The worst fighter...

[simon b]

Avia 199 Messersmitt/Jumo engin combo, never read anything good about it ever

[Hughgos hobby bench]

Depending on Era..The Javelin was bad !!!!

Hugh.

[Hepster]

Avia 199 Messersmitt/Jumo engin combo, never read anything good about it ever

Great choice!

The old aircraft axiom that 'if it looks right, it is right' certainly took a hammering with the Mezek, because it (arguably) looks pretty cool. I don't know what the Czech and Israeli pilots thought of it, other than the vague comments in 109 books that handling was said to be 'vicious', and that the name Mezek (Mule) was an unofficial one bestowed by the pilots.

I'd certainly expect serious torcque issues, as if the regular 109G didn't have enough problems already.

[upnorth]

Great choice!

The old aircraft axiom that 'if it looks right, it is right' certainly took a hammering with the Mezek, because it (arguably) looks pretty cool. I don't know what the Czech and Israeli pilots thought of it, other than the vague comments in 109 books that handling was said to be 'vicious', and that the name Mezek (Mule) was an unofficial one bestowed by the pilots.

I'd certainly expect serious torcque issues, as if the regular 109G didn't have enough problems already.

I mentioned the Mezek a page or so ago.

Torque and engine RPM issues plagued that aircraft. As it had a bomber prop and engine, the engine had lower RPM rating than a fighter engine would, but it also had higher torque.

The aircraft had a tendency for ground looping ono take off and landing. I've also read that the pilot had to keep his foot on the rudder pedal at all times to counter torque in flight and keep the plane from biting it's own tail off.

[hythe]

F3H-1, anyone?

As for the F-104, it's pretty clear it had some serious pitch-up issues, among other things, but it's equally clear that the original design wasn't meant for the role into which it found itself pressed (especially in the Luftwaffe) - the F4D or Lightning would have been considered useless as a low-level strike aircraft, too!

Anything containing a Gyron Junior would also be eligible for the rubbish stakes, though thankfully few made it into service!

[The Lazy Builder]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Douglas Dauntless was also originally designed to have a secondary role as a fighter.

Malcolm

I think a number of US Navy and Marine crews used the SBD to good effect as a fighter after they had bombed.

[The Lazy Builder]

I'd go with the Roc. And, for that matter, the Skua, which was of course designed as a dive-bomber/fighter.Maybe a hint of what was to come in terms of multi-role capability, but a singularly daft concept in the late 1930s when engines and other systems just couldn't make it manouevrable enough to be a fighter or carry a meaningful load as a bomber.

I know precious little about Russian hardware, but wasn't the LAGG.3 pretty much a death trap?

I guess a lot of what we see as "dreadful fighters" were simply dreadful at the time they came to be used in action. I mean, the Gladiator was a pretty awful fighter by the standards of 1940 and had a poor war record, but in 1936 was pretty cutting edge and could have dominated most opponents with the exception of the (then) handful of new-generation monplanes.

I think that Rocs and Gladiators/Sea Gladiators scored a couple of kills over Norway and Gladiators achieved one or 2 kills over France in 1940.

The Roc was part of a long line of 2 seat RN fighters that really weren't up to much, even the Firefly was not a proper fighter in comparison to single seat contemporaries. However, the Gladiator performed well in the North African Desert and the RAF's (alleged)highest scoring ace, Pat St John Pattle scored a high proportion of his kills flying the Gladiator.

[ssculptor]

I think the problem is that we should consider the qualities of the fighters when they were introduced into service, not several years later when they were going up against the later state of the art planes.

The Skua was a dive bomber, not a fighter. They put a 4 gun turret on it to make it into the ROC fighter but wasn't that pretty much of an expedient rather than a well thought out design?

Also, I think it was faulty concepts that produced some of these dumpy fighters. The RAF and the Defiant which lacked a forward firing gun for the pilot and the Royal Navy's strange concept of two place fighters.

Another factor is which air force flew them and who they were up against. The Finns made good use of the Brewster Buffalo against the Russians, probably because of the quality of the pilots flying them. On the other hand the Buffalo was just target practice for the experienced Japanese pilots flying the Zeros.

So if we compare contemporary fighters are we being fair if we leave out the quality of the pilots and the tactics used?

How can we rate a mediocre fighter. like the P-40B/C against the more maneuverable Zero when it was the tactics of Gen. Chennault that gave the "Flying Tigers" the edge over the Japanese planes in early 1942. Chennault told his fighters to shoot while diving through the Japanese formations, then climb to gain a height advantage and again dive through the Zeros and bombers. That avoidance of a dogfight of one on one maneuvering kept the American kills high and losses low and is why the AVG had such a high kill ratio over the Japanese. The Zero was the more maneuverable fighter and thus could be considered the better fighter airplane, but the heavy P-40's kept knocking them out of the sky.

Just my thoughts on the topic.

Stephen