Sorry to dissagree the ME 163 was interceptor not a fighter not mush of a differance but still an impotant one however I do agree that it was a failure due only to the rushed production that it recieved.
The Japanese Baka suicide aircraft was a total failure all 18 where shot down on the first mission before they had a chance to even luanch and in total only one Allied ship was sunk due to this method

18 planes to one ship was an accaptable casualty rate in WWII...

Originally Posted by Mark Conley

Hi No Mercy:

Im sorry, as the son of a Phantom II maintainer, I just got to say something in defense of the old plane:

I was a Phantom Phixer and I loved 'em. You are right Mark, there are pros and cons in everything.

Originally Posted by Uncle_Sam

I think I would vote for Me-163(can't remember more suicidal plane). Poor pilots were dieing in the worst conditions, killed by acid

I believe that the danger in these was the fuel - peroxide. This spontaniously combusts whith organic materials - trouble is - pilots and groundcrew are organic!

on the F-4.

The F-4 is still a very useful aircraft. Not by any means top of the line but for air strikes, photo reconnaissance and wild weasle missions, the F-4 is still a highly suitable weapon.
As for dated avionics etc, you can upgrade that quite easily.
But yes, the F-4's selling point is that it can haul heavy payloads, fly very fast, even for modern day jets it can outrun the lot of them, it's quite versitile in the areas that don't require dog fighting and it's hard to bring down.

Mig-15s werent trash, they were flown by untrained peasant boys from china and north korea. The Mig-15 should have been a strict energy fighter, and the soviet volunteers in korea knew that, and managed to get a respectable (2-1:1) kill ratio vs the sabres.

Originally Posted by SHERMAN

18 planes to one ship was an accaptable casualty rate in WWII...

Actually its 18 to Nil.
There are no records of a Baka scoring even a single success against US or Allied shipping.

ps has anybody else seen the gun camera footage of the bombers carring the Baka's being shot down.
Its quite a common piece of film in documentries on the air war in the Pacific

Hmmm, underneath is a translation from a book released in Israel 1982, simply called Aircraft, and published by the Israeli Ministry of Defence. It is an Encyclopedia of the important world military aircrft from 1914 and onwards. Here is a part of what is says about the MXY-7 Cherry Blossom/Baka(aproximate translation):

The first time this specialized suicide plane was succesfully used was April 1st 1945, when 3 MXY-7 were realesed over a US naval force near Okinawa. The Battleship West-Virginia was damaged...11 days later, on the 12 of April, the Baka sunk it's first ship. It was the USS Mannert L. Abele

Here is a source for this in english:
http://www.free-definition.com/Ohka.html

Some of the worst desighns-

WWII
Messershmitt Me163 Komet- The fist and only operational Rocket-Fighter. The rocket engine used a mixture of highly reactive chimiacls causing many fires and explosions. Thje Aircraft had no landing gear and had a special cart to take of from....the shock of landing with no gear(like a glider) somtimes caused the remaining chimicals to ignite. 370 Komets were built, but they managed to shoot down only about 10 allied aircraft.

It depends on how u look at the Me-163 design and conclude its a failure...If i'm not mistaken the Komet was an interceptor and not a fighter. Yes it had flaws and failed but German scientists never had the opertunity to solve them, however the Me-163 was the first operational swept-wing plane, first rocket powered aircraft and well the basic idea behind it isn't that stupid either. After WW2 the UK and the US used it's swept-wing and rocket concept. The UK used the rocket and sweptwing concept in their experimental dual powered interceptor (i belive by De Havilland) that entered the design competition for NATO's interceptor allong with the Starfighter. The West-German Airforce wanted to operate the british design.....however the US goverment canceled funding for the developmentprogram (because of the starfighter) which led to its inevitable demise after Lockheed bribed several goverment officials to by the F-104.

If you want to go by looks, I'd say the Mig-21 Fishbed. That things hidous.