flyerstud4
Registered User
This badboy helped Doolittle win the Thompson trophy in 1932, but was extremely unstable. They only built 3 and they all crashed. I bet that would be one hell of a ride.
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Top 10 Worst Aircraft Ever...
- Thread starter Mumbles
- Start date
This badboy helped Doolittle win the Thompson trophy in 1932, but was extremely unstable. They only built 3 and they all crashed. I bet that would be one hell of a ride.
Redux
Well-Known Member
Almost anything the Italians tried to use in WW2... except that torpedo bomber kinda looks cool.
Not really, they had at least two VERY capable fighters, one decent 4 engine bomber and a large tri engine cargo jobber that was in service into the 60's and the Luftwaffe even used it.
Upon further research, it appears that no, she was not, according to US definitions of exceeding 50 mi of altitude.
However, Germany (and innumerable women's lib organizations) likes to call her their first astronaut. Something about being one of the first people to fly a rocket in "suborbital flight". Seems a kinda sleezy way to call a person an astronaut to me.
Just one example:
http://www.greyfalcon.us/Hanna Reitsch.htm
Movie:
This badboy helped Doolittle win the Thompson trophy in 1932, but was extremely unstable. They only built 3 and they all crashed. I bet that would be one hell of a ride.
There was a guy who built a copy of the R2 Geebee (Delmar Benjamin or something similar) who used to hit the airshow circuit. Silly looking, but man, what a plane. Fastest thing on earth. . .in 1932.
Army Acquisition. Very understandable. :-(
JT Eagle
Registered User
You Have To Be Kiddings:
The F-104: yes the Luftwaffe had a lot of crashes with them, but they had something like 900 to start with and it was largely a matter of how they employed them in cruddy north European weather. The Spanish had 200+ and never lost one (I think)
The Tornado: While the F.2 and F.3 fighters suffered from being afterthoughts to the basic bomber design, the type in general has been a big success. 1,000 built and will be in service after 2020. The F-111 wont. The F-111B definitely a 'Worst'.
The SM.79 (Italian trimotor bomber): sank lots of allied shipping in the Med. Like all Italian WW2 types, not enough guns and what they had was too low calibre. Used by Lebanon into the 1970s!
Definite worsts include the Zubr and Christmas Bullet on the original list, and the Beardmore Inflexible and Tarrant Tabor (giant British bombers of the interwar period). The Bullet and Tabor crashed on their first flights (and the Bullet did it in the second flight too). The Bachem Natter makes the Me163 Komet look like a great idea.
For more, this is a good read and one of at least 3 books with this title - but has over 100 entries, which is probably too much:
JT
The F-104: yes the Luftwaffe had a lot of crashes with them, but they had something like 900 to start with and it was largely a matter of how they employed them in cruddy north European weather. The Spanish had 200+ and never lost one (I think)
The Tornado: While the F.2 and F.3 fighters suffered from being afterthoughts to the basic bomber design, the type in general has been a big success. 1,000 built and will be in service after 2020. The F-111 wont. The F-111B definitely a 'Worst'.
The SM.79 (Italian trimotor bomber): sank lots of allied shipping in the Med. Like all Italian WW2 types, not enough guns and what they had was too low calibre. Used by Lebanon into the 1970s!
Definite worsts include the Zubr and Christmas Bullet on the original list, and the Beardmore Inflexible and Tarrant Tabor (giant British bombers of the interwar period). The Bullet and Tabor crashed on their first flights (and the Bullet did it in the second flight too). The Bachem Natter makes the Me163 Komet look like a great idea.
For more, this is a good read and one of at least 3 books with this title - but has over 100 entries, which is probably too much:
JT
Attachments
My candidates:
For Rotory Wing-
My grandfather worked on this aircraft while he was at Lockheed. He helped design the three-output (main rotor, tail rotor, and pusher prop) transmission. The only personal record he had of the work he did was a press release photo. I'll have to scan it and post it here.
According to my grandfather, the -56 was one fast helicopter for its time (late 60's). Something like 200 knots.
What is the point here?
Apparently it reduces drag significantly. I'm not so sure I'd want to be the first guy to strap my butt into something that has one wing move forward while the other moves aft.
What is the point here?
pure dorkiness
Yah, this is a relic from the era when new discoveries were made almost daily in aerospace, most of them beneficial and readily exploitable. Money was plentiful, so every harebrained engineer at Grumman/Lockheed/Boeing/Douglas/payyourmoneytakeyourchoice with a typewriter could get NACA (and later NASA) funding to build a one off to see what the effect of X or Y change was. Many worked (e.g. variable wing incidence ala F-8, swing wing ala TomKitty, area ruled fuselages), some were found to be too insignificant to be worthwhile or ruined other parts of the airplane (like the abortion above).
This badboy helped Doolittle win the Thompson trophy in 1932, but was extremely unstable. They only built 3 and they all crashed. I bet that would be one hell of a ride.
Reminds me of this movie:
I think it's somewhat unfair to make experimental aircraft part of the list. By their very nature, a high percentage don't work. Some, even if they are unsuccessful, still yield advances in technology.
A truly craptacular aircraft is one that sucks miserably, yet is still adopted because of a political, market, or military mistake.
The Cheyenne was definitely not a bad aircraft, BTW, just a concept ahead of its time.
A truly craptacular aircraft is one that sucks miserably, yet is still adopted because of a political, market, or military mistake.
The Cheyenne was definitely not a bad aircraft, BTW, just a concept ahead of its time.
flyerstud4
Registered User
haha i remember that movieReminds me of this movie: