The worst fighter...

[Flying Penguin]

The F-104, EE Lightning, Javelin, F-102 and F-101 which have all been mentioned here were thouroughbred interceptors, not fighters proper. The fighter mission and the interceptor mission are rather different things. To measure an interceptor with the fighter's measuring stick, or vice versa, rather makes the whole point moot.

But in Vietnam the F-104 acted at least partially in an air superiority (traditional fighter) role, in the Indo-Pakistan wars it was a fighter, in the Taiwan straits in 1967 it went fighter to fighter, I seriously doubt that the commanders made such a pure distinction. It's not possible to define what is the "fighters" as opposed to the "interceptors" measuring stick without serious analysis of the tactics of every user of a type as the lines are so massively blurred by most users.

Cheers

Jamie

Edited January 18, 2011 by Flying Penguin

[JagRigger]

Have you heard or have in possesion the 1970s album by Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters? It was the work of one of the guys from Hawkwind and was a parody on the F-104 being sold to Germany. Quite amusing but did illustarte an element of truth behind the dealings. Google it or see if you can get a copy. Its a good listen.

" Does anybody want to buy a Starfighter ? "

"Then buy an acre of ground....... and wait "

I once looked at my beloved Jaguars loss rate - recall it was roughly 1/3 of the production run - around 60/200

[Paul J]

" Does anybody want to buy a Starfighter ? "

"Then buy an acre of ground....... and wait "

I once looked at my beloved Jaguars loss rate - recall it was roughly 1/3 of the production run - around 60/200

" We'll call it the F-104G"

"F-104G"

" Yes G, G for Germany, (Yeah I think he'll go for that)"

[J.D.]

The Starfighter? I know it was widely bought and generally long serving, but the terrible peacetime accident rate can't be simply written off as "teething issues"... For a fighter not built by people who were being bombed on a daily basis, that's gotta count as a screw up....

Jamie

A good point but I think the F-104 was probably just the most visible of a period of high accident rates. Most of the Mach 2 single engine jets of the 1950s and 60s had fairly high losses (Mirage IIIC, MiG-21, F-104). It seems to have been an exciting time but also one where the technology of speed exceeded the technology of safety...

[Hepster]

Not quite true. It actually was a good aircraft but needed an experienced pilot (which were in short supply at the end of the war).

HTH

Andy

Yet it still managed to kill an experienced test pilot at Farnborough post-war (I think). An experienced pilot wasn't enough when faced the with wooden wings and inferior glue that caused the wings to disintegrate in mid-flight.

But probably safer than an F-104.

[alex]

Real optimism is when a Starfighter pilot quits smoking because he doesn't want to die of lung cancer...

[Mal]

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

Malcolm

[General Jumbo]

This may have been mentioned before, but the worst fighter I reckon was any F4 without a gun. After the early F4s had loosed off (and probably missed) all their early model AIM-7 and AIM-9s all they could do was turn around and go home.

[phat trev]

All of those plus the Swift

John

Although the Swift can be nominated for one of the most beautiful.

[Dndieje]

Apologies if I missed something but why does a high peace-time loss rate define the F-104 as the worst fighter ?

As far as I know only Pakistan and Taiwan actually used it as a fighter operationally.

Alternatively, during operation Granby the RAF suffered disproportionate losses in their Tornado fleet mainly because of their mission profile.

This even lead to some official investigation by the MOD I believe and American comments on the state of RAF training and equipment.

Does that make the Tornado a bad aircraft ?

[J.D.]

I couldn't find it readily but someone here nominated the Convair F-102, which I thought an interesting idea. Its performance was pretty miserable, even by the standards of the time and its combat record was nothing stellar. It didn't last long in USAF front line service and was relegated to ANG duties. All in all, it was probably a waste of time and money. Even the F-106, which was a much better aircraft, had its share of problems. The first 12 pilots to eject from it were killed.

[Obi-Jiff Kenobi]

The F-106 turned out to be a surprisingly good dogfighter, when used in dissimilar air combat training exercises.

[Flying Penguin]

Apologies if I missed something but why does a high peace-time loss rate define the F-104 as the worst fighter ?

In general terms, a fighter designed in peace time needs to at least survive in sufficient numbers until it's used. There is no point designing a fighter in peace time that has a wartime equivalent attrition rate in a training environment. It was seen as acceptable to rush construction of certain types in WW2 as their expected lifespan was measured in weeks and months, not the years and decades a peacetime fighter might have to survive to be useful.

And more specifically about the F-104, it's one of the factors, not the only. Its combat record as a fighter wasn't exactly stellar and the bribery issues throw questions up about its export suitability...

Either way, it gets my vote for one of the worst.

Jamie

[Giorgio N]

Yes, maybe it was a bit harsh from my side to put together most of the first generation naval jets as bad. They were the first and as such suffered from the typical problems of early unreliable jet engines and from the fact that every first generation something is the product of a wide range of ideas, many of which are later proven not good. It remains a fact that the ones I mentioned were only transition models and none were particularly good. Some evolved, as the Phantom into the Banshee, others disappeared very quickly, all of them contributed something to the planes that followed. Yet had a war started in 1948, a Sea Fury or Corsair pilot was probably in a better plane than his colleagues piloting the jet fighters I mentioned...

The F-104 accident rate is always mentioned for one reason only: it made it to the media ! A lot of other planes had high accident rates, some had higher accident rates. But the notion of these remained within the experts community while every german newspaper talked about the F-104, followed by all the other european countries.

As I said before, it's true that the USAF F-104A had a lot of accidents, and these were due to the particular type of handling required by the plane (the inertia coupling phenomenon was not fully understood) and the J-79 early issues and were made worse by the almost useless bottom ejecting seat. The germans had planes that had no engine trouble (or no more than its contemporaries) but were hit hard at the beginning by having a training system that was not proper for the Starfighter. Once the training improved the accident rate dropped dramatically and the plane was kept in service for another 25 years.

The media rage was made worse when the first stories of bribes from Lockheed emerged. However even this fact is not enough to tell that bribes only made the success of the F-104. Some countries had selected the F-104 before the bribes and some would have selected it anyway. The only real contenders were considered to be the Mirage III and the Grumman Super Tiger (an F-11 with a J-79 engine). Some countries like Germany and Italy wanted a dual role plane and the F-104 could be used well as a striker, while none of the contenders was considered good in this role. So the F-104 was the plane these countries wanted. Holland wanted a fighter mainly and the Mirage III would have probably been selected instead of the F-104, althogh there was a lot of pressure from the US on all european countries to buy planes that could be used for nuclear strike. Japan too wanted a fighter only, but the preferred plane was the Super Tiger. Canadian pilots were said to prefer the super tiger, but as Canada too wanted a striker, it's difficult to believe this would have been selected. Maybe the F-105 could have been bought, but was much more expensive.

BTW, I hope nobody here believes that bribes in defence contracts are a rare exception used to sell bad planes nobody wants.... I'm revealing no secret if I say that every defence systems salesman already knows what kind of percentage must go to each of the intermediaries in any contract. Al Yamamah anyone ??

Re. the F-4 with no gun: why should it be a bad fighter ? The same concept applies to a gun equipped fighter: once the 6 or 700 rounds are expended it's left with nothing else than turn and go home. And 600 rounds with a Vulcan gun last for very little. The crusader is often remembered as the best dogfighter of the vietnam war because it had 4 guns, yet 1 mig only was shot down using guns, all the others were shot down using sidewinder missiles of the same early models used by the Phantom. Had the crusader used no guns, things would have changed very, very little.

[J.D.]

The media rage was made worse when the first stories of bribes from Lockheed emerged.

As it should.

Holland wanted a fighter mainly and the Mirage III would have probably been selected instead of the F-104, althogh there was a lot of pressure from the US on all european countries to buy planes that could be used for nuclear strike.

Which makes an interesting comparison with Switzerland, who bought the Mirage III.

BTW, I hope nobody here believes that bribes in defence contracts are a rare exception used to sell bad planes nobody wants.... I'm revealing no secret if I say that every defence systems salesman already knows what kind of percentage must go to each of the intermediaries in any contract. Al Yamamah anyone ??

Australia and the F-35, followed by Australia and the F/A-18F...

Re. the F-4 with no gun: why should it be a bad fighter ? The same concept applies to a gun equipped fighter: once the 6 or 700 rounds are expended it's left with nothing else than turn and go home.

Not so good if your missiles fail or miss and you find yourself in close quarters with a MiG-17 and nothing to shoot back with. Under what? a mile, even a Sidewinder is pretty useless, particularly one from that era. In the late 50s and early 60s it was presumed that all future combat would be BVR. That's why the emphasis was on missile development and the gun was left out of the F4. They failed to take close combat into consideration because they assumed it wouldn't happen any more.

[Giorgio N]

Australia and the F-35, followed by Australia and the F/A-18F...

Also the story behind the acquisition of the Mirage III-O makes for interesting reading. No bribe mentioned there, however the whole story tells a lot about the purchase process. The political pressures are also a very important part of the equation.

Not so good if your missiles fail or miss and you find yourself in close quarters with a MiG-17 and nothing to shoot back with. Under what? a mile, even a Sidewinder is pretty useless, particularly one from that era. In the late 50s and early 60s it was presumed that all future combat would be BVR. That's why the emphasis was on missile development and the gun was left out of the F4. They failed to take close combat into consideration because they assumed it wouldn't happen any more.

We should't however forget that in Vietnam the requirement for visual indentification before opening fire had the result that many F-4 crews used the Sparrow missiles well outside of their ideal envelope and forced them to accept close combat, the same type of combat that the use of BVR tactics was supposed to make obsolete. Tactics that were forbidden during the vietnam war. Had the US government not forced this requirement on their crews things would have been different.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Giorgio N

[Mal]

Re. the F-4 with no gun: why should it be a bad fighter ? The same concept applies to a gun equipped fighter: once the 6 or 700 rounds are expended it's left with nothing else than turn and go home. And 600 rounds with a Vulcan gun last for very little. The crusader is often remembered as the best dogfighter of the vietnam war because it had 4 guns, yet 1 mig only was shot down using guns, all the others were shot down using sidewinder missiles of the same early models used by the Phantom. Had the crusader used no guns, things would have changed very, very little.

Hi,

I am always to be corrected but I understand that the F-8 gun kills or part gun kills were.

21 June 66 gun only (VF-211)

21 July 67 gun only (VF-24)

21 July 67 gun and Zuni (VF-24)

9 July 68 gun and sidewinder (VF-191)

Making that two gun kills at least

All the aircraft shot down being Mig17's

Malcolm

[The Velociweiler]

To be fair to the US rule-makers, I think whilst in some tactical situations the rule may have seemed insane - you need to look at a version of the bigger picture too. I think it was in 'Duke' Cunningham's book 'Fox Two' where he helpfully reminds the reader that the NVAF were supplied fitfully, and where their numbers were up after re-supply, they took to the air in large numbers and subsequently lost those numbers. He reckons the absolute maximum number of airworthy fighters they had at the best of times was around fifty airframes. Normally this number dwindled to around fifteen for long periods.

Compare that with the number of US Navy\Airforce\Marine Corps\Army, South Vietnamese and Australian warplanes in the air at any one time, which would normally exceed fifty aircraft. It does seem a reasonable enough rule, and doubtless there are airmen alive today who would not have been had those rules been relaxed too far.

[-Neu-]

I think its actually tougher to determine which is the worst fighter than which is the greatest one.

These are some considerations that a fighter would need to fulfill so I could classify it as the "worst."

#1 Poorly thought out purpose or role.

#2 Delivered over cost and/or delayed.

#3 Middling or poor performance at the time of introduction (attributable to poor project management)

#4 failure to adapt to changing circumstances.

#5 Glaring deficiencies that are never resolved during production and in service.

#6 Poor battlefield performance.

In my mind, the Boulton Paul Defiant and the Blackburn Roc probably are good examples of very poor fighters. In the case of both, 1,3,4,5,6 are evident... though the Roc was particularly poor.

I have another, and this is going to sound heretical to some, but the Avro Arrow fits almost all of them too, particularly 2, 4 and 5.... then again it never saw service.

[General Jumbo]

Re. the F-4 with no gun: why should it be a bad fighter ? The same concept applies to a gun equipped fighter: once the 6 or 700 rounds are expended it's left with nothing else than turn and go home. And 600 rounds with a Vulcan gun last for very little. The crusader is often remembered as the best dogfighter of the vietnam war because it had 4 guns, yet 1 mig only was shot down using guns, all the others were shot down using sidewinder missiles of the same early models used by the Phantom. Had the crusader used no guns, things would have changed very, very little.

Where would you draw the line here? When an F22 runs out of fuel even it becomes pretty useless. The fact is 6 or 7 hundred rounds for close combat is better than only being able to flick the V sign or ram your opponent! There are a number of accounts where Viet strategy used a decoy force to tempt the F4s into using up all of their missiles before a second wave came in a destroyed the bombers they were escorting - all the Phantoms could do was watch. At least the enemy can't see how many cannon rounds you have left.

[J.D.]

We should't however forget that in Vietnam the requirement for visual indentification before opening fire had the result that many F-4 crews used the Sparrow missiles well outside of their ideal envelope and forced them to accept close combat, the same type of combat that the use of BVR tactics was supposed to make obsolete. Tactics that were forbidden during the vietnam war. Had the US government not forced this requirement on their crews things would have been different.

With respect, unless I've misunderstood you, I doubt it. A fighter without a gun is still helpless in close quarters whether as a result of faulty missiles or faulty tactics.

[Bandwagon 106]

A few things, based only on what I've read-The Starfighter was pretty good at dogfighting in the vertical. We need to think what the German Airforce changed from- F-84's and F-86s. No interim F-100s or Super Mystere's. Kind of like going from a mondeo to a dragster or F1 car.

At high speed, the Phantom was a good dogfighter and there was little between them and the Crusader. Above 400knots, the MiG-17 had a very slow roll rate.

F-106s were very good dogfighters, they were given a gun late in life" Project Six Shooter".

I'm sure every fighter has had it's bad or negative points, but I could not even consider nominating these three fighters, tactics and training go a long way to distinguishing between a good fighter and a bad one.

Joel

[Andrew Jones]

Seems simple to me , whichever one loses the dogfight.

[Giorgio N]

With respect, unless I've misunderstood you, I doubt it. A fighter without a gun is still helpless in close quarters whether as a result of faulty missiles or faulty tactics.

My point is that historically the F-4 started its life without guns because it was expected that it wouldn't have been involved in the kind of close combat that would have required a gun. For the same reason extreme manouverability was never part of its design. Its Sparrow missiles should have allowed it to destroy enemies at long range, something that was not exploited as desirable in Vietnam because of the rules of engagement. Had the phantoms been used as intended, the lack of a gun would have been of little consequence. However the next war is always different from what the planners have expected, and the F-4 found itself having to deal with situations that differed from what expected. That the earlier phantoms still enjoied a good success even without a gun, tells a lot about the quality of the plane and the men who flew it.

The vietnam war showed that a gun still had its use, even if the number of kills achieved with guns was lower than that achieved with missiles, and so every postvietnam fighter has had a gun. Today however the usefulness of guns is being questioned again, partly because guns have plaid a very little part in any recent conflict.

Not that in the '50s the Phantom was the only fighter with no gun. The F-101B, F-102 and F-106 had no guns, the Sea Vixen had no guns, several soviet types had no guns. Even the lightning that was designed with guns often flew without and the F.3 version had no gun at all.

[Giorgio N]

To be fair to the US rule-makers, I think whilst in some tactical situations the rule may have seemed insane - you need to look at a version of the bigger picture too. I think it was in 'Duke' Cunningham's book 'Fox Two' where he helpfully reminds the reader that the NVAF were supplied fitfully, and where their numbers were up after re-supply, they took to the air in large numbers and subsequently lost those numbers. He reckons the absolute maximum number of airworthy fighters they had at the best of times was around fifty airframes. Normally this number dwindled to around fifteen for long periods.

Compare that with the number of US Navy\Airforce\Marine Corps\Army, South Vietnamese and Australian warplanes in the air at any one time, which would normally exceed fifty aircraft. It does seem a reasonable enough rule, and doubtless there are airmen alive today who would not have been had those rules been relaxed too far.

Absolutely ! BVR is now considered the norm because the AWACS and the constant use of data-links have made possible for a fighter pilot to "know" if a plane is friendly or foe even before he has it in his radar scope. In the vietnam war days all of this had yet to come so it was not possible to allow unlimited use of BVR missile shots. Actually, BVR was considered not safe enough well into the '80s.

The US Navy has always had different requirements, as over the water the chance of finding friendly planes without knowing in advance is extremely slim. The AIM-54 phoenix would have never been developed if the use in central europe was considered the priority.