The quest for the worst combat aircraft in history...
 

Ok guys, I'm tired of all the Obama and Islam threads and I know we got some smart people here. So I think its time we tracked down just what is the worst combat aircraft of all time.

Criteria...
It must be used by a military
It must suck...

DISCUSS!

I would nominate the F6U Pirate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F6U_Pirate

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4...tf6upirate.jpg

and the F7U Cutlass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F7U_Cutlass

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/107...f7ucutlass.jpg

Two aircraft that nearly ruined the name Vought. (although the F7U looks like something capable of battling the Cylons.)

You'd get laughed right off my airport if you landed in either one of those things.

Only aircraft that made it into operational service?

I reckon the HE-177 must rank among the worst aircraft of all time. Anything that gets the nickname "Flaming Coffin" deserves a mention.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nkel_He177.jpg

That is one ugly aircraft.

This maybe?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Deco_wing.jpg

IIRC they solved most of the problems with it in later variants, though.

I nominate the Avia S-199 as a pretty horrible aircraft. The Frankenstein Bf 109 chassis and Junkers Jumo 211 engine had horrible performance, was dangerous to fly and vastly unreliable.

http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/fww2/s199/s199-5.jpg

Ugly aircraft but a handsome starfighter. :haha:

I would say yes. Too many aircraft are scrapped in development because they are bad.

B-25 Roc
 

http://imgur.com/dChd2.png

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

True the He177 got improved but the war was done by the time they did and it killed a lot more germans than it did any other nation.

In terms of the ugliest my vote goes to this monstrosity:

Breguet 270
http://www.aviastar.org/pictures/france/breguet-270.jpg

Its performance wasn't much chop either.

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/4521/comet1.jpg

What about this?
The Comet heard it had some nasty crashes due to design flaws
(Is this only Military or are commercial planes allowed?)

Never heard of that one, sounds like a horrible idea.

Then again some wise guy stuck an British engine on an American fighter and achieved awesomeness. So I guess the designers of that one had good intentions.

Ah so combining the crappy Defiant with genneraly crappy British WWII carrier aircraft! :haha:

Military only.

Although the Comet became the Nimrod so I guess it could count as military.

But the Nimrod was a sorted Comet and served well in it's Maritime partol and ASW role up until March 2010. Anything that serves nearly 40 years has got to be out of contention for worst aircraft.

Yea, I was just thinking that.

Ok new criteria: the aircraft must suck so bad that no corrective measures can fix it. :up: