The Worst Aircraft of WW2

[batistadk]

Excellent article, thanks for sharing.

Cheers

batistadk

[IceFire]

It's a great list! There's a few types on there I hadn't even heard of which is getting to be a rare thing. So many obscure WWII aviation types! Excellent knowledge of the material!

And completely agree about the P-40. I've read the same tired lines about the P-40s poor performance and it doesn't add up. While not a top performer and not being competitive in 1945 versus a top line fighter... the P-40 was excellent in its time and it was most certainly not a failure in combat.

[bf-110]

The Moskite looks pretty leet.I guess if it got operational it would at least cause some trouble for the allies.

[secretone]

Another stinker worth mentioning is the C-87 Liberator Express. This aircraft was based on the stalwart B-24D but had technical problems that caused fatal crashes. Some 280 were built and they were in service for much of the war; notably flying over the Hump and as VIP transports. I first learned about this beauty when I read Ernest Gann's classic Fate Is The Hunter.

[deskpilot]

I have often thought how often planes fail because their engines just aren't powerful or reliable enough. such a shame. This was an interesting read. Much appreciated.

[JtD]

I just realized that the Curtiss Seamew is classified as "bad but useful" - what was it useful at? Does anyone know? I've read a lot about the bad qualities, but nothing about the "useful" ones.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by JtD

I just realized that the Curtiss Seamew is classified as "bad but useful" - what was it useful at? Does anyone know? I've read a lot about the bad qualities, but nothing about the "useful" ones.

Light catapult-launched recon planes aren't exactly high performance aircraft. As long as the engine didn't fail, you didn't try to perform aerobatics in it, the windows didn't fog up and the radio didn't fail, the Seamew could still perform its missions of artillery spotting, short range recon, light liaison/transport and crew training.

Obviously, the SOC and the OS2U were much better planes, and the Japanese float planes were even better than those, but SO3C was just barely "good enough." Certainly, in many cases it was better than no airplane at all.

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by JtD

I just realized that the Curtiss Seamew is classified as "bad but useful" - what was it useful at? Does anyone know? I've read a lot about the bad qualities, but nothing about the "useful" ones.

The Seamew turned out to be quite useful as a radio controlled target. No kidding.

Curtis tried to rescue the situation with the SO3C by building a lighter version with a more powerful engine, and it had a limited production run, but no one was interested.

Poor Curtiss. They started off brilliantly with the Hawk and P-40 series, then it all went downhill from there. At least they continued to build very good propeller and hub systems for a long time, used by many other aircraft, and they could be proud of that.