The Five Worst Fighter Aircraft of All Time

National Interest - Commentary ^ | 1-11-2013 | Robert Farley

[Sir Napsalot]

Over the last century of military aviation, several fighters have earned the nickname “flying coffin.” Military aviation inherently pushes up against the limits of technology and human endurance, particularly where fighter and pursuit aviation is concerned. Flying a fighter is remarkably dangerous, even when no one is trying to shoot you down.

Engineering a capable fighter plane is also a struggle. Relatively small changes in engine, armament, and airframe design can transform a clunker into an elite fighting machine; many of the best fighters in history were initially viewed askance by their pilots. But elite status rarely lasts for long, especially in World War I and World War II. Fighters that dominated the sky in one year become “flying coffins” as technology and tactics move forward.

And thus the difference between a great fighter and a terrible fighter can be remarkably small. As with the previous list, the critical work is in determining the criteria. Fighters are national strategic assets, and must be evaluated as such:

· Did this aircraft fail at the tactical tasks that it was given? Did it perform poorly against its direct contemporaries?

· Did the fighter show up, or was it in the hangar when it was needed? Was it more of a danger to its pilots than to enemy fighters?

· Did it represent a misappropriation of national assets?

So what are the worst fighter aircraft of all time? For these purposes, we’ll be concentrating on fighters that enjoyed production runs of 500 or more aircraft (listed in parentheses); curiosities such as the XF-84H “Thunderscreech” need not apply.

(Click through the pages for the *top* 5 list)

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

If the F-104 was so horrible as the author claims then why is it still around? The Italian Air Force and NASA retired theirs in 2004. I saw a NASA one fly almost daily at Edwards AFB in the late 80s. The current privately owned ones still flying have had to reduce their air show appearances as they have operational needs still. Looks like they need more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfighters_Inc

Not bad for a death trap.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. The F-104 was a beautiful bird, but treacherous. A friend of mine was killed in it.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

It was the F-16. Pilots nicknamed the flight control computer “HAL” as the early ones would fly it into the ground.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

That's interesting. I thought the reasoning for the capsule was that the 111 was most likely to be doing its thing supersonically, and conventional ejector seats weren't going to give the crew much of a chance?

The USN wanted the capsule so it could act as a life boat (LOL!) if the crew had to eject over water, so that meant that the capsule also had to float. As I say, the USN did everything they could to make sure the F-111 failed the trials.

Once the USN brass knew they weren't going to be saddled with 'The Pig', and were going to get the F-14, they went back to conventional tandem seating, standard ejection seats and external stores.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Story goes that an F-111 crew had to eject. When the rescue crews arrived at the capsule they had to restrain both parties as they almost came to blows with each other arguing over what time to put on the travel voucher. One crew member was adamant that the time should be when the capsule landed, the other maintained it should have been the time the stricken aircraft hit the ground.

BTW the F-111 egress capsule design was originally going to be used in the space shuttle but it was nixed as too expensive. Most egress types I knew say it had a good chance of working in the Challenger’s case.

[MasterGunner01]

George W. Bush flew the F-102 when he was in the TX ANG. The F-102 had a huge radar screen directly in front of the pilot’s line of vision. On final approach, the F-102 assumed a high angle of attack — a fault inherent in the Delta wing at slow speeds — and the pilot had to look out the sides of the windscreen. The F-102 was considered to be a pilot killer in the USAF. Their best use was as QF-102 target drones.

[MasterGunner01]

The Republic XF-84H Thunderscreech was the loudest aircraft ever built thanks to the tip speed of its propeller — supersonic. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XF-84H_Thunderscreech.

[Fresh Wind]

The Buffalo had problems above and beyond the actual aircraft.

Poor management and a contentious union (the UAW) doomed Brewster and its products. There were strikes and acts of sabotage by the union, and when they did work, there were serious quality control problems.

Brewster was the only aircraft manufacturer to go out of business during WWII. It was taken over by the Navy and was operated as the Naval Air Modification Unit (NAMU).

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Liberal bed wetters also minimize the risk that W took just flying them. From the German ME-262 to the last of the century series aircraft, some of the planes had a tendency to explode. Engine and fuel system technology finally caught up to the demands of keeping the bricks in the air. Before around 1975 pilots were flying time bombs in some cases.

[MasterGunner01]

The F7U “Cutlass” (aka “gutless Cutlass”) was in squadron service with the Navy in the late 1940s to its retirement in 1959, but it did not have a long service with NavAir. The cutlass was notoriously underpowered and it had bad carrier handling characteristics. here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F7U_Cutlass.

[Hulka]

Yup. Only over-ride is the jet prohibits over-G.

Don’t know if it still has that programming.

[Hulka]

A/A role the F-16 is ok but no F-15

I’ve beat many F16’s with my -229 powered F-15E.

[Hulka]

But it does have a RAT.

[Texicanus]

I would like to remind you one of the advantages of the F111 capsule ejection system is that both crew members ejected at the same time. Fire the ejection system and away we go, nobody left behind. Ask any B-48 crew members (3) about crew communications and station ejection sequencing and priorities. Pilot long gone and other crew members waiting for the order to eject. Station 2 and 3 could not see the pilot in station 1.

To my knowledge, during testing and development of the F111A (Air Force version), no crews where lost and the ejection worked beautifully in those cases where planes were lost. Not so with the F111B (Navy version). I think they lost a plane in Bethpage very early in the development.

[tanknetter]

George W. Bush flew the F-102 when he was in the TX ANG. The F-102 had a huge radar screen directly in front of the pilot’s line of vision. On final approach, the F-102 assumed a high angle of attack — a fault inherent in the Delta wing at slow speeds — and the pilot had to look out the sides of the windscreen. The F-102 was considered to be a pilot killer in the USAF. Their best use was as QF-102 target drones.

Good article on the F-102, and George W. Bush's service flying it, can be found here. One good quote:

Since North Vietnamese pilots generally avoided combat with their American counterparts, the F-102 had few opportunities to engage in its primary role of air combat. However, the Deuce was adapted for close air support starting in 1965. Delta Daggers armed with unguided rockets made attacks on Viet Cong encampments to harass enemy soldiers, and the aircraft's heat-seeking air-to-air missiles were even used to lock onto enemy campfires at night. Though the F-102 had not been designed for this type of combat, the plane was surprisingly effective and pilots often reported secondary explosions coming from their targets. An Aviation Week article of the period credited the 509th FIS, an F-102 squadron stationed in Vietnam, with destroying 106 buildings, damaging 59 more, sinking 16 sampans, and destroying one bridge during 199 sorties over the course of 45 days. The manufacturer Convair proposed a series of upgrades to build upon these promising results and further improve the design's ground attack capabilities, but the concept was dropped due to Air Force funding constraints.

[tanknetter]

I would like to remind you one of the advantages of the F111 capsule ejection system is that both crew members ejected at the same time. Fire the ejection system and away we go, nobody left behind

Yes ... If he'd been a RIO in an F-111B, Goose would have lived.

[Texicanus]

If Bush flew an F102 and it was anything like an F104, the man has bigger balls than I was thought.

I had the opportunity to walk around and evaluate an F104 back in the late 60’s. BTW I had already heard about the German air forces pilots dropping out the skies at a very high rate. High rate of pilot error they said. I started to think about that as I walked around the plane.

It’s a very very small plane. Sleek, built like a lawn dart with a rocket engine. I don’t remember the wingspan, but it was incredibly short. It didn’t look the least bit reassuring. All I could think of was how many ways I could could stall, stall, stall and not recover. It didn’t look like the it had enough control surfaces to recover at any low altitude and speed. I never looked up the survivability envelope (graphs) on one of these babies. But I bet they were very scary.

I think it was probably cool as long as it was doing its job going from A to B in the shortest time. After all it was designed as an interceptor, not a fighter.

Does anybody know what is the landing/stall speed for the F104?

[Skooz]

Bump

[MasterGunner01]

I did a search on “Stalling speed for F-104” and this is what I found:

Mmo = Mach 2.0 Mach 1.9 With Tip Tanks

Vfe = Takeoff 450 KCAS / 0.85 Mach N/A below 330 KIAS

Vfe = Extended or Retracting 520 KCAS / 0.85 Mach N/A below 350 KIAS

Vfe = Land 240 KCAS

Vlo = 260 KCAS

Vle = 295 KCAS

From the numbers, the F-104 was a very HOT airplane to fly. The wings extended only 8 feet from each side of the fuselage. Sounds like the jet inherited the moniker applied to the Martin B-26 Marauder — “the Baltimore whore” — because it had no visible means of support.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

We lost an FB-111 from Plattsburgh in the early 80s. Sad story but what made it worse was the MSM. There was a news wire story about a US Navy ship that had female sailors nude sunbathing on deck. The story was reported nationwide that our plane crashed taking pictures of the ship. My father told me about the news report and I informed him that we lost our plane at night and well over a thousand miles away from the ship. The MSM somehow married both unrelated stories.