Best Aircraft of WW2

Chuck Norris could build his own plane out of bubble gum and paddle pop sticks and use it to chase down an F-16, and win

 

Well I answered this in Joe's thread of the same name! So I guess I'll answer it here too!
I'm not qualified to list the best aircraft so I'll give you my favorite!
The first would be the C-47, took alot of abuse and just kept going!
The second would be the P-51, what a beautiful machine!!

 

This is purely subjective so opinions carry the same weight. I see the P-51 as the most important aircraft in WW II if not "best," whatever that means to anyone.

The reason is simply because after the huge number of losses on missions leading up to and including Schweinfurt the USAF was very seriously considering ceasing daylight ops and going to night bombing. Well we know that 2 of 3 bombs dropped in daylight missed their target so you can imagine what night ops would, or wouldn't have done.

If the P-51 or any long range escort had not appeared at the time it did I contend the war itself would have been lengthened an unknown amount of time with the attendant additional loss of lives on all sides.

I suppose the P-51 is one of my "favorites" for the same reason.

 

Not the best...by any standard...but one of my favorites...
P-61 Black Widow
Its remotely controlled top turret had a 360 degree traverse with 90 degree elevation. Now that's a firing arc! Um...hemisphere !
Not to mention, not one was lost to enemy aircraft in WW 2.
What couldn't it shoot at?

Douglass A-26 Invader is a close second, for lowest loss rate. Not "bullet-proof", just good.

 

? I read on another board that one had fallen victim to the rear gunner of a Ju 87 - firing a little 7.9mm MG!

 

Perhaps perhaps, I'm just quoting Wiki, we all know....
Some did succumb to ground fire, and more than a few cracked up on landing.

Hey Joe, I can't get the bomb to defuse....What do I do now

 

My favorite would have to be the F-4u corsair. As for the best, I don't think you can really say one is better than the other. Others have already stated this. Different fighters were made for different theaters and different tactical situations. The 109, 190, F-4u, Zero, P-51, spitfire, were all great planes at what they were built for.

 

not perhaps but fact, I have the pics of the LW He 177 gunner his crew and the background and pics of the cracked up P-61 and yes at least 2 P-61's in the ETO were so severly damaged by return gun fire of two different Ju 87D's by the twin 7.9's they were used for extra parts for surviving Widows, the Widow is extremly over-rated but it is all our boys had that was US made for the night flights in the pacific and Atlantic theaters, the rotating .50's were used in the PTO only in the ETO weight was a concern and they removed them in the 414th, 422nd and 425th nfs. some came on the B's for the 416th but much too late in the war

 

Said favorite, I'm aware it was a late come-er and not best (Mosquito?).
I like night fighters in general (all nations), because of their "sneaky" nature, and the fact that they were a "counter" for others trying to be "sneaky". Why would you need a night fighter unless some one was trying to sneak up on you at night?

I know the only way it could catch V-1s was to dive on them, and when it did, in the early models the plexi-glass cone on the rear of the fuselage popped off. Exciting! R&D is such an adventure.

If "cracked up" on landing (including carrier decks, ditching in the sea, cost effectively parting-out (subjective), retirement because of age (metal fatigue/lack of parts/no repair facilities), counts as shot down...We must "Triple" all existing numbers & forget about gun camera footage, as the only source.

 

mine would be the German jet-powered VolksJager the first Jet the world has ever produced..corsairs and other allied planes would be like bugs to the volksjager..

 

Sorry to dissapoint you but the HE-162 was NOT the first Jet nor the first jet fighter.


"In 1941, a new jet fighter-prototype flew. Its successor, the Gloster Meteor, entered service with the RAF in 1944. However, the Gloster Meteor was not the first jet fighter. This claim goes to the Heinkel He 178 which first flew on August 24th 1939 - just days before World War Two started."

And just because someone is flying a jet doesn't always mean a Propeller driven aircraft will always lose.It takes more then just an aircraft to win. It takes pilot skill too. .

"By the time the Korean War began, the Allies still utilized propeller-driven fighters as well as their own set of jet fighters. On August 2, 1952, a Hawker Sea Fury of 805 Squadron flying off HMS Ocean piloted by Peter “Hoagy” Carmichael became the first piston fighter of the war to shoot down a jet when he bagged a North Korean MiG-15. Not to be outdone by the British, and almost a month later, USMC Capt. Jesse G. Folmar of VMA-312, flying his F4U-4B Corsair, shot down a North Korean MiG-15. Unfortunately, Capt. Folmar had to bail out of his Corsair when he, in turn, was attacked by an additional four MiG-15s.
When the Vietnam War started, the U.S. military had an assortment of all-jet fighters to tangle with the North Vietnamese MiG-17s and MiG-21s. There wasn’t any further need for the propeller aircraft to tangle with a jet. At least that’s how it was supposed to work. The 1950s vintage USN/USAF Skyraider was everything a jet wasn’t: slow and heavy. But that didn’t stop the Skyraiders from shooting down their own small share of MiGs. The last took place on October 9, 1966, when Lt. (j.g.) William T. Patton of VA-176 shot down a MiG-17 while flying his Skyraider over North Vietnam. "

Props vs. Jets | Article Titles and Pages | The Magazine | Flight Journal Magazine



"Although the Skyraider was never intended to be a fighter, it did achieve a couple of MiG "kills" during the Southeast Asian War. On June 20, 1965, Lts Charles Hartman and Clinton Johnson in A-1H BuNo 137523 and 139786 shared in the downing of a MiG-17 by cannon fire. On October 9, 1966, Lt JG William T. Patton of VA-176 flying A-1H BuNo 137543 shot down a MiG-17 near Hanoi."

Service of AD Skyraider with US Navy

 

During the Korean war I read of a Douglas Skynight jet trying to shoot down a Russian Po-2 at night and stalling out and crashing when he tried to slow down to the bi-planes speed. Very dumb pilot !

 

An overlooked country that put out some good designs during the war was Sweden. They had the Saab-18A bomber, the Saab 21A fighter, and the FFVS J22 fighter. Very nice designs for a small country.

 

You are right that the He 178 was the first jet to fly, and it could have been built as a fighter (although its Ohain-designed engines were fundamentally unsound). But of course it never saw service.

Which was the first jet to see service depends on how you define this. The Me 262 was the first to equip a squadron, but this was only an experimental unit. The Gloster Meteor was the first in regular squadron service, and the first to see action (against V-1s).

 

Exactly. I do try to read up on what I post about LOL . Or at least back it up with sources. I wish sometimes others would do the same .

 

Well it is wiki so one has to be careful but, according to:
F3D Skyknight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

And...the title for best (totally personal opinion) land based fighter plane goes to:

1939 Supermarine Spitfire Mark I
1940 MiG-3 (fitted with two 12.7mm gunpods)
1941 Messerschmitt Me-109F-4
1942 Messerchmitt Me-109G-2 (two 20mm gunpods)
1943 North American P-51C Mustang
1944 Messerschmitt Me-262A-1a
1945 Lavochkin La-7 (Yaroslavl build, 3x B-20 guns)

Fully part of the leaning towards German fighters is the terrific pilot accommodation, with features including mechanical or electrical automatic flight management and at request all-weather instruments and a huge variety of multi-role field packages expertly developed, from armaments variations to major equipment changes (German ace, "yes, thankyou I'll have the streamlined wings, das ist gut").

Alot of the problem is the introduction of warplanes and their high rate of development. Prototypes were effectively placed into production and their development took place on the battlefield. You really need to go month by month to mention all the best fighters at a given time. I mean the Yak-1 was better than the Me-109E but not the Me-109F which served alongside it on the early Eastern Front. The Yak-1B or Yak-1M however was as good as a Me-109G though much less refined.

My favourite, and I think the best piston fighter overall to reach preproduction stage was the Ta-152C for brute performance and an astonishing array of equipment, whilst still retaining Fw-190D style manoeuvring characteristics (with less drag). But you gotta love a Mark V Tempest, or a F4U-1 Corsair, the P-51D as being unparralelled in the long range escort role and a bag of fun with the tanks half empty. The Frank and George II from Japan, the legendary role of the Zero in the early Pacific war, the Yak-9U is a fantastic fighter package in the theme of the Spitfire only even more versatile. And who can deny the most famous warplane of all time, is also one of the very best: the legendary Spitfire series (gotta love a Mark VIII).

 

I am thinking which of these two are the best. Either the P-51 Mustang or the Spitfire

 

Mustang's got the laminar flow wings so it has much less drag, but the Spitfire has newer engines. By the time the P-51 first featured the Packard/Merlin the Spit was moving on to the Griffon. Even so the Mustang is faster at all altitudes, but the Spit is a little more forgiving to its pilot.

Interestingly a great deal of the weight for the impact of the Mustang upon USAAF aircrews was the excellent altitude performance of the two-stage Merlin. Consider that an Allison engine P-40M runs out of puff at about 15,000 feet whilst the Spit is still going strong at 30,000. Their earlier experience with Rolls Royce engines was the single-stage Merlin fitted to the P-40F which still runs out of steam by 18,000 feet or thereabouts.

The British liked the Mustang because of its clean aerodynamics, RAF pilots said it handled better than a Spitfire but that was before its extra-long range modifications, when it was still fitted with the Allison (it was the RAF who suggested the Merlin be fitted). But the fact remains that its high wing loading and laminar flow design meant if you did get too excited, you probably wouldn't recover before hitting the ground.

That being said it's hard to go past a Mustang at combat altitudes (4-7km).

 

We all have our favorite aircraft (mine are the Mustang and Corsair) and it's really tough to say which is really the best so I'll just share something I found on the topic.
On October 1944 at Patuxent River, Maryland, nearly a hundred Army and Navy pilots swapped cockpits and compared notes. Best all-around fighter below 25,000: Bearcat, Mustang and Corsair all within 3 percent of each other. Best above 25,000: the P-47 got nearly half the votes followed by the Mustang and F4U a distant third. Perhaps surprisingly, in the best fighter-bomber category, the Corsair led the P-47 nearly two to one. Additionally the F4U ranked second only to the P4-47 as a strafer.
(From World War II magazine, March 2008 issue.)