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

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by JSLTIGER

I'd say that's probably a fairly good nomination.

Combat aircraft? Yes.

Slow, low payload, expensive to operate, huge target, and oh yeah, basically a flying bomb itself (thank you hydrogen, which + tracers = boom).

Those are Zeppelin problems in general, but the 'Height Climbers' had even worse problems on top of that. While they did achieve the primary design purpose of flying higher than British aircraft and air defences could reach, the men and equipment inside had no adequate protection against the cold and lack of oxygen at such high altitudes, making them rather dangerous to fly. The general navigation and accuracy problems that Zeppelins had were also made much worse thanks to the increased altitude. If that wasn't bad enough, the removed engine made them even slower than preceding classes and the lighter construction made them very fragile and vulnerable to the wind (Which was made even worse because of the altitude, of course).

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Well, no, but out of those 15 countries at least two of them lost pilots, the Luftwaffe crashed 292 and lost 110 pilots to it, Canada crashed 110 of them too, Belgium crashed forty one, Italy lost 137, Japan lost 36, and the US had 30.63 accidents for every 100,000 flight hours which was the highest of the 'century' series fighters. So at the very least (not including US losses) some 616 F-104s crashed in service. That's nearly 30% of all aircraft built (I don't know the precise number, too late to work it out).

Ok, the aircraft itself when used in the proper role was good, but it was used in the wrong role too often and in the wrong weather and then...splat, Tent peg time.

The problem with the Starfighter was that due to its small wings, it had to land at a fairly high speed. One mistake and you were toast. But then the FW-190 in WW2 had the same problem.

Plus, it severely burnt and took two finger tips from Chuck Yeager! I mean, the guy knows his aircraft but the F-104 chewed him up and spat him out.
Stopped his record attempts too.

Was a bit of an Icarus, reached for the sky but then burnt its wings off.

Yeager was not flying a regular F-104, but an NF-104 which had a rocket engine attached to reach record high altitudes. The rocket turned out to completely screw up the aerodynamics of the plane and Yeager got into a flat spin that he could not recover from (as I recall, the book "The Right Stuff" has a detalied description of the flight).

When he ejected, he wound up colliding with the retro rocket of his ejection seat, which started a fire inside his helmet and his glove.

[Bilge_Rat]

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...

I would agree with Xabbarus. The F-105 was designed to carry a single nuclear bomb against tactical targets, In Vietnam it was asked to carry out a job it was not designed to do.

It turned out to be able to carry a high bomb load and be a decent combat aircraft as well, shooting down many Mig-17s which were more agile , but slower. Its only real enemy was the MIG-21 which totally outclassed the Thud.

The high combat losses had more to do with the Air defences over North Vietnam than the plane's design. The Soviets used Vietnam to test and refine their air defence network. By 1968, Hanoi was the most heavily defended target in the world.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Yeager was not flying a regular F-104, but an NF-104 which had a rocket engine attached to reach record high altitudes. The rocket turned out to completely screw up the aerodynamics of the plane and Yeager got into a flat spin that he could not recover from (as I recall, the book "The Right Stuff" has a detalied description of the flight).

When he ejected, he wound up colliding with the retro rocket of his ejection seat, which started a fire inside his helmet and his glove.

According to his own account the rocket engine failed while he was too low for the installed thrusters to function properly (the NF-104 was designed to give X-15 pilots practice with the thrusters used to control the plane when it was high enough for the standard controls to be useless), and too high for the jet engine to work, which meant the hydraulicly-powered standard controls wouldn't work either. The plane began to descend in a nose-up position, and with no controls at all he couldn't even re-start the jet engine.

Neither pilot nor plane was to blame for the failure of the rocket engine.

One of the early problems (later fixed) on the F-104 was a downward-firing ejection seat, used because the early seats didn't have enough power to clear the tail if fired at supersonic speeds.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Well, no, but out of those 15 countries at least two of them lost pilots, the Luftwaffe crashed 292 and lost 110 pilots to it, Canada crashed 110 of them too, Belgium crashed forty one, Italy lost 137, Japan lost 36, and the US had 30.63 accidents for every 100,000 flight hours which was the highest of the 'century' series fighters. So at the very least (not including US losses) some 616 F-104s crashed in service. That's nearly 30% of all aircraft built (I don't know the precise number, too late to work it out).

Don't forget the role it was pushed into in the Luftwaffe. Low flying fighter bombers always lose more planes and pilots to accidents as they are flying close to the ground which makes it difficult to correct mistakes. A 104 mechanic told me once that the loss rates with the Starfighter's predecessor, the F84 Thunderstrike, were even higher.
At the end of it's career the 104G had become a pretty reliable craft. They were withdrawn in 1986 and the last pilot was killed in 1981 (IIRC). That's five years of flying without a fatal incident.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Vendor

http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircr...ircraft_id=107

I new someone was going to post the Rocket Fighter.

Originally Posted by JSLTIGER

(he also has talked to me about the never built XF-103...cool plane but ahead of its time).

XF-103, just read up on it, sounds like an American MiG-25 Foxbat. Very neat.

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Those are Zeppelin problems in general, but the 'Height Climbers' had even worse problems on top of that. While they did achieve the primary design purpose of flying higher than British aircraft and air defences could reach, the men and equipment inside had no adequate protection against the cold and lack of oxygen at such high altitudes, making them rather dangerous to fly. The general navigation and accuracy problems that Zeppelins had were also made much worse thanks to the increased altitude. If that wasn't bad enough, the removed engine made them even slower than preceding classes and the lighter construction made them very fragile and vulnerable to the wind (Which was made even worse because of the altitude, of course).

Did they consider warm cloths and oxygen masks? I know very little about WWI aircraft but I know they used Nitrous Oxide as an inhaled sedative in the Civil War and making oxygen can be done by mixing chemicals (I did it in chemistry class). Coudln't they mix whatever they used to deliver inhaled sedatives but hook it to something that made oxygen? Or did they have compressed air back then?

Originally Posted by Schroeder

...the F84 Thunderstrike...

*F84F Thunderstreak

[Bilge_Rat]

my pick is still the Boulton Defiant...


a fighter with no forward firing guns...

[Diopos]

F-104s ...
Yeap that sure is a whole discussion on its own. Very controversial... When used in the Hellenic Airforce it claimed 16 pilots (?). I think everybody was pleased when the F-5s,-4s, Mirages and A-7 Corsairs started to come "into play" in the '70s.


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[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Diopos

...A-7 Corsairs started to come "into play" in the '70s.

The Corsair II

The greatest strike aircraft of all time...

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

my pick is still the Boulton Defiant...

a fighter with no forward firing guns...

Hardly, not only did it perform very well until the Luftwaffe started attacking it from outside its firing arc, but it also was a pretty good night fighter later on.

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Did they consider warm cloths and oxygen masks? I know very little about WWI aircraft but I know they used Nitrous Oxide as an inhaled sedative in the Civil War and making oxygen can be done by mixing chemicals (I did it in chemistry class). Coudln't they mix whatever they used to deliver inhaled sedatives but hook it to something that made oxygen? Or did they have compressed air back then?

Well, presumably they did wear warm clothes, I don't know how much they helped at 6,000 meters. I also don't know what they did or could about the oxygen problem. I do know they had plenty of problems with the engines and equipment as well men because of these conditions, though.

Regardless, they had plenty of other problems. Many were literally blown off target (Or crashed) by the wind, others couldn't find their way to the target or back home (Or were shot down after descending in an attempt to discover their location). Overall, quite unsuccessful.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

*F84F Thunderstreak

[Diopos]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

The Corsair II

The greatest strike aircraft of all time...

Much respected here (Greece).


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[Bubblehead1980]

I still maintain the F105.While what you guys who responded to my post is true.The F-105 was pretty awful in combat.Not taking away from the brave men who flew her and did their best with what they had.The Thud was awful in combat.

[XabbaRus]

Define awful?

Define awful?

How about