Dangerous machines, death traps, disasters and design flaws - 33 and still counting.

[drdjp11]

Meanwhile, this is pretty intriguing, so count me in. Subject TBD.

 

One of my favourites, the Vought F4U Cutlass would qualify, I'm sure. A victim of timing and circumstances, but definitely accident-prone.

 

Lots of other possibilities.

[Marklo]

8 minutes ago, drdjp11 said:

Vought F4U Cutlass would qualify, I'm sure. A victim of timing and circumstances

It’s in the book , apparently critically underpowered and hence difficult to fly.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

43 minutes ago, drdjp11 said:

Meanwhile, this is pretty intriguing, so count me in. Subject TBD.

 

One of my favourites, the Vought F4U Cutlass would qualify, I'm sure. A victim of timing and circumstances, but definitely accident-prone.

 

Lots of other possibilities.

I think that was the F7U I believe the F4U was the Corsair. 😉

Edited October 2, 2022 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[Mjwomack]

17 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

definitely accident-prone

Which reminds me...

 

during my spell in civil aviation, the greybeards held that the DC10 was really a good aircraft and just an unlucky aircraft, which I guess is similar to accident prone. Won't be offering a DC10 up though because I think that would be harsh

 

Whereas the Bristol Brigand which I'm going with was (amongst other things) liable to metaphorically shoot itself in the foot because of the build up of gasses in the gun barrels and hard to escape from once it had done that!

 

[drdjp11]

25 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

I think that was the F7U I believe the F4U was the Corsair. 😉

 

D'oh, fat-fingered that one. You are correct. (And you'd know...)

[drdjp11]

1 hour ago, Marklo said:

It’s in the book , apparently critically underpowered and hence difficult to fly.

 

Yeah, never got the engine it was supposed to, and designed and in service before the advent of the angled deck and steam catapult.

[bigfoot]

I’ll stick my name in for this one with an F2A-3 Buffalo, described as being unstable and overweight and nicknamed the ‘flying coffin’ by USMC pilots, I think this would fit the bill. Heavily outclassed by the Japanese zeros on the pacific. I’ve got the midway boxing of the special hobby version in the stash.

[Rafwaffe]

Add me to the list please. I’ve got a defiant  that would be ideal for this GB

Edited November 13, 2022 by Rafwaffe

[Colin W]

There was a proposed group build a few years ago titled " ì wouldnt want togo to war in that.". It was a good idea and covered most of the military proposals above. It didn't get through the Bunfight which was a shame but this might be it's resurgence. 

 

You can sign me up. I have plenty of potential kits in the stash. 

 

[DaddyO]

Plenty of early aircraft I wouldn't fancy flying yet alone going to war in (Those boys had some stones)

 

Here's one that's not seen that often, but they've been a couple of kitted versions - The Spad A2

 

I'll have a rummage and see what else I can find

Paul

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

Just ten more names and we will be bunfighting. Come on you fans of dangerous inadequacy! 👍

[JOCKNEY]

Can I throw my hat into the ring with the Breda 88.

 

Originally so fast it set speed records, however once loaded up with Military kit it was so pedestrian it was a death trap in service. 

 

It was so bad, it ended up being parked in conspicuous places on airfields to attract any attackers attention to save better aircraft from harm !

 

Cheers Pat

[Pin]

Interested. 
Particularly I am thinking about Tu-144, SSJ-100, Late 631 or Space Shuttle 

[Marklo]

24 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

Can I throw my hat into the ring with  Breda 88.

Absolutely 

[Adam Poultney]

Well I would say that the V Bombers had a design flaw in the lack of rear ejection seats. I think it cost between 30 and 40 lives in crashes which may have been survived had the rear crew had ejection seats. So I guess those could be on the list. 

[Marklo]

2 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

So I guess those could be on the list. 

I’d agree it’s a pretty serious design flaw.

[DaveyGair]

I'll join this if you don't mind? I have an MPM Battle that I've pushed back down the pile (but maybe the new Azur one will appear by then!).

After reading recent books on the Battle and Manchester I can appreciate the Battle was a good design for the time (no worse than the Ju-87 or Il-2 for performance) just used the wrong way, up armed and armoured and with fighter cover would have made a good ground support platform.

The Manchester was a great design for the time just let down by an engine that should have been abandoned early on but the RAF were desperate for bombers. Ironically the Halifax (along with the Warwick) was also design with the RR Vulture as a powerplant but Handley-Page were allowed, early on, to change to four Merlins, Avro's were told to plough on with the Vulture!

 

Just my opinion but I think the Sherman shouldn't be included for lots of reasons. As far as I have read the word 'Ronson' and 'Tommy cooker' were post-war nicknames applied in retrospect, when the ammunition stowage method was revised they didn't burn any worse than any other AFV.

 

Davey.

[Bertie McBoatface]

death traps, disasters and design flaws? sounds like i should make a model of my marriage...

[Marklo]

19 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

death traps, disasters and design flaws? sounds like i should make a model of my marriage...

Well if nothing else it’s good to see you’re not bitter….

 

Shall I add your name 

[Bertie McBoatface]

2 hours ago, Marklo said:

Well if nothing else it’s good to see you’re not bitter….

 

Shall I add your name 

 

Might as well Mark. It's exactly my kind of weirdness 🤪

[2996 Victor]

Hi Mark,

I'd like to sign up for this one, please. Not sure what I'd contribute, but I'm sure I can find something that fits the bill!

Cheers,

Mark

[Brad]

I can add a few more;

 

Me 262 qualifies for design flaws, in not using high temperature resistant alloys in their engines, resulting in very short engine life and high engine failure rates.

 

Arado 234 - same as above. Eric Brown detailed the extreme risk of flying captured aircraft back to England after the war as the Germans destroyed all the engine logs.

 

Heinkel 162 - qualifies for design flaws due to the nasty tendency for the glue to fail at high speeds on the control surfaces and wings. One British test pilot killed when he failed to heed Brown's warnings.

 

Project 658 Hotel I Class soviet Nuclear submarines - plagued with initial production problems including poor workmanship and uninstalled back up features, said to be unseaworthy by senior Russian commanders due to being rushed into service. K-19 being the most infamous incident involving the Hotel Class.

 

Biber midget submarine - poor quality constructions and complete death traps. Killed more crews in accidents than in combat.

 

Indian Air Force Mig 21s - nick named the 'flying coffin', killing 170 Indian pilots and 40 civilians since 1970. Poor maintenance and quality of locally manufactured replacement parts being the main culprit. Between 1966 and 1980, over half of the 840 aircraft built crashed. 

 

Australian Navy Seasprite Helicopter - failed program due to cost over runs and multiple deficiencies in the aircraft, resulting in a failure to get any airworthy despite spending 1.2 billion tax payer dollars.

 

Australian Army MRH 90 Helicopters - engine failures, and spare parts supply among numerous other problems resulting in a failure of the aircraft to obtain it's FOC until 11 years after it entered service. It will now be replaced by the helicopter it was bought to replace; the Blackhawk.

 

Australian Army Eurocopter Tiger ARH - initially dangerous due to fumes in the cockpit, software problems and poor build quality causing aircrew to refuse to fly the Tiger until issues were addressed. These issues meant that FOC was delayed far past it's due date and despite a 2 billion dollar investment, they were never deployed to support our soldiers where other armies Tigers were. They will be replaced prematurely with the AH 64E.

[Marklo]

It is potentially a very long list, which I suppose makes it good GB material.

 

@Brad shall I add you to the list?

[zebra]

Count me in. I've got a few that others have already mentioned in the stash. But looking through this thread, I can't see any mention of the Canberra - an excellent aircraft as long as both engines are running but dangerous, to say the least, with asymmetric thrust.

 

Another interesting one is the Curtiss-Wright Jeep - deliberately designed to be difficult to fly, to train pilots for high performance multi-engined aircraft. So arguably a dangerous machine, but it's a feature not a bug!

 

The Tu-22 Blinder apparently also had some pretty nasty characteristics and quite a few were lost as a result.

[Brad]

19 hours ago, Marklo said:

It is potentially a very long list, which I suppose makes it good GB material.

 

@Brad shall I add you to the list?

Yeh I'll play