Planeworld's Biggest Failures

We know which were the ugliest planes, now I guess we should know which were the least sucessful ones. I heard that the Vickers Valiant was a bit of a washout, but anything else?

 

AFAIK the Valiant had an honourable career in the RAF as a bomber, PR and Tanker. It also saw combat over Suez.

 

Hmmm, well l I read in a book that it was riddled with problems, like unreliable engines and stuff. I think. Then again, I may have been confusing it with another plane that looked like it, so, I'll wait for an expert to drop in. Meanwhile, anyone have a failure to talk about?

 

The Polish Zubr bomber (see the Ugliest planes topic) - it couldn't take off with a full bombload, and tended to shake itself apart in the air...

 

He-117 Greif.It could catch fire in 56 possible places anytime during flying along with serious control and stuctural problems.1120 planes were constructed and proved to be a greater trouble to the Luftwaffe than to the Allies!

 

Most of the biggest failures fall into the category of aircraft that were built but never accepted into service due to inherant crapness. Do you want this thread to mention them or just the ones that were actually adopted ?

:-?

 

Both. And maybe a few pics would help too.

 

And we should mention the Avro Manchester. Without those troublesome Vulture engines it could have been as sucessful as the Lancaster.

 

Without those engines it became the Lancaster.

 

Now that you mention it, yes. The Lancaster was essentially the Manchester II, if you will. Now, let's see which other failures of Planeworld are yet to be brought up.

 

Almost any of the "Wonderwaffe" designs that got into prototype but never made it into the air. All they did was waste resources that might have been used operationally (and keep the designers away from the Ostfront!)

The Me 323 Gigant

 

Well, as a large transport aircraft it ws fine, if slightly underpowered. Except, like all transport aircraft, it was hideously vulnerable to fighters, and was rarely escorted. :roll:

 

Here is Greif;

Looks impressive doesn't it? However...

 

The He-177 was not as much of a failure as most people think it is....i don't want to have that discussion again as it has been discussed many times before (just look for it on the Axis-forum)

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=82567

The Greiff was an awesome machine and just as good as it's allied counter parts :smok:

 

As a failure i would mention the Me-210...

 

Hungarians loved that plane (however i'm not sure if they used it properly)...

 

The Hungarians made the Me-210c wich you could discribe as apre-production model of the 410...it had all the upgrades and improvements to make a 210 flyable!

 

Failures...

With the exception of the Zubr, I don't think any thread on aircraft failures can be complete without mention of some true British classics.

The Blackburn Botha comes first in my mind. A land based torpedo bomber for coastal command that was appallingly underpowered, unstable and had a reputation for being downright dangerous to its crews. Even Coastal Command (Who generally seemed pretty pleased to be given anything) relegated this nightmare aircraft to training duties, where it still proved a failure, being too demanding an aircraft for students to handle. There is a happy end to this story though, surviving Bothas did perform a useful service for the RAF...

...as instructional airframes for trainee fitters.

Next, the Blackburn Roc (Nothing against them, they just seem to be able to produce some remarkably bad aircraft). Take an already indifferent aircraft (The Skua), remove wing guns, then further degrade it's already less than mediocre capabilities by adding a Boutlon Paul turret. Think the Defiant was bad? The Roc was worse, by a large margin. Possible career low-lights include duties during the Battle of Britain at Southampton (As stationary AAA emplacements).

Not to leave out the Luftwaffe in all this.

I'm surprised the Me163 Komet has not come up yet. Famous for the inherent danger in flying one, the operational Komet units suffered more losses in combat* than confirmed kills, as an interceptor fighter that has to be the definition of failure.

* note this is just combat losses, not losses due to other causes such as accidents or just blowing up on a warm day on the runway!

 

Just came up with another one.
Italian Breda ground attack plane.One of the worst planes in its category.

 

How could I have forgotten the Ba88 Lince (Lynx)? A ground attack/multirole fighter whose greatest contribution to the Italian war effort was as runway decoys. At least Southampton's Rocs were supposed to be able to fight back!