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

JSLTIGER · 09-27-10, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

F-105 Thunderchief, the combat losses were well, outrageous.The Thud lacked the more advanced bomb sights and thus was forced to dive bomb, much like a WW II era dive bomber.The Thud, while very fast was large and not that agile, pilots had a difficult time evading SAMs and clouds of flak that other planes dealt with but did not suffer the loss rates.

Brave me they were, to go into battle in a plane like that...

Disagree. It racked up high combat losses due to being at the forefront of the bombing campaign. The dive bombing issue was due to it being designed as a low level strike bomber and since production had stopped they weren't going to update it.

It was the perfect example of an aircraft being asked to do a job for which it hadn't been designed.

Agree with this. My grandfather worked for Republic Aviation on the 105s (he also has talked to me about the never built XF-103...cool plane but ahead of its time). He complains bitterly that the 105 was being regularly asked to do things that it was never designed to do. It was never meant to be a conventional bomber, it was supposed to get in, drop a nuke (for which precision is kind of unimportant, hence the lack of sights) and get out.