Originally Posted by perseus

On these grounds the ME 163 would be a strong contender with a duration of 8 minuites and a speed of over 600mph. These had to glide back to earth and so were easy prey in this situation. They also used the same fuel as the V1 so it was in short supply. Hydrazine Hydrate & Methanol was mixed with hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant, these explode spontaneously on combustion, not nice if you get shot up either. The ME 163 and ME 262 were highly innovative though, but they had not rbeen refined as war weapons.

Whole heartedly concur, it was grave oversight for me to omit the 163.

I'm going to disagree.

Remember that the primary role of both the 262 and 163 was bomber interception. The short flight duration was made up by simply moving the airstrips close to the targets they were defending. They were never intended as long range aircraft. Although both were dangerous to operate for beginners they were deadly in the right hands. The 163 saw very limited combat so its hard to accurately gauge.

I also disagree with the Zero. It was superior to anything the allies had until 1943. Before that it could out-turn, out-run, out-climb, and out shoot anything the allies had. Its range was also superior. The only tactic a Allied pilot had against a Zero (on a 1 to 1 basis) on its 6 was to out-dive it.

Its lack of a self-sealed fuel tank was eliminated in the A6M5.

All bombers are vulnerable to fighters, even the super-heavy B-29 needed protection. The Stuka was probably the best pure Dive Bomber of the War, maybe tied with the Aiichi D3A1 "Val".

I'll agree with both the Blackburn Skua and Roc although both the Brewster Buffalo and P-39 were actually very effective in non-US hands.

The Brewster (known as the B-239 by the Finns) was very popular during the 1939-1940 Continuation War and the 37mm cannon of the P-39 made mincemeat of the Panzers during the Russian Front. While the Finns eventually replaced the B-239 with Me109Gs the Russians kept ordering the P-39 even when the IL-2 was in full production.

Originally Posted by perseus

On these grounds the ME 163 would be a strong contender with a duration of 8 minuites and a speed of over 600mph. These had to glide back to earth and so were easy prey in this situation. They also used the same fuel as the V1 so it was in short supply. Hydrazine Hydrate & Methanol was mixed with hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant, these explode spontaneously on combustion, not nice if you get shot up either. The ME 163 and ME 262 were highly innovative though, but they had not rbeen refined as war weapons.

I saw a 163 in person once, and my first take of it was "Wow, that's small." It's no more than four feet high. i can't imagine being packed into it and then launched at 600 miles per hour. it would be like a soap box derby car with a Formula 1 engine in it.

Kaboom?

EDIT:
mmarsh, I meant the P-39 in its US fighter role. It was quite successful (along with the superior P-63) in russia as a ground attack plane. As a fighter though, it was dreadful.

How about the Bell P-59 that thing was a dog when compared to jet aircraft of WW2 hell it wasn't even up to standard of the conventional aircraft it was going to go up against.

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?

Or maybe the PZL P.23?

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?

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.

The Fairy Battle was a one engine bomber with a crew of three, a whole squadron of them was lost while trying to stem the German advance in France in 1940. There was another Bomber the Bombay two engine with fixed undercarriage, then there was the Whitley bomber and they lost so many it was turned over to the Army for parachute work. After war we got the Blackburn Beverly which was a transport plane, which was little more that a big box with wings. The plane was produced in the mid 1950's with a fixed undercarriage and when it had a full load it only had a range of 200 miles.

I dunno about being the worst aircraft, but the Brewster Buffalo was way up there.

I'm adding the Amiot 143.


Who on earth would be afraid of this?

The pilot and crew would be if they had any sense.