one plane in which I found I could not relax for a second, beginning right away with takeoff. You could not lift it off the ground through the slipstream of the towing aircraft before the latter was airborne, which was the normal method, because as soon as it was clear of the ground effect-tile cushion of air between wing tip and ground, the centre of pressure suddenly shifted and the machine dived straight back into the ground, to bounce on it's very springy undercarriage wildly across the airstrip. And it had the most incredible stalling characteristics. When you eased the nose up to slow the speed down, the plane suddenly took charge and continued to rear nose up until it was in a tail slide. Even pushing the stick right on to the dash made no difference. Then suddenly the stick movement would take effect and you would be pitched forward to fall almost vertically. General Aircraft decided to investigate this awful phenomenon after we had finished our tests. Their chief test pilot, glider expert Robert Kronfeld, went into a spin and was killed. The stalling characteristics also made landing very tricky."
 
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Macchi 205
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Fiat G 55
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Aren't they real beauties?

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As I said, He-177 Grief has to vie for this title. An aircraft that can catch fire in flight has surely got to qualify as being one of the worst aircraft. What is more this fault was known and the aircraft was still put into service. What does that tell you about the German Command's attitude to He-177 crew?
 
The fact was though, tomo_pauk that a lot of these fires were not due to Daimler-Benz but the design requirement by Hitler for coupled engines. This requirement even after proven deadly was persisted with. The problems were known about but were never, ever fixed. Hitler had wanted the He-177 Grief to be able to act as a dive-bomber despite its size. This was what led to the engine problems...
 
After a quick look at Wiki entry about the 177, no less than 3 parties could be blamed for flaming bomber:
-RLM, for demanding He-177 be able to do something it was problematic for big bombers (= to dive bomb)
-Heinkel/S. Guenther for choosing 2 coupled engines vs. 4 'normal' ones
-Daimler Benz, for not putting more effort to test the engines - later ones (DB 610) were trouble-free IIRC
 
They also configured the engine in that way to reduce drag.

Up to the A-3 subtype, fires were endemic in the4 He177. however the later types pretty much solved this issue. The Germans did derive some use out of the he177, but it definately had more than its share of problems
 
"What does that tell you about the German Command's attitude to He-177 crew?"
The US faced a similar situation with the B29 also prone to uncontrolled engine fires and they also kept them flying demanding missions with a similar attitude.
The early B29 engines were not good, as evidenced by the replacement engines fitted to the CAF's Fifi.
The pressure of war resulted in a lot of planes being put into service well before they were fully developed and reliable and the crew took the risk. (Typhoon also comes to mind).
 
I'll be different from the majority of rookies and NOT beat on the Buffalo. Instead I'll beat on the Bison, or PZL.30 Zubr, a medium bomber developed prior to the invasion of Poland.

A few gems from it's service life:

-Apart from the Polish Air Force, Romania showed an interest in the Żubr prototype in 1936, and wanted to buy 24 planes. However, after the prototype crash on November 7, 1936 over Michałowice with two Romanian officers on board, they ordered the PZL.37 Łoś instead (it should be noted, that the factory published a cover-up story, that the crash was caused by one of the Romanians opening the door during flight). The aircraft broke apart mid-flight.
-The maximum bombload was 660 kg (1,450 lb) of bombs. This is a dedicated bomber developed in the mid-30s, mind you.
-Fully loaded, it could only operate from paved runways.
-The production models used engines 50% stronger than the prototype despite insistence of the designers that the airframe couldn't handle it. So they strengthed it by gluing extra plywood to the wing spars.
-The locking mechanism on the retractable landing gear was so bad that after a short while most ground crews simply forced it into a fixed down position.

Plus it was ugly as hell. I'd be embarrassed flying this hunk of poodoo.

pzl30-1.jpg


It may be disqualified due to the fact that it was never used as a bomber in combat (though it WAS sent to squadrons to be used as such), and similar to the Botha, the head-slappingly stupid decision was made to give it to the training units. Most of them ended up going kablooie on the ground when the Luftwaffe came through, though they did capture a few of them, including a twin-taiflin prototype. Funniest part is that THEY used the thing as a trainer well! For longer than the Polish ever did!

So there you go. The Buffalo may not be the worst, but I'd say the Bison is CERTAINLY worthy of consideration.
 
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While the Buffalo had it's shortcomings, the Finns put them to good use, and kept them flying despite getting them without spare parts!

I will agree that the Bison is definitely one to consider for both worst aircraft and ugliest aircraft. The Poles did produce some great airplanes, it's just that this wasn't one of them.
 
I'd say the Polish PZL Zubr was the worst. It was designed and then bigger engines were hung on it without any redesign.

So it turned out the airframe life was used up in one flight! Most Zubrs were used as decoys on Polish airfields so the enemy would shoot at THEM instead of the other aircraft!

Now THAT's bad!
 
The more I read about the Manchester the more it deserves at least honourable mention

Neil, ah the baited hook.
There were some truly ghastly, ill-considered and poorly executed aeroplanes that men went to war in.
That unnecessary loss of life is almost unforgivable.
Cheers
John
 

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