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Originally Posted by The Other Guy I would disqualify it because it never saw service. But yes, it was quite dreadful.
How about the Gloster Gladiator? A biplane built about the same time as the Spitfire? How behind the times is that?
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The Gladiator divisions in Finland did a very very good job against the Ruskies during the winter war.
Sure if you stack it up against early model spitfires it would look like someones **** up.
But then again, so would most fighters of that time.
The exceptions being the Me 109, and the Hurricane.
Only later on in the war did for example america get fighters that could contend and in some cases dominate the skies ie: The P-51 Mustang for example.
And I have to disagree with bd also.
The Me 262 was an exceptional fighter for it´s time.
As mmarsh stated it was intended as a bomber interceptor and to do recon in heavily fortified areas.
The Me 262 performed well in both these enviroments.
It did however didn´t perform as good in the "Blitzbomber" role that Mr Hitler imposed upon the Me 262 squadrons.
The recon missions was not as long as the allies had landed on european soil by then, that negated the problems it had with range.
In the interceptor role it was vastly superior to any aircraft of that same time period.
It did however have a problem during the landing sequence as it had to throttle back and make a long smooth uninterupted approach.
The allies realized this and started to take them out during this landing sequence.
More Me 262,s were lost to roaming Tempest and Mustangs over their own airfields then in dogfights.
Had the numbers of Me 262,s produced been greater the americans would have had to abandon daylight raids IMO.
Not that it had effected the outcome of the war in any significant way..
For worst aircraft I´d have to nominate the Me 163.
"I won´t ask one of my pilots to fly in this butterbox"
Adolf Galland
//KJ.