As pointed out by some sharp commenters, we made an error in regards to the Komet. We stated it lasted 7 seconds and upon re-checking this fact, multiple sources say it lasted 8 minutes. This mistake was an unfortunate deficiency of our fact-checking system, and we're going to continue to work hard to tighten it up and continue to create entertaining AND historically accurate vids. Regardless, hope you all enjoyed the majority of the video👌
I really like one tiny detail you put in your videos. Sound of a projector going when you show old photos. It got the old lecture type of vibe going. I really like it.
Nice that you corrected yourself. Kudos. Also notice that many of the Komets were damaged when the takeoff dolly--jettisoned just as the plane was lifting off--would sometimes bounce off the ground and up and into their fuselage. It was a revolutionary idea, but one that was a killer. The HE-178 was a far safer jet, although it never actually fought in the war and was much slower than the Komet. Still, for its time, it was an amazing innovation in flight.
The fact that he leveraged his anti-aptitude into such a wide-ranging and durable career shows him to also have been one of the Luftwaffes' most accomplished bluffers.
Kinda like learning stick on an ancient car: impossible at first, prepares you for everything later. Not a philosophy you can apply to *flying a plane* though
Yes they put more powerful engines in it lengthened the fuselage a little and lessened the sweep backwards of the outer wing section and added automatic wing slats, they believe the sweep on the outer wing panel was the biggest of it's problems. It was well liked after fixing but they needed bigger engines as they where still too slow. I wonder what one of the fixes they did to it actually fixed it or did they all add stack up on each other to be the fix?
The incredible debacle of the awful Me 210 was put in production despite all the warnings from the engineers and test pilots and chief engineers even left the company. The very ugly truth was that Willy Messerschmitt realised that it was it was packed with serious problems and because of his "wunder" airplane has stopped the almost stopped the production of the Me 110 and stopped the Ju 87 at the worst moment possible, thus deprived much needed airplanes for almost one year but he didn't had the courage to tell the truth to the Air Ministry until too late. After having a nervous breakdown, poor thing, already his team took in their hands to fix the airplane by seriously modifying the wings, moving the wingtip forward, adding slats and extending the fuselage and finally installing the more powerful DB 603E. It can be said that Messerschmitt did this almost all by himself but because of his intrigues and political connections he only lost his position as the CEO of the company but he kept on doing other wrong decision-makings. Hope I didn't bore you guys....
And it gets even better, germany had to few DB603s to go around so the Me 210/410 also killed the FW-190C (not the 190C Turboversion) programme which cost Germany a decent High Altitude Fighter in 1943. Just at the time when they only had 109 G-6 and 190 A-6 with no Performance increases until mid to late 1944. That year of just G-6 an conescutively heavier armed and heavier 190s without power increase killed a lot of the good and best german Pilots.
@@LupusAries correct but I never really understood why they had difficulties to produce the DB 603E in quantity because it is claimed that it was "simply" an enlargement of the DB 601 but in reality it was also from the DB 605 to expedite the development of the DB 603 with a bigger blower and a compressor. With 44.5 liter or 44,500 cc dsplacement figure, was the largest displacement inverted V12 engine to be produced in Germany during the 2nd WW. I don't know how many were produced so it can be attributed to relentless bombings and shortage of alloys but both the DB 605 and the Jumo 213E was produced in quantity until the end. ....
The Me-163 didn't have 7 seconds of fuel but rather like 8 minutes of fuel. It was supposed to climb over the allied bomber formation and make one or two gliding attacks then dive for home. The main problem as a combat aircraft was that closing speeds were fast and its cannons were slow firing so that there was simply not enough time to score hits. There was an attempt to arm it with a battery of upward firing recoilless rifles activated by a sensor that would register a bomber's shadow but only one kill was ever made with it
The other main problem was the fact it killed more Germans than it did Allies, melting or exploding pilots and ground crew for simple mishaps, hard landings, sabotage from the slaves making parts, etc.
One of my grandpas actually flew the Br-88. It was so bad that pilots would fake sickness not to get in one. Later on he flew Stukas (Ju-87D) and he was in love with it, more even after his last combat mission, in July 1943, over Licata bay, in Sicily, that saw him bring back a VERY damaged aircraft but a living crew.
In regards to the BF210, the best line is "The Airmen hated the planes and generally believed that getting inside them was about as safe as playing Russian Roulette ... with a Panzerfaust."
Here's some (dis)honorable mentions I'd add to this list: Yak-9K: The Yak-9 platform itself was actually quite decent, and when taken altogether is one of the most-produced fighters of all time. However, the Soviets had an odd obsession with sticking the biggest possible guns on the smallest possible airframes, and the Yak-9 was subjected to this as well. Attempts to fit a 37 mm gun to it, creating the Yak-9T, worked pretty well...so the next logical step was to mount a 45 mm cannon on it, resulting in the Yak-9K. The problem is that this gun's recoil was so vicious that it would rupture the engine's oil and coolant lines, wrecking the engine and potentially starting a fire. Just to show the Soviets are stubborn if nothing else, they later made the exact same mistake in the later Cold War with the MiG-27, a plane that would literally shake itself to pieces when firing a gun originally built for mounting on warships. Brewster SB2A Buccaneer: Brewster was never a particularly brilliant company, and could be considered the American equivalent of Blackburn in many ways, only without the happy ending. The Buccaneer, or Bermuda in British service, was their design for a recon bomber intended to compete with Grumman's Avenger. Between poor performance and shoddy construction, it actually turned out to be so bad that Brewster was investigated by the government, its CEO was charged with embezzlement, and the Navy nationalized his company, which would end its days building F4U Corsairs under license. P-43 Lancer: A plane so bad that it had its designation changed to RP-43 (the R meaning "restricted from combat") in 1942. Between being unarmored, having fuel tanks that leaked like a sieve, and a nasty habit for those fuel tanks to spontaneously combust, this plane earned a reputation as a deathtrap. However, it wasn't a total loss, as the lessons taken from the P-43 were put into the P-47 Thunderbolt, the most-produced American fighter aircraft of all time. Curtiss-Wright SB2C Helldiver: Remember what I said about the Buccaneer sinking its own manufacturer? Well, Brewster was a company that was already dying. The Helldiver took a successful company and ruined it almost entirely on its own. While later production runs fixed its most glaring flaws, its reputation was so appallingly bad that Curtiss-Wright never financially recovered, and the oldest fixed-wing aircraft manufacturer would cease to develop new aircraft designs in 1948. While the company still exists today, it's a shadow of its former self. That is a special kind of failure in a design.
Another failure from Brewster was the F2A Buffalo carrier based fighter, as the Navy added heavier machine guns, armor, and self sealing tanks to that tubby little fighter, it stayed with the same version of the Wright R-1820 that powered the F2A-1, instead of adding an uprated R-1820 to compensate for the increased weight, plus, the main gear design was the F2A's major weakness, because the Buffalo was very prone to gear failure, when landing.
Oh, and the P-43 was not a failure, instead, it was the fighter that gave the Army experience in flying, and maintaining a high altitude fighter, and everything that I've read about the P-43 never said anything about the fuel lines igniting fires, in the plane, at all. Also, it was never designated as RP-43 at the time it entered service, that later designation came about when it was withdrawn from front line service.
@@lancerevell5979That is true, but some managed to join the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, as the Corsair Mk-4, and saw action in the Pacific War, with the British Pacific Fleet, in 1945.
@@johnosbourn4312 Most of the issues with the fuel tanks came from the aircraft in Chinese service (the ROCAF received a handful). Whether it was poor maintenance or poor build quality is anyone's guess.
You didn’t mention another ‘feature’ of the Botha - the propellor arc was just outside the pilots window. This not only deafened the pilot, it amputated at least one pilot’s hand as he tried to signal to the ground crew. It was, by any standards, completely awful. No idea why it was ever ordered when there were better designs available….🤔
typical of the rush to rearm, put out a requirement and take anything that comes even close to meeting it, just so they had at least got numbers to work with/soak up enemy fire even if they were almost useless! the same story repeats for Tanks, ships and small arms to some extent
I read a memoir from one of the few surviving Me-163 pilots. The wide and varied ways that thing killed pilots was horrifying. It ran off "C-stoff" (a witch's brew of hydrazine, methanol, and a catalyst) and "T-stoff" (high test hydrogen peroxide). They were "hypergolic" propellants, meaning they would spontaneously (and violently) ignite when mixed together. That's great for engine design, but it also meant they were horrifically dangerous to work with. C-stoff was incredibly toxic, and T-stoff was hideously corrosive, to the point that it would cause pretty much all organic matter to violently erupt into flame on contact. Either would disfigure or kill you if enough got on your skin. The extreme reactivity of the chemicals meant that any leaks would result in a catastrophic fireball too, whether in the ground service equipment, or in the aircraft. The T-stoff would also explosively react with any oils or other organic contaminants in the fuel lines, and would aggressively eat away rubber seals. That problem was compounded by the relatively fragile and temperamental nature of the engines; building a throttleable rocket engine is a tricky business, and the nazis hadn't quite got it down. They mostly got them to stop exploding, but they would fairly regularly flame out on takeoff. This is bad in any plane, but it was a particular issue for the Me-163 because it was not able to safely land with a full load of fuel. Doing so would usually result in either the plane just violently exploding on touchdown, or fuel spilling onto the pilot. The latter was by far the worse of the two options. (CW: description of a pretty horrific injury) The author recounted an incident where a Komet piloted by his friend had it's engine cut out moments after takeoff, which caused a hard landing off the end of the runway. Not seeing the expected fireball, he and his fellow pilots rushed to the plane, wrenched open the canopy, and discovered to their horror that the pilot had been melted alive by a broken fuel line. They also had incidents where the takeoff dolly (they didn't have wheels of their own) would bounce back into the fuselage on liftoff and cause the plane to violently explode. There were incidents with experimental weapon systems where the recoil caused the wings to snap off, and fueling accidents which led to massive explosions. And bear in mind these things were made in late war Germany, with bottom shelf quality materials and often by slaves who were in the process of being worked to death and who had a vested interest in harming the Nazi war machine. Even if they weren't being sabotaged in the factory, the quality control was poor at best. So to summarize: Engine cuts out early? Dead. Develop a leak anywhere in the fuel system? Dead. Spill fuel on yourself? Dead. Take a bullet pretty much anywhere in fuselage of the plane? Dead. Get unlucky on takeoff? Dead. Testing a fancy new weapon system? Dead. Fuck up the fuel handling? Dead. The Polish slave laborer whose family you butchered and who you are currently starving to death decides to leave a little bit of rag in one of the T-Stoff lines? Get rekt, nazi scum. Edit: a bunch of them were captured by various allied nations after the war, and at least one of them ended up being flown by an American test pilot (I don't recall who off the top of my head). Once. He reported that it was the most incredible aircraft he had ever flown, that it handled like a dream and that the power was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, and finished his report up by saying that there was no power in heaven or on earth which could convince him to fly it again.
A lot of this is corroborated in "Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants". Great book if you like chemistry or rocketry; good humor too.
A British test pilot Eric "winkle" Brown flew one after the war. An amazing man he was the first pilot to land a jet on an aircraft carrier. In fact he made more carrier landings than anyone has to this day. I think this was the man who proved you could land a Corsair on a carrier.
Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, Hon FRAeS, RN was the only Allied pilot to fly the ME 163 using the rocket motor. Everyone else was towed. The man's life was beyond belief
The Italians had a fighter that out performed even the 109 . The problem was it took twice as long to build and at the time Italian manufact had a hard time getting skilled workers.
It sounded to me the Breda 88 was actually revolutionary, but as soon as it was to become a warplane, the issue started. Goes to show failure and success can go hand-in-hand. Same thing with the Komet btw.
@@winfriedkloeser3244Fiat G55. It used the engine of Bf-109G. Only started entering service in 1943 and around 50 wrere produced in all. Nothing to really write home about.
Many of the planes fielded by the Regia Areonautica were actually built in Reggio Emilia at the "Reggiane". My grandpa (born in 1930) often remembered of going to the testing airstrip, the "Campo Volo", to whatch the planes take off and land, both before and during the war
Another fault was in production. 'Planes that were obviously obsolete, even by 1939 were kept rolling off production lines, such as the Blenheim and the Battle. The decision to send such a/c as the Botha into training is mind-bending. I am glad you posted the training losses for the Botha.
I read an article where they interviewed a pilot who had flown the Bristol Beaufighter. He started in the Beaufighter and later transferred to Mosquitos. He obviously loved the Mosquito. The one comment he made about the Beaufighter that stuck in my mind was when asked about maneuverability he said, "The best way to take evasive action in a Beaufighter was to get up and run around the cockpit".
My Father flew both the Botha and Roc as a ferry pilot in the first year of WW2. He said the Botha nearly killed him as it went into an almost uncontrollable spin while in a turn, only his considerable experience and differential power on the engines saved him. Not an easy aircraft to fly or operate.
The Me210 wasn’t a total loss. The actual aerodynamic changes between the Me210 and 410 weren’t actually that major and were concentrated on the outer wing panels which were swept forward (to fix its center of gravity issues), an extended fuselage (to fix directional control issues) and more powerful engines. So more an issue of rushed development than a irremediably bad concept.
Nor did its delays terribly affect the Luftwaffe's prospects. Germany couldn't build heaps of stuff but they proved pretty able to build a lot of airplanes. The issue became shortages of pilots-with the Luftwaffe basically out of qualified pilots by 1944 aside from a tiny cadre of super aces. Other than those guys everyone was green.
@@capthawkeye8010 Their small cadre of super aces were mostly the one's that stayed in the east, most of the high scoring aces that got transferred to west were shot down and killed, there they weren't flying against pilots who had their gunsight's drawn on the inside of their windscreens with a grease pencil. If they'd have sent Hartmann to the west he'd have been hammered out of the sky and killed like most of the rest of them.
The Hungarian aircraft industry methodically tested and addressed all the issues with the original design, resulting in a useful and not flawed airplane. They exported the finished aircraft to Germany, in fact.
It just had a few issues like fuel tank leaks melting the pilot, the wheels bouncing up at take-off to destroy the plane, the fuels combusting at the touch of any organic manner leading to explosions while refuelling, having to glide down to land making itslef vulnerable to enemy fighters, a pitifully short range and a tendancy to explode for no aparent reason when the motor was lit up.
Mistakes were made, thanks for pointing that out... Upon going back into the video, seems to have been a typo in our writing process and then a miss in our fact-checking process. Got some systems our end to tighten up. Regardless, hope you enjoyed the rest of the video!
Just a point of fact regarding the ME-163: you mention that Walter designed it whereas he was the designer of the rocket motor. The original concept of the hypergolic rocket motor that Walter designed was intended to power an advanced torpedo. The airframe of the ME-163 was actually designed by Prof Alexander Lippisch who designed a series of fairly successful flying wing gliders pre-WW2. After the war Lippisch was taken to the USA where his work on tailless and delta wing designs heavily influenced Delta Dagger and Delta Dart series of fighters. 🙂
I thought someone would correct this oversight. Lippisch’s influence can also be seen in the Space Shuttle. Tailless design, delta wing, rocket power into flight and return as a glider. Just one of a few innovations by the man. But the Komet was perhaps too far ahead of the prevailing technology of the day.
Wernher von Braun was asked to make an alcohol/oxygen rocketengine for the 163, but the bombing of Travemünde put a stop to that. It would have made it a lot less lethal to fly, and have given a lager range.
@@noahwail2444 I didn’t know that. That’s interesting. Thank you for the info. Would you point me towards the reference? I’d like to do some more reading on that.
@@riconui5227 indeed. Lippisch’s work would have influenced, or been the basis for, all subsequent delta winged aircraft including the Fairey Delta and the Dassault Mirage series. It’s amazing to think how quickly and how far aviation technology advanced in the first few decades of the 20th century.
@@harrikeinonen7576 I am sorry, I can´t recall where I found this information, but I have come across it more than once, and from quite reliable sources. I think one of them was a doku about Peenemünde, and the bombing of it.
When I was a kid I was in air cadets and we worked out of the aircraft museum in Ottawa (Canada). At the time (not sure if it's still there) we had one of the only ME163's. It was so rare and valuable that it wasn't on display for the general public. It was kept in a hangar and only pulled out for special occasions. I had to help clean it before a Canada day event. As a 12yr old, I didn't understand the significance of that. Now, at 37 I feel very privileged to be one of the only people to have actually seen and touched one.
The Ba.88 was a beautiful aircraft with great lines. Had it been used as a basis for a new aircraft instead of being developed itself, and had Breda had access to high powered engines; It could’ve been one of the best ever.
@@agravemisunderstanding9668 The SM.91?! Are you sure you’re talking about the right aircraft? The SM.91 was just a prototype that wasn’t begun until 1942, and hadn’t finished testing when Italy capitulated. It’s like saying “oh the J7W could do for the Japanese Navy what the J1N couldn’t do”….
@@richarddoig1865 Yes, but in contrast to lets say, putting a traversible turret on the back of a plane it was not a bad concept. Which, to be fair also goes for the Me 210, which after the design was fixed and renamed Me 410 became quite a decent aircraft.
Between the "basic" Me-210 and the Me-410, there was the Me-210Ca-1, license built in (the Kingdom of) Hungary. The lenghtened fuselage made if way more pilot friendly aircaft, a successfull fast/light bomber on the Eastern Front, a few were even equipped for tank hunting (with two triple rocket launchers and a 40mm Bofors anti-tank gun in the bomb bay). Against US 8th Air Force bombers (especially the escorting P-38s) however they suffered heavy losses.
In addition to your list, I would like to mention the Morane Saulnier MS-406: it had a radiator that needed be lowered into the airflow at high speeds, thus acting as an airbrake, and poorly fixed cannons that would become wobbly after a few short bursts, and a number of other defects. And how to forget the flying fish tanks, the Amiot bombers such as the 143, under powered, under defended, under loaded, under protected…
The Finnish variation of MS-406 was rather good plane i would argue, they replaced the engine with soviet Klimov M-105 and added German MG 151/20 autocannon.
Well again, Morane's problem was rather that it was obsolete in 1939/40 than a bad design per se. Similarly with Amiots. Those were the planes that could use a success had the war started at 1935, but the development speed accelerated too much during the last years before the war.
In defence of the Blackburn Roc (sort of), there's a theory going around that it was intended for use as an escort for the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers that - as biplanes - were obsolete and vulnerable, as evidenced when six Swordfish attempted to attack the German heavy cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen during Operation Cerberus (aka 'the Channel Dash') and all six, including that piloted by Bismarck hero Eugene Esmond, were shot down with the loss of all crewmen. According to the Roc theory, having a "fighter" that was as slow and lumbering as the torpedo bombers would be an advantage, as it would be able to keep pace with the Swordfish without having to throttle back, while keeping their tails clear of German fighters. Alas, we'll never know because, just like the Boulton Paul Defiants, the war the Rocs were designed for was not the war they ended up fighting.
To be fair I don't think the Swordfish was obsolete in 1939. They didn't take long to become obsolete, but they were still fairly capable at the start of the war, and no one else really had better carrier planes. Most still had biplanes and TBD Devestators were just as bad. You have to remember that, being biplanes, the Swordfish was excellent at carrier operations. The stability made lining up torpedoes easy for the pilots. She became obsolete quickly, but the Fleet Air Arm played 2nd fiddle to the RAF and never got what it wanted. I'm surprised the Albacore wasn't on the list though. Pretty much worse in every way to the Swordfish she was meant to replace.
The Swordfish got into service in 1936 which is about the same time as the early versions of the Bf 109. So all that obsolete nonsence, like the Swordfish was a prehistoric biplane or something, for an aircraftdesign that was basically brandspanking new. Fairey made it a biplane as a carrier based torpedobomber going as fast a singleseat fighter just wasn't realistically possible and they rather made it safe and effective in its job and rely on tactics like element of surprise to get around enemy fighter screens. You could say the same thing happened in the late '50s and '60s after the speedcraze died down and the USN started to make bombtrucks like the A-6 and A-7 that sacrificed speed for having greater range and payload.
The Manchester bomber deserves an honorable mention, due to it having two X24 engines which basically consisted of two siamese V12 engines with a common crankshaft, which meant that one of the V12's had to be upside down. It was wisely discontinued in favour of the Lancaster bomber which had four Rolls Royce merlin V12s, all the right way up, which were far more reliable. H24 engines (two flat 12's mounted one above the other with the crankshafts geared together) were developed later and were pretty good. Also: the poor Hurricane, which will always be remembered for being Britain's second best WWII fighter after the Spitfire.
Good thing the Germans never figured out that putting 2 engines on a common crankshaft wouldn't work (consider the disaster the HE-177 was). Funnily enough, Avro had the Lancaster as a backup design in case the Manchester proved to be a failure. In fact, some of the first Lancaster fuselages were actually built as Manchesters.
@@nicholasconder4703 HE-177 engnes were two V12's with separate crankshafts geared to a common propeller, which is a better idea than the X24 common crankshaft idea. The trouble was the V12's were inverted. Never a good idea (except on a air cooled radial where it is an essential part of the design.) Oil collecting in cylinders when shut down. And in the case of the HE-177, all the leaky bits at the bottom, creating a pool of flammable liquid at the bottom of the nacelle. The Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major air cooled radial with 4 x 7 = 28 cylinders was a reasonably reliable engine (but not without problems and not as good as the 18 cylinder double wasp.) Still, I'm glad Avro were allowed to go the right way in the end. MOD: we want a twin engine bomber Avro: we can make a reliable 4 engine bomber. MOD: we want a twin engine bomber Avro: OK MOD: your twin engine bomber is unreliable Avro: Would you like a reliable 4 engine bomber? Unfortunately this stuff still goes on all the time.
@@londonalicante You do realize that the most produced fighter in history, the ME-109, also used the Daimler-Benz DB 601 inverted V engine. As did the ME-110 and several other German aircraft. And they didn't suffer from that issue. The issue they had with the HE-177 was the same one with the Manchester - the radiator system could not dissipate heat fast enough and the engines would overheat and catch fire. It has nothing to do with oil collecting in the cylinders.
@@nicholasconder4703 DB601 was a very successful engine but I have never understood why they made it hard for themselves by building it upside down. One reason most V's (basically all wet sump V's) are the other way up is to avoid oil collecting in the cylinders. Inverted V requires a dry sump. Perhaps the designers thought from the start that they wanted it to operate in any orientation. It's well know that the direct fuel injection helped a DB601 figher outmanoeuvre an early Merlin As already I said, DB601 worked fine in other applications, it was only the HE-177 with the twinned engines and inadequate cooling that caused the problem.
He-177 is definetly missing. MiG-1 and -3 maybe ? Ba-349 Natter could be an aspiring candidate. Me-163 is hard to judge. The idea of a fast climbing interceptor was ahead of its time. It became again very popular in the 1950s with the F-104 program and similar results. Coincidentally, F-104 was the first aircraft to beat Me-163 in climb rate.
The 177 'Grief' wasn't a failure if I remember correctly. It was the first strategic bomber project of Germany meant to bomb Ural Factories but very few were ever built thanks to Germany's doctrine (just about 1,200). The development took a while thanks to needing more powerful engines to be designed. The initial engines selected were prone to catching fire. In the end though Germany had a Two-Engine strategic bomber with the Payload of most four engine Allied Bombers. In the end the Bomber entered service in 1942 after constant role changes as a bomber.
@@rebelgaming1.5.14 Sorry, but you're wrong. He-177 GREIF ("griffon") was a 4-engined bomber. It's two engines per propeller ! This had something to do with the desire to enable dive-bombing. Which to me sounds like a stupid idea for a heavy bomber, but I'm sure somebody had some serious thoughts on the matter. Yes there were some 1.140 built, but 1/3 of them didn't enter service at all. Fuel shortages. First action was around Stalingrad to supply 6th Army, but most aircraft were deemed unfit for frontline service until July 1943. Last bombing mission of He-177s was in July 1944 on the Eastern front, after which the most He-177 were withdrawn from frontline service and scrapped ! The aircraft was bad to begin with and when the biggest issues were sorted out, there was no fuel left.
The MiG-3 was just configured for a kind of fighting that was not predominant in the East. Tactical air support and dog fights at low altitude were the norm on the Eastern Front. The MiG-3 was too well optimized for high altitude flight. It was actually a pretty sophisticated airplane. Had it ended up on the Western Front it would've fit right in.
My 10000hr, 20yr wwii naval aviator father has time in the Curtiss SO3C Seamew. It was the only plane that scared him of the numerous types he flew. Intended to be a replacement for the Curtiss SOC on cruisers it failed miserably. Admiral Halsey refused their use in frontline fleet use and returned to using their obsolete biplane SOC.
I don't think that the ME-163 was a failure, it is too strong of a word because it depends on your perspective. From Allied perspective, yes, they would deem it a failure. To German, there was benefit (which we benefited later after the war by incorporating tech from this project into our designs). It advanced aircraft and rocket technology considerably, set world speed records, and the Third Reich was in its last days and need a point defense fighter that could rapidly engage allied bomber fleets. The Germans accepted the risks/drawbacks for specific benefits. It is very easy to arm-chair quarterback things from more than 70 years after the fact.
@@w.p.958 as if they needed another reason to be scared. 80% of the 8th air force were casualties. It was the most loss of any unit in the war. You stood a better chance of survival on a German U boat. Not much better, but a little. Everyone that flew knew what the odds were too.
Eric Winkle Brown flew the two seat Me 109 trainer from the back seat. It nearly killed him because there was no forward visibility at all, so landing was a problem. He flew parallel to the runway, then did a u-turn at the end and landed it by remembering where the runway was. It would have killed a lesser man.
USN TBD Devastator? Absolutely hopeless in fighting the IJN and the only contribution was diverting IJN resources away from another USN attack during Midway.
It was better than the British swordfish that did well against the Italians at Taranto harbor and against the Bismark. Much of it's lack of success was do to the worst torpedoes of the war that rarely detonated. If the US had decant torpedoes it would have racked up some kills even at midway had a combined attack of fighters, dive bombes and torpedo planes been carried out obviously no torpedo bomber of the war would have succeeded at midway attacking all alone
Devastator was a product of its time. When it was introduced it was the most modern carrier plane in the world. It's problem isn't that it was crap. Rather, it's that it was obsolete.
I remember a passage from the book 'Rocket Fighter' on the Me-163. A pilot had one dig in the nose and flip over onto its' back on landing. when the ground crew managed to get the plane tipped back over and opened the cockpit they were greeted by the horrific sight of the pilot, who had been doused with fuel from a broken line and half dissolved.
I had thought that no ME-163 has survived the war. I was very pleased to find one in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum at Dulles. I though the same about the Horton Ho, but was surprised to find one undergoing restoration at the Smithsonian. Two advance planes, that just did have the technology at the time to make them work.
There's one at the Flying Heritage Museum in Everett, WA too. In fact I believe it is the only airworthy example in existence; supposedly they actually flew it to the museum, towed behind an He-111. It was actually a pretty nice glider, as long as you don't fuel the damn thing up first.
the numbers the Komet shot down is surprising as hell. I know they played about with photocells and upward facing guns and the like but put simply, Germany was a target rich environment for any defending interceptor so the idea it couldn't even break double figures seems wild
The Bolton Paul Defiant shares some of the failings of the Blackburn Roc and perhaps warrants honorable mention in this list if only that, unlike the Roc, it made use of a Merlin engine that would have had better application elsewhere.
Not by a long shot. The defiant was effective against ME 109´s over Dunkirk and useful as a night fighter until radar-equipped night fighters were available.
@@jesperlykkeberg7438 As I understand it, it was only effective against the 109 because it could be confused with the Hurricane. Clearly, any 109 pilot thus deceived was in for a nasty shock during a stern attack! Once the Germans realised this and found it had no forward-facing armament it was game over for the defiant in its original daytime role.
@@ColinMill1 The story of German pilots mistaking Defiants for Hurricanes is a popular myth. In reality the Defiant was very easy to distinguish from a Hurricane. But more importantly: How would German pilots know that the Defiant had no forward firing guns or cannons when RAF at the time stubbornly insisted it had? The German pilots may have tried to avoid the three forward firing cannons or the 14 forward firing machine guns which, according to RAF at the time, was indeed fitted to the Defiant. In any case: The Defiant wasn´t designed for dogfights against light enemy fighters since small fighters would not be in range of British airspace. That was true until the day Germany occupied Belgium and France. It´s a fact however, that the 264 Squadron´s tactic of Defiants flying in a descending "Lufbery" circle had proven very effective against ME 109s. The 264 Squadron initially had great success with the Defiants and won many air battles even against ME 109´s. On the other hand, when the 141 squadron later chose to ignore such tactics it had serious consequences, especially when no top cover was available. You can´t blame the Defiant for all RAF´s disastrous tactical failures. The Defiant was clearly not ideal as a daytime interceptor against bombers escorted by fighters, but the day-fighter squadrons equipped with Defiants still had a positive 25-17 kill ratio during the Battle of Britain. When the Defiant was converted to a night fighter it was the best aircraft available. It had a fairly long career until mid-1942 in this role, and during the Blitz on London of 1940-41, the four Defiant-equipped squadrons were responsible for shooting down more enemy aircraft than any other type.
The worst plane of WWII has to be the Me-163 Komet for the simple reason that it killed too many German pilots in exchange for absurdly few Allied heavy bombers shot down. Captain Eric Brown of the Royal Navy, one of Britain's top test pilots, flew a captured Komet and was very impressed with its climb rate and its performance as a glider. However, to call Eric Brown an exceptional pilot is to make a gross understatement. If there was such a thing as a world champion pilot Brown would have been a contender for that title. His natural skills coupled with his extensive experience allowed Brown to get performance from aircraft that 99% of other pilots could not, and I believe he never appreciated how his abilities tended to distort his assessments. Brown's test flights in the Me-163 strongly influenced DeHavilland's development of the DH-108 Swallow, which turned out to be a deathtrap. It took an extremely skillful and lucky pilot to fly the Komet and land it safely. The Komet had no landing gear as such, just a retractable skid. Nor did it have brakes or any means to steer. Once the Komet touched the ground it was an uncontrollable projectile. The pilot could only hope it would stop before it hit anything. The Me-163 required an exceptional pilot just to complete a flight and land safely, let alone survive an attack on a formation of B-17s guarded by Mustangs. However, by 1944 Gerrmay was running critically short of exceptional pilots. What the Luftwaffe needed was a plane that was easy to fly and easy to land. The Komet was the exact opposite. The Me-163 was more than 300 mph faster than its intended target, the B-17G. One would think that fact alone would make the Komet an unbeatable interceptor, but that vast speed differential worked against the German pilot as often as it worked in his favor. American bombers generally flew their missions at very high altitudes -- between 20,000 and 30,000 feet. The Me-163 used nearly all of its fuel just getting up there with the enemy. After that, it was a glider. A powered fighter with fuel reserves can lose speed when needed and then regain it. This was not the case with the Komet. Any speed lost was lost permanently. On many occasions, Komet pilots failed to get hits because they overshot their targets. Furthermore, the Komet was poorly armed. The Rheinmetall Borsig MK-108 30mm cannon was a very effective gun when installed in a Me-262, an aircraft that could slow down and then speed up again, but not in a 500 mph glider. Many Komet pilots complained that because of the speed differential they had insufficient time to make effective shots. The projectile of the MK-108 was powerful enough to destroy a B-17, but it also had a rather low muzzle velocity (540 m/s) and a poor ballistic coefficient. Pilots had to both lead their target and shoot from above to compensate for the drop. In a conventional fighter, the pilot would have enough time to line up those shots and get consistent hits. This was often not the case during Komet missions. Throughout its operational history, the problem of an effective weapon for the Me-163 went mostly unsolved. In the closing months of the war, there were experiments with a pair of upward-firing cannons that used a photoelectric sensor to trigger firing rather than a button on the joystick. The Komet pilot was supposed to fly under his target and let the shadow of the B-17 trigger the guns.
The persistent problems of the Me-163's cannons led Erich Bachem, the designer of the Ba-349 Natter (viper), to dispense with guns completely. Like the Messerschmitt Komet, the Natter was a rocket fighter using the same Walter bi-fuel rocket motor as the Me-163. Nevertheless, the two aircraft were very different. Besides launching vertically using a gantry tower rather than a runway, the Ba-349's weapon was a cluster of 24 73mm unguided rockets fired in a single volley or salvo at an Allied bomber. The Natter was mainly built of plywood and had no means to land on an airfield. Instead, the pilot and rocket motor came down by parachute, while the airframe was allowed to crash. The Natter was a complete disaster. The only two manned test flights ended with a dead pilot.
Fun fact about those upward firing cannons; they were originally designed to fire all of the barrels simultaneously, but the recoil was so severe that it snapped both wings off of the test plane. They had to design in a ripple fire mechanic to prevent that from happening.
While the Komet wasnt the best plane the Third Reich has to offer, the rocket-powered interceptor programme did have a sound reasoning in late-war Germany. With the lack of good pilots and fuel to train them, expecting German fighters, even in jet, to win against the seasoned Allied pilot in dogfights (which requires years of experience and training) was simply out of question, so a feasible way was to simply bypass the fighter escorts with enough speed then target the bombers. Komet's sort-of successor, the Ba-349 Natter program, tackle the pilot problem even more: It forgo the whole take-off and landing part, (sth the Komet had trouble to do well), to a point of not even using a airfield, just a simple launch pad and the rocket-powered plane is discarded after the interception run, with pilot and engine motor parachuted out. In fact most of the flight was meant to guided with autopilot with the pilot's only mission (thus the only training needed) being aiming the rockets towards bombers. Although it was still far from a safe aircraft, the fact that it probably could be piloted by Volkssturm conscripts meant it won't be much of a loss.
Ya missed out on the Soviet LaGG-3, which its abbreviated to лакированный гарантированный гроб, or 'Varnished, Guaranteed Coffin'. This was partially because the engine the Soviets wanted to put in it was too unreliable, leading to them having to settle for an underpowered alternative, while tight production deadlines also meant the many flaws test pilots found couldn't be remedied. This led to it being soundly thrashed by the Germans. Alternatively, if we're counting prototypes that never entered mass production, the Silvansky IS (not to be confused with the equally interesting but less comically awful Nikitin-Shvechenko IS series) is hard to beat. Designed by a man whose complete lack of qualifications earned him the nickname of 'The Son In Law', it was found near the end of production that he made the landing gear too long to fit into the landing gear wells. So of course, he simply cut it down to size. Then it was found that the propeller was now too long and would strike the ground on landing/taxi. Reportedly, upon finding this out, Silvansky went out to the plane, grabbed a hacksaw, and chopped several inches off each propeller blade. Surprisingly, the plane managed to fly, with the test pilot getting it up to 300 meters before bringing it back down and declaring it completely useless.
I'm aware the Italian Breda BA 88 Lince and the German Messerschmitt Me 210 were marked as worst planes built during WW2. The Me 210 almost led Willy Messerschmitt to resign as chief engineer of his own company by the aerodynamic problems the plane was facing; and the Ba 88 was far from an attack aircraft as fascist propaganda portrayed it after its world race records. Although the Me 163 also joined the list, I knew it was too fast to intercept Allied bombers in order to take down some. Other planes marked as the worst were the Heinkel He 177 Greif, Heinkel He 162 Salamander / Volksjäger, Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3, Morane Saulnier M.S.406 and Brewster F2A Buffalo.
@@CZ350tuner The Finns Fiat G.50 had a best kills to losses ratio. Also the kills to losses ratio of the Macchi C.200 the Italians used on the Russian front is similar. To have mostly newbies as opponents helps.
@@ottovonbismarck2443 The He-162 Spatz was an exceptional fighter design let down by poor glue after the original glue was unobtainable due to bombing of the factory that produced it.
One of my personal favourites is the swordfish, an aircraft so Archaic and terrible that it circled round to being very good. The canvas and wood construction allowed shrapnel and flak to pass clean through the body and wings, while the glacially slow speed allowed the aircraft to confuse modern anti aircraft fire control systems; allowing the elderly biplane to serve with remarkable distinction.
True. I believe that the main reason that the Swordfish were able to cripple the Bismarck was because the Bismarck's AA guns were set up to hit things going at over 200mph, and they missed just about every shot on the slow old Swordfish.
Those old biplanes had some unexpected advantages. The Polykarpov Po2 was flown by the night witches. It was so slow that it was hard to shoot down. It served even after WW2. It was very hard to pick up on radar. It´s probably the only biplane credited with an aerial victory over a jet fighter.
From what I've heard, the B-29 Superfortress wasn't quite the success claimed in the intro here. About twice as many crashed or caught fire than were destroyed by the enemy.
The metric measured might be important: are you measuring plane destruction as a kill, or death of the crew as a kill? A flaming plane doesn't mean everybody is dead. A lost tail or wing does... But you're probably right that there were a large number of casualties and lost bombers, at least compared to the fighters that escorted them.
When Iwo Jima was developed as an airfield, B-29s had at least one place where they had a chance of being rescued. There is film of B-29s ditching near to that island, as they could not land there, nor go on to their bases, due to damage. This saved some of the crews. B-29 pilots often mention taking off fully loaded from short runways on islands, sometimes through the smoke and flames of planes that crashed into the sea after a simple reduction of power in one engine during take-off. Lifting the nose a degree too much on take-off was enough to kill everyone on board.
I can't rember where I read it but the B-29 was a 'rush job" in development, because they needed it to use the Ulrimate Weapon of WW2...the A-bomb (apparently everything currently in use wasn't fast/high or strong enough to do the job) and the engines used were tweaked far PAST their optimal performance, resulting in a LOT of engine fires and failures.
„Before things could be finalized, the government changed the specifications.” Sounds a bit like when the Luftwaffe adopted the F-104 and turned it into an all-weather fighter-bomber …
the Me-210 was actually quite popular among hungarian pilots, who used it with moderate success, so i wouldnt exactly call it one of the worst designed planes to be honest. Planes like the Saro Lerwick are more deserving for such a title
@@simong9067 Not entirely. The hungarians still used the DB 605 engine and didnt change the wings, after all. Dont quote me on that, but the sole changes they made were a longer fuselage, slightly different armaments (since one version had a 40mm 36M cannon, among other things) and some slight changes to the armour layout to accomodate for hungarian manufacture capacities of armour grade steel, at least if i remember correctly
In defense of the benighted Botha, the engineers at Blackburn realized that the aircraft was going to end up underpowered with its' two Perseus engines, especially after the Air Ministry changed the specs, including provision for a fourth crew member. However, while the Air Ministry gave Bristol permission to install more powerful Taurus engines in their competing Beaufort, the Air Ministry insisted that Blackburn had to take due with the lower-powered Perseus engines. Given the restrictions imposed by the Air Ministry, the deck was stacked against the Botha ever becoming any better than mediocre.
The Brewster Buffalo. Bizarre requirements that had no bearing on air combat lead to it being over armored in the fuselage and had underpowered engines. It performed so badly against german fighters it was sent to the pacific, where it performed worse against the japanese zeros. It helped hand total air superiority to the japanese in the early days of the war.
But set against this is the Brewster B239 (the export version of the Buffalo), which went to Finland for use in their fight against the Russians where, to this day, they hold the highest kill-to-loss ratio of any combat aircraft anywhere - something like thirty Brewster kills to every Brewster loss. The main reason is that, while the B239 was a poor aircraft, the planes flown by the Red Air Force were even worse. The Finns loved the B239 and nicknamed it "The Pearl of the Skies".
@@WALTERBROADDUS You can only kill what is in front of you. But Yes the Buffalo was a bit of a dog. Botha and Roc totally deserve to be on this list. In fact did Blackburn ever design a decent aircraft (and before somebody says Buccaneer, the S Mk1 version of the aircraft was an underpowered dog!!!).
@@richardvernon317 in my opinion somebody at Blackburn must have had nude pictures of the king or somebody? There's no way to explain giving them this many contracts.
"... some had their turrets removed and when fixed in the ground, these proved excellent in anti-aircraft defense." The only time in history an airplane proved more lethal to the enemy on the ground than in the air.
There's an Me-163 in the aviation museum in Ottawa. It's incredibly small, flying that thing should have earned the pilot the iron cross just for have the guts to strap themselves to a rocket willie coyote style.
Actually, the wingspan and length of the Me-163 are almost the same as for the I-16. The Boeing Peashooter was just a tad longer, with less wingspan. But these guys had proper radial engines in front, not some plywood nosecones ;).
I'm wondering why no one mentioned the Fairey Battle. Basically a flying clay pigeon. Quickly withdrawn after most were shot down during just one air raid.
Tbf with the Battle, it was fine during its time but once ww2 started it was all obselete. Ironically, the US made a more successful Fairey Battle called the Boeing XF8B. It did well on tests but the US Navy made the reasonable decision to invest on jets than a multirole prop.
Well I think it is a difference between bad design and obsolete plane. Battle was not bad for 1936 time, but the development speed increased rapidly before the WWII and what was satisfactory in 1936 was no longer effective in 1939/40.
The odd thing is that the Battle could have been a highly effective tactical bomber in the Battle of France if the RAF had removed the useless and very heavy autopilot, replaced it with armour protecting the crew from ground fire and installed self-sealing fuel tanks. But they didn’t.
The Blackburn Botha had a complex fuel system that could very easily be set up such that both engines stopped simultaneously just as the aircraft took off. This was an unfortunate feature in an aircraft eventually used for training as nobody could think of anything else to do with them.
Make a part two with the Heinkel He 177 “Griffon” It was meant to be a heavy bomber / dive bomber combination. It suffered from many mechanical failures and engines catching fire.
The Balton-Paul Defiant was another turret fighter, with a little better performance. They actually got kills during the early days of the Battle of Britain, but mainly because they were mistaken by German pilots for Hawker Hurricanes. Later models of the Defiant got a slightly elevated turret and the ability to lock the turret guns firing forward, but that only helped so much. Once taken off the front lines, Defiants had similar roles to Rocs and also, with turrets removed, were used for photo recon and as a testbed for night fighting equipment.
The Defiant was also used to carry Mandrel which was used to jam German Radars ( Freya & Wurzburg) which helped the night bomber attacks on Germany, repurposing an aircraft to become more effective
My grandfather was a Pilot who trained US Pilots in WWII. He primarily flew B-17s, but also the B-26, and later the B-29. After a few flights, he said that he would never again get into a B-26. He explained that it was constantly "floating" where you never had real control (the tail was always randomly slipping around). Apparently after the war, they discovered that it had such poor flight characteristics that it was essentially a brick with engines. You lose power, and you couldn't glide it to the ground.
The nav in the Fairey Battle was also the bomb aimer. Once over the target he was to leave his position behind the pilot and lie flat on his chest, look through a small window under the pilot's feet, and release the bombs by pressing a button on the end of a cable. With AA fire coming up from the ground that was the most dangerous place in the aeroplane It's impossible to imagine how brave those men were!
To condemn aircraft for their safety record means tossing all of them into the bin. Fact : of the 43000 US aircraft lost overseas during WW2 only 22000 was through enemy action. The Korean War was a better conflict for loss data , P-51 , F-80 50% lost because of accidents. , F-84 of a total loss of 358 , 109 by accidents. Of course not all accidents are fatal to the crew , crash landings , engine failures are just two examples where its possible to survive. I think it would be fair to say that the accidents of military aircraft have declined in proportion to their cost. Early Jets were death traps .
F-16's were lawn darts back in the 1990's until they figured out why their engines kept failing. About once a month you'd hear of one crashing at Luke Air Force Base. Sometimes 2.
Bear in mind that the military has an acceptable failure rate of 1 in 100,000, whereas civilian aircraft manufacture starts at an acceptable failure rate of 1 in 1,000,000. Generally speaking.
The ME-163 broke every record for speed and acceleration. It could have been a successful bomber interceptor if more resources were put into the project. The Germans developed the ME-263 which had longer endurance and landing gear but the war ended before it could go into production.
The problem with the Me163 was the Walther rocket engine and the installation. If you landed with fuel in the tanks, it could blow up. If you flipped it when landing leaking fuel would dissolve the pilot. The act of climbing in the cockpit could result in a massive explosion.
I don't think the Me 163 was a bad design, w/o the rocket engine, it reaches 800kph only by gliding. The critical thing of the Me 163 were the two very aggressive Fuels, the engine for itself was stable and reliable. But also this is no worse design but a technical necessity to power it.
Yet after 3 years of stumbling operational development it finally took a ROMANIAN redesign to iron out its awful flight characteristics, by which time it was "yesterday's aircraft".
Been watching videos about bad and/or unknown planes from WWII on Rex's Hangar and man, there are some bad ones. The most common cause seemed to be the military telling their engineers that they needed to use X engine and Y guns and have space for Z crew, which often times just didn't seem to be workable. =/
The ME 210 being so unstable is a shame, because I do think it’s very pretty. And the Breda Ba88 would make a fantastic private racing plane. In dark blue maybe. Rebuilding one today would be really cool, as it’s a genuinely fantastic aircraft, and it looks absolutely gorgeous!
Interesting thing is that at least 1 other country developed a rocket interceptor -- Soviet Union. However during testing they found out that it(designation BI) tended to become uncontrollable and dive down to the ground. They also experienced problems with fuel(or maybe oxidizer). To be fair, idea may have not been completely dead, if Germans finished Ba-349 Natter it maybe could have been used successfully. Wasserfall missile was, however, a much more promising design.
One thing all of these planes have in common- they just look wrong, and that's putting it gently. They range from weird- the Komet with its fat, stubby fuselage and lack of horizontal stabilizers- to the hideously ugly, i.e. the Roc. Even without the benefit of hindsight, you would think the powers-that-be could have just looked at the Botha and said, "that's crap", and then looked at the Mosquito and said, "that's greatness".
For WWII yes. However the YF-92,F-102,F-106,B-58, and (I do not remember the number) Convair seaplane fighter all had no horizontal stabilizers. The B-2 has neither horizontal or vertical stabilizers. Technology has to begin somewhere.
The Brewster Buccaneer deserves to be on the list it was so bad that many of them were taken to target ranges to train navy and marine piolts right after coming off the assembly line
In hindsight, the Comet might just have been used to protect the landing sites. Used a lesser dangerously fuel. It might be really good at dogfighting attacking planes at the AF. It could accelerate fast, turn fast, etc.
Your precious B29 spontaneously caught fire. More B29s crashed from mechanical failure than were shot at by the enemy. Engine parts exposed to heat made of flammable Magnesium metal; a fire could shear off a wing.
It never saw combat so it shouldn't qualify, but the rocket powered Bachem Ba 349 Natter made the Me 163 look like a completely safe and sane design. Basically a surface to air missile with an expendable human as the guidance unit.
Or the Fieseler F103R. Basically a V1 flying bomb with a cockpit. The Nazis insisted that it wasn't a kamikaze because the pilot had a chance to bail out before impact, but the "chance" was virtually nonexistent, given that you needed to lift the canopy about 90 degrees to jettison it, but the canopy would get stuck against the pulse jet intake at around 65 degrees. Again, never saw service, but possibly deserving of a dishonourable mention.
@@TotallyNotAFox Other way around. The most valuable part was the fuselage, specifically the rocket motor in it. The nose and front of the cockpit were completely expendable. The pilot, well, given how much though was put into keeping the pilot alive before the first (and only) manned test flight, they were definitely considered more expendable than the fuselage.
For once, a "worst ever" compilation I couldn't on the whole argue with. It would be interesting to see, though, just how many fatal landing accidents there really were involving the Komet (which from all accounts, such as Eric "Winkle" Brown, was a delightful thing to fly in gliding mode (though neither Britain nor the US ever dared to fly one under power)) compared, proportionally, with the Bf 109
I was expecting a few more planes in this list, inlcuding with at least 1/each entry for US and Japan as well. Edit: anyway, nice video. I love the dedication you have for these videos and please keep going with them.
High marks for not picking some of the favorite WWII bottom-five whipping boys such as the Boulton Paul Defiant and the Brewster Buffalo. One commenter suggested the Fairey Battle, certainly a worthy(?) contender. One criterion - did the type redeem itself in some way? By which I mean: 1. B-26 Marauder (suggested below) had a rocky start partially due to being designed for an engine that would never actually exist. (The Blackburn Botha has a similar issue.) A lot of training accidents (if you lost an engine at low level the plane was going in) but one of the lowest casualty rates of U.S. bombers in the the European theater and very successful with medium-altitude precision bombing of infrastructure targets in France. 2. Boulton Paul Defiant, the Blackburn Roc with a Rolls-Royce engine. Not so good against fighters it did achieve positive kill ratios as an interceptor and was rather successful as an early night fighter, also serving as one of the earliest ECM planes against the German Freya radar. Having substantially more power than the ROC it also did yeoman service as a target tug. 3. Brewster Buffalo, the Flying Beer Barrel. Not an airplane you would want to fly against experienced Japanese pilots. However, the Finns never got the word, achieving a 33:1 kill ratio against the Soviets. (OK, mostly against I-16s, not exactly state of the art.) In the U.S. the Buffalo did excellent service as an advanced trainer. I would say your list satisfies this criterion.
The Boulton Paul Defiant was not a Roc with a Merlin engine but was a completely different design by a different company to a similar requirement. The Blackburn Roc was actually derived from the Blackburn Skua.
The Me 163 was actually loved by its crew despite all the problems such as dangerous fuel, bad landing dynamics and stuff. They know once you open the booster literally nothing can catch up. Nothing will out pace it or out climb it. My worst 5 of WWII: (not in order of how bad) 1. Fairey Albacore (glorified Swordfish, outdated before even existed) 2. Fw 190D (an intention to make Fw 190A keep up with the faster enemy but ends up defeating the purpose of even using the Fw 190 design to begin with. It's only because the Fw 190 base design was sound enough that it ended up not appearing in many people's worst 5 lists.) 3. Me 262 bomber model. Seriously, the sole biggest fuckup Hitler gave the Luftwaffe for the entire war. Me 262 was supposed to be a fast fighter, but Hitler's obsession with bombing meant the Me 262 fighter model was delayed for nothing, and Allies was able to have happy bombing days for a few extra months. 4. Early P-38 (A through E). It's just so plagued with problems that the model started service with F model. And despite P-38 later became successful, I believe these early problems made the USAAF reluctant to think about further developments such as replacing that lackluster Allison V-1710 engine. 5. Zero fighter late model (A6M5 and beyond). just like Fw 190D, they tried to MLU an outdated model but ends up removing the model's original advantage. Should've opted for A7M (a new design that was nevertheless based on the zero) earlier.
The Me 262 was actually delayed because of the jet engine problem rather than someone demanding the development of an extremely advanced and complex tech like putting bomb on a plane. In fact it is the turbojet engine development and production (within certain economic constraints) that is the biggest obstacles of the German late-war jet problem, with more Me262 airframe built than engine was available.
@@sthrich635 read Angriffshoehe 4000 (de facto "official" Luftwaffe history), it outlined all the reasons why Me 262was delayed. Engine problem was ironed out early, and it's generally due to the Luftwaffe's short-sightedness and Hitler's bomber requirements that delayed it to the date we knew.
@@borisglevrk Go watch The 'Real' Reason(s) Why The Me 262 Had Bombs on YT, it is more recent history that cover what actually delayed 262, and just because a history is official doesnt mean it is necessarily correct. Ever hear of the "clean Wehrmacht myth", it comes from the "official" Wehrmacht history.
The ME262 was supposed to be designed as fighter bomber from the start. A lesser designer might not have survived ignoring that and design a fighter instead. Repurposing it to a bomber was bound to be bad. Also the original design featured a tail wheel. That puts the CG a little too far aft for carrying bombs under the nose.
I'm sorry, while confidently stating that the Botha "had no rear facing windows" we see a picture of one with a rear facing turret with what looks like a gun barrel poking out of it. It would seem the primary issue that condemned this aeroplane was in fact that it had awful control function. Took you most of the commentary to get to that when it is the crux of the issue.
I couldn't help but notice a theme with a couple of these designs: It was suggested the program should be cancelled, but the Chairborn Warriors said no. So for some of these, it was bad bureaucracy, because the people designing the aircraft ALREADY KNEW the design wasn't going to work.
@@tennesseewilliams101 My Father used to work for Lockheed (before that "other" company merged with them, and actually a bit after). Obviously, they worked overseas. When you work overseas, bribery is just a fact of life. Lockheed, being a forthright and reasonably honest company, had a budget item labeled "Bribes". Some ass-hat moralist in Washington found out, and they caught all kinds of hell for it. Probably went under "entertainment" or some shit like everyone else did.
Blackburn "ROC" pilots: "In your race for power and glory, you forgot one small detail..." Blackburn Aeroplane Company: "We forgot to install forward firing weapons!" Blackburn "ROC" pilots: "You forgot to install forward firing weapons."
@@johncartwright8154 I want to make sure I got this straight, you're telling me at least two British war-planes were built without forward firing weapons?
@@skyden24195 Yes. No-one in Britain in the mid-1930s envisaged that such a strong nation with the largest armed forces in Europe as France was would collapse so quickly in the inevitable forthcoming conflict. It was presumed that bombers would have to fly long distances to British targets and would therefore not have fighter escort due to the short endurance of Luftwaffe fighters of the time, even the much vaunted Bf110 didn't have the range. Therefore it was assumed that the turret interceptor would fly in the bomber's blind spot and shoot them down with impunity unassailable by enemy fighters.
I had expected the widow maker to make an appearance, although I know virtually nothing about it. But with a name like that, it sounds list worthy. I expected to see a few American planes in the list, considering how many US pilots died in training.
The B-26 Martin Marauder was nicknamed that, not because it flew bad, or handled badly, it was the first operational bomber with laminar flow wings and trainee pilots weren't used to the higher landing speed the type of wing required. Once pilots were taught how to land at a higher speed, the aircraft became very popular and had one of the best sortie to loss ratios
@@Acousticmf123 In the 1940s few people had even been in an airplane and WWII was immense, the US produced over 300K aircraft during WWII and the AAF grew to be huge. All air forces had similar high training fatalities if taken into scale.
@@rayjames6096 i dont exactly see what this means it dosent matter if you had more planes than everyone else its either your a good or bad pilot if your a bad pilot you might crash and die while you are right that every country had similar deaths 15000 pilots dying is still plenty
The Brewster Buffalo was by itself one of the worst airplane designs ever inflicted upon the US military. It also was a flop in the RAF, RAAF, Dutch and Belgian Air Forces, often bested by the more nimble fighters of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy; however, it must be added that it wasn't a total loss, as it was redeemed in Finnish service. How? As it turns out, the aircraft was riddled with excess weight in nearly all the versions sold, except for the one bought by Finland. Gear normally demanded by naval use was not fitted, but it was ale to carry four machine guns instead of the standard two in US Navy employ. A more powerful engine, specifically required to run on 87 octane fuel, was installed - one that the Finns were able to improve by inverting one piston ring in each cylinder, something that improved its reliability. A fortunate advantage was provided by Finland's weather - the aircraft's engine easily exceeded its recommended temperature in warm climates, but the frigid temperatures encountered in the Northern latitudes prevented it from overheating. Before it was replaced, the Brewster - never called "Buffalo" there - enjoyed a kill-loss ratio of 26:1 against warplanes of the Soviet Air Force.
The Me 163 "Komet" was intended to be a point-defense interceptor. Its designers knew full well not only of how dangerous it was in its fuel/oxidizer mix, but also that inherently it had but a VERY short duration of powered flight. The tactic was simple: get up to altitude, quickly, turn about, and dive in with the sun at your back to pounce upon the Allied bombers with a one-shot pass. Its closing speed would be so fast that neither accompanying P-51s or P-38s, or the gunners on the B-17s and/or B-24s, had a chance to engage it, but the same great speed also hampered the aerial gunnery of the Komet's pilot. By then, of course, usually the rocket interceptor was already out of fuel, so once it'd made its pass; that was it, back to base. Being that it had to make it back to the airfield "dead stick", it couldn't maneuver if bounced by AAF fighters, and as it got on final approach to its airfield, its speed was much slower, leaving it a sitting duck, and then the aircraft, if it got down safely and skidded to a halt (yes, NO WHEELS), it had to be picked up by the airfield tug. Meanwhile, of course, it was a tempting target to any AAF fighters or fighter-bombers like the P-47.
Core problem for many German designs was the inability to deliver high-powered engines in a small form factor. The Allies had monsters like the the Sabre, Centaurus, Double-Wasp and Duplex-Cyclone (among others), while Germany was still trying to make the Jumo 222 work when the war ended.
I've seen that the Messerschmitt 109 was a nightmare to land and cost a lot of lives. You would think that as a plane in combat from 1936 to 1945 they would have sorted it out. When the Russians got Hurricanes they thought them absolutely terrible. Some even got a gunner facing backwards. The great plane, the B29 cost three billion dollars (nukes two) and was a nightmare at first.
The initial big problem with the B29 was engine fires at high altitudes. Once these problems were sorted things improved. The Breda airplane reminds me of similar problems encountered with the Bristol Blenheim, initially built as a high speed mail carrier faster than many fighters of its day (1936), the Blenheim suffered reduced performance when fitted with real-world levels of military equipment and payload and also a 2 gun turret. Blackburn seem to be plagued with ugly designs and slow performers. The Skua wasn't much better than the Roc. Adm Ramsey, mentioned in the video was much more famous as the naval leader of Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Dunkirk.
Planes with narrow track landing gear like the 109 had a habit of ground looping. The reason for the narrow track was so the gear could be attached to the fuselage directly instead of the wings, but it certainly had drawbacks.
The Spitfire had exactly the same problem with its narrow wheel base landing and taking off, but to claim that "lots of lives were lost" is just silly. (34000 of the 109s were built.) The narrow wheel base had an advantage when built and also when transported on trains wings detached. The FW-190 perhaps the best propeller driven fighter of WW2 had that problem fixed. th-cam.com/video/9QycCd3U4Hg/w-d-xo.html Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Pt. 1, design philosophy and features.
@@hurri7720 Wheel track not wheelbase. But yes they were difficult to land,, one crashed on landing very recently. Though from most observations an excellent plane otherwise
@@ldnwholesale8552 , yes of course but it wasn't something the Germans didn't know and Tank got that right with the Fw 190 but the downside where the advantages in production and transportation the 109 had.
The Me210/410 had a difficult development time, too many roles to fulfill and late war long range single engine fighters made the Zerstoerer concept obsolete (but they were very effective bomber destroyers), but to call it one of the worst aircraft in WW2 is the usual internet hype. It is all about the history in 3 seconds approach which simplifies everything to click bait sound bites, over simplification and eventually dumbing down of people. The Me163 is another good example. This aircraft was pushing the edge of what possible in WW2. It was an extreme design for a single purpose, point defense intercepting bombers at high altitude. Was it practical, not really, was it dangerous to operate, absolutely. However desperate times call for desperate measures and some developments are more practical than others, but you only know if you try. The concept was not unique, nor was the design without its merit, it was however not practical and clearly the jet engine was the way to go forward. As a program it may have been a failure, but it was a fascinating part of aviation history. Again to call it one of the worst aircraft in WW2 is ignoring a plethora of other aircraft, many of which are unknown to most people. What exactly makes “a worst aircraft”?
No mention of two USN aircraft, that I think should have made the list. They are the F2A "Buffalo" fighter, and the TBD "Devestator" torpedo bomber. While the former did see some success in the hands of the Finns, elsewhere, it was outclassed and outfought. The Devestator was obsolete by the time the war started, and was dead meat for Zeros.
Devastators saw their greatest glory during the battle of Coral Sea the hen they sank a Japanese light carrier, most of the devastators in the inventory were lost at Midway. I believe there is one surviving devastator that was pulled out of Lake Michigan and restored.
I think the Ba-88 suffered the same problems as the Buffalo, for instance: too much weight for too weak a power unit. Only, cubed! By the way, my compliments on your italian pronounciation. Had you said "ottantotto" instead of "eighty eight" i would have been all the more surprised! Fine vid, well done and thank you!
Yes think the Buccaneer was pretty desent, it was a 1960s era navel strike aircraft highly manoeuvrable by all accounts.Not sure it was ever tested in combat though.
@@voivod6871 Buccaneer S Mk 1 was an underpowered dog!!! The S Mk 2 with the RR Spey was OK, but the Nav Attack system was pretty much day light only unless you were lobbing a Nuke (which is why it had the S for Strike designation). Nav Attack system on the A-6 Intruder was streets ahead. RAF found out the hard way that operating it over land at low level was not as easy on the aircraft as Blackburn claimed when wings started falling of 12 year old aircraft in 1980. One squadron had to be disbanded as a quarter of the fleet were found to be beyond economical repair. As for combat, South Africa used them to fight various wars and the RAF used them at Medium level in Gulf War One to provide Daylight laser designation for Paveway II LGB's dropped from Tornados and themselves.
It actually flew successfully in unmanned trials. Unfortunately, in the one manned trial it did, one of the rockets failed causing it to lawn dart into the ground.
You missed mentioning one of the Komet's other truly lovely features: not only was its fuel (a mix of "T-stof" and "C-stof") highly explosive, it was so acidic that it would literally DISSOLVE ITS PILOT if it leaked, which records show actually happened. Ugghh.
As pointed out by some sharp commenters, we made an error in regards to the Komet. We stated it lasted 7 seconds and upon re-checking this fact, multiple sources say it lasted 8 minutes. This mistake was an unfortunate deficiency of our fact-checking system, and we're going to continue to work hard to tighten it up and continue to create entertaining AND historically accurate vids.
Regardless, hope you all enjoyed the majority of the video👌
I really like one tiny detail you put in your videos. Sound of a projector going when you show old photos. It got the old lecture type of vibe going. I really like it.
Nice that you corrected yourself. Kudos. Also notice that many of the Komets were damaged when the takeoff dolly--jettisoned just as the plane was lifting off--would sometimes bounce off the ground and up and into their fuselage. It was a revolutionary idea, but one that was a killer. The HE-178 was a far safer jet, although it never actually fought in the war and was much slower than the Komet. Still, for its time, it was an amazing innovation in flight.
🇺🇸
Was definitely 7-10mins max flying time on comet.
Haha, if you're gonna fuck up, it's best to do it gloriously, my friend. 😀
My great-grandfather was in WW2 and destroyed 6 Bf 109, 5 Ju 52 and 2 He 111. He was, by far, the worst mechanic of all the Luftwaffe.
lmfao bro
My grandfather was an American pilot in WWII and I’m sure he would have appreciated your great grandfather’s service.
We appreciate his service!
The fact that he leveraged his anti-aptitude into such a wide-ranging and durable career shows him to also have been one of the Luftwaffes' most accomplished bluffers.
he should get a medal from allies. My grandpa once saved a partisan company in Stalingrad. His damn MG42 froze...
"Even skilled pilots struggled to control it"
The british: "Let's turn it into a trainer plane, what could possibly go wrong?"
Yes a great idea !
Kinda like learning stick on an ancient car: impossible at first, prepares you for everything later.
Not a philosophy you can apply to *flying a plane* though
Us brrrritish are the smartest 😂😂😂
Result, those that survive are the best skilled trainees in the world of course!
And then keep it until 1944! How very British of us, yes, yes,....
The Me 210's horrible handling was essentially its undoing. How the corrected it for the Me 410 was nothing short of a miracle.
Yes they put more powerful engines in it lengthened the fuselage a little and lessened the sweep backwards of the outer wing section and added automatic wing slats, they believe the sweep on the outer wing panel was the biggest of it's problems. It was well liked after fixing but they needed bigger engines as they where still too slow. I wonder what one of the fixes they did to it actually fixed it or did they all add stack up on each other to be the fix?
I nearly peed my pants
The incredible debacle of the awful Me 210 was put in production despite all the warnings from the engineers and test pilots and chief engineers even left the company. The very ugly truth was that Willy Messerschmitt realised that it was it was packed with serious problems and because of his "wunder" airplane has stopped the almost stopped the production of the Me 110 and stopped the Ju 87 at the worst moment possible, thus deprived much needed airplanes for almost one year but he didn't had the courage to tell the truth to the Air Ministry until too late. After having a nervous breakdown, poor thing, already his team took in their hands to fix the airplane by seriously modifying the wings, moving the wingtip forward, adding slats and extending the fuselage and finally installing the more powerful DB 603E. It can be said that Messerschmitt did this almost all by himself but because of his intrigues and political connections he only lost his position as the CEO of the company but he kept on doing other wrong decision-makings. Hope I didn't bore you guys....
And it gets even better, germany had to few DB603s to go around so the Me 210/410 also killed the FW-190C (not the 190C Turboversion) programme which cost Germany a decent High Altitude Fighter in 1943.
Just at the time when they only had 109 G-6 and 190 A-6 with no Performance increases until mid to late 1944.
That year of just G-6 an conescutively heavier armed and heavier 190s without power increase killed a lot of the good and best german Pilots.
@@LupusAries correct but I never really understood why they had difficulties to produce the DB 603E in quantity because it is claimed that it was "simply" an enlargement of the DB 601 but in reality it was also from the DB 605 to expedite the development of the DB 603 with a bigger blower and a compressor. With 44.5 liter or 44,500 cc dsplacement figure, was the largest displacement inverted V12 engine to be produced in Germany during the 2nd WW. I don't know how many were produced so it can be attributed to relentless bombings and shortage of alloys but both the DB 605 and the Jumo 213E was produced in quantity until the end. ....
The Me-163 didn't have 7 seconds of fuel but rather like 8 minutes of fuel. It was supposed to climb over the allied bomber formation and make one or two gliding attacks then dive for home. The main problem as a combat aircraft was that closing speeds were fast and its cannons were slow firing so that there was simply not enough time to score hits. There was an attempt to arm it with a battery of upward firing recoilless rifles activated by a sensor that would register a bomber's shadow but only one kill was ever made with it
Like a schragemusik v2 : o
The other main problem was the fact it killed more Germans than it did Allies, melting or exploding pilots and ground crew for simple mishaps, hard landings, sabotage from the slaves making parts, etc.
Wait, they actually got a kill?
Its fuel was much more dangerous than the machine guns of the bombers ... Hyper unstable and which exploded after a rather hard landing.
@@devourerofbuffets9080
Of course. One pilot shot down 2 b17s... one did dogfight a mosquito.
One of my grandpas actually flew the Br-88.
It was so bad that pilots would fake sickness not to get in one.
Later on he flew Stukas (Ju-87D) and he was in love with it, more even after his last combat mission, in July 1943, over Licata bay, in Sicily, that saw him bring back a VERY damaged aircraft but a living crew.
(Br)88 likes
Bro’a grandpa was a straight up nazi ☠️☠️☠️
@@JoutenShin algum br???
Who cares
@@Bdigital9482 he was just telling a story man i care like people care
In regards to the BF210, the best line is "The Airmen hated the planes and generally believed that getting inside them was about as safe as playing Russian Roulette ... with a Panzerfaust."
🤣 ouch
Wonder how it works, a Panzerfaust Russian Roulette?
@@michaelandreipalon359 First or any shot kaboom.
Yes, I know that, but I was actually wondering on how the, ahem, "ammo juggling" akin to revolvers would work with single round anti-tank weapons.
@@michaelandreipalon359 slip one live round in a group of blanks in the ammo supply?
Here's some (dis)honorable mentions I'd add to this list:
Yak-9K: The Yak-9 platform itself was actually quite decent, and when taken altogether is one of the most-produced fighters of all time. However, the Soviets had an odd obsession with sticking the biggest possible guns on the smallest possible airframes, and the Yak-9 was subjected to this as well. Attempts to fit a 37 mm gun to it, creating the Yak-9T, worked pretty well...so the next logical step was to mount a 45 mm cannon on it, resulting in the Yak-9K. The problem is that this gun's recoil was so vicious that it would rupture the engine's oil and coolant lines, wrecking the engine and potentially starting a fire. Just to show the Soviets are stubborn if nothing else, they later made the exact same mistake in the later Cold War with the MiG-27, a plane that would literally shake itself to pieces when firing a gun originally built for mounting on warships.
Brewster SB2A Buccaneer: Brewster was never a particularly brilliant company, and could be considered the American equivalent of Blackburn in many ways, only without the happy ending. The Buccaneer, or Bermuda in British service, was their design for a recon bomber intended to compete with Grumman's Avenger. Between poor performance and shoddy construction, it actually turned out to be so bad that Brewster was investigated by the government, its CEO was charged with embezzlement, and the Navy nationalized his company, which would end its days building F4U Corsairs under license.
P-43 Lancer: A plane so bad that it had its designation changed to RP-43 (the R meaning "restricted from combat") in 1942. Between being unarmored, having fuel tanks that leaked like a sieve, and a nasty habit for those fuel tanks to spontaneously combust, this plane earned a reputation as a deathtrap. However, it wasn't a total loss, as the lessons taken from the P-43 were put into the P-47 Thunderbolt, the most-produced American fighter aircraft of all time.
Curtiss-Wright SB2C Helldiver: Remember what I said about the Buccaneer sinking its own manufacturer? Well, Brewster was a company that was already dying. The Helldiver took a successful company and ruined it almost entirely on its own. While later production runs fixed its most glaring flaws, its reputation was so appallingly bad that Curtiss-Wright never financially recovered, and the oldest fixed-wing aircraft manufacturer would cease to develop new aircraft designs in 1948. While the company still exists today, it's a shadow of its former self. That is a special kind of failure in a design.
And those Brewster-made Corsairs were so flawed, they were only used for training, not allowed into combat.
Another failure from Brewster was the F2A Buffalo carrier based fighter, as the Navy added heavier machine guns, armor, and self sealing tanks to that tubby little fighter, it stayed with the same version of the Wright R-1820 that powered the F2A-1, instead of adding an uprated R-1820 to compensate for the increased weight, plus, the main gear design was the F2A's major weakness, because the Buffalo was very prone to gear failure, when landing.
Oh, and the P-43 was not a failure, instead, it was the fighter that gave the Army experience in flying, and maintaining a high altitude fighter, and everything that I've read about the P-43 never said anything about the fuel lines igniting fires, in the plane, at all. Also, it was never designated as RP-43 at the time it entered service, that later designation came about when it was withdrawn from front line service.
@@lancerevell5979That is true, but some managed to join the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, as the Corsair Mk-4, and saw action in the Pacific War, with the British Pacific Fleet, in 1945.
@@johnosbourn4312 Most of the issues with the fuel tanks came from the aircraft in Chinese service (the ROCAF received a handful). Whether it was poor maintenance or poor build quality is anyone's guess.
You didn’t mention another ‘feature’ of the Botha - the propellor arc was just outside the pilots window. This not only deafened the pilot, it amputated at least one pilot’s hand as he tried to signal to the ground crew. It was, by any standards, completely awful. No idea why it was ever ordered when there were better designs available….🤔
typical of the rush to rearm, put out a requirement and take anything that comes even close to meeting it, just so they had at least got numbers to work with/soak up enemy fire even if they were almost useless!
the same story repeats for Tanks, ships and small arms to some extent
rapid unscheduled arm disassembly
When political apointes make technical decisions
@@florpzorp7333 Do you write propaganda for the Russian Army?
@@tsubadaikhan6332 why do you ask
I read a memoir from one of the few surviving Me-163 pilots. The wide and varied ways that thing killed pilots was horrifying. It ran off "C-stoff" (a witch's brew of hydrazine, methanol, and a catalyst) and "T-stoff" (high test hydrogen peroxide). They were "hypergolic" propellants, meaning they would spontaneously (and violently) ignite when mixed together. That's great for engine design, but it also meant they were horrifically dangerous to work with.
C-stoff was incredibly toxic, and T-stoff was hideously corrosive, to the point that it would cause pretty much all organic matter to violently erupt into flame on contact. Either would disfigure or kill you if enough got on your skin. The extreme reactivity of the chemicals meant that any leaks would result in a catastrophic fireball too, whether in the ground service equipment, or in the aircraft. The T-stoff would also explosively react with any oils or other organic contaminants in the fuel lines, and would aggressively eat away rubber seals.
That problem was compounded by the relatively fragile and temperamental nature of the engines; building a throttleable rocket engine is a tricky business, and the nazis hadn't quite got it down. They mostly got them to stop exploding, but they would fairly regularly flame out on takeoff. This is bad in any plane, but it was a particular issue for the Me-163 because it was not able to safely land with a full load of fuel. Doing so would usually result in either the plane just violently exploding on touchdown, or fuel spilling onto the pilot. The latter was by far the worse of the two options.
(CW: description of a pretty horrific injury)
The author recounted an incident where a Komet piloted by his friend had it's engine cut out moments after takeoff, which caused a hard landing off the end of the runway. Not seeing the expected fireball, he and his fellow pilots rushed to the plane, wrenched open the canopy, and discovered to their horror that the pilot had been melted alive by a broken fuel line.
They also had incidents where the takeoff dolly (they didn't have wheels of their own) would bounce back into the fuselage on liftoff and cause the plane to violently explode. There were incidents with experimental weapon systems where the recoil caused the wings to snap off, and fueling accidents which led to massive explosions. And bear in mind these things were made in late war Germany, with bottom shelf quality materials and often by slaves who were in the process of being worked to death and who had a vested interest in harming the Nazi war machine. Even if they weren't being sabotaged in the factory, the quality control was poor at best.
So to summarize:
Engine cuts out early? Dead. Develop a leak anywhere in the fuel system? Dead. Spill fuel on yourself? Dead. Take a bullet pretty much anywhere in fuselage of the plane? Dead. Get unlucky on takeoff? Dead. Testing a fancy new weapon system? Dead. Fuck up the fuel handling? Dead. The Polish slave laborer whose family you butchered and who you are currently starving to death decides to leave a little bit of rag in one of the T-Stoff lines? Get rekt, nazi scum.
Edit: a bunch of them were captured by various allied nations after the war, and at least one of them ended up being flown by an American test pilot (I don't recall who off the top of my head). Once. He reported that it was the most incredible aircraft he had ever flown, that it handled like a dream and that the power was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, and finished his report up by saying that there was no power in heaven or on earth which could convince him to fly it again.
The highest scoring Komet pilot only got 3 kills.
A lot of this is corroborated in "Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants". Great book if you like chemistry or rocketry; good humor too.
A British test pilot Eric "winkle" Brown flew one after the war. An amazing man he was the first pilot to land a jet on an aircraft carrier. In fact he made more carrier landings than anyone has to this day. I think this was the man who proved you could land a Corsair on a carrier.
Incredible. Heard of accidents and horrible fuels, BUT THIS IS BRUTALLY dangerous! Had no idea it was THAT bad to operate.
Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, Hon FRAeS, RN was the only Allied pilot to fly the ME 163 using the rocket motor.
Everyone else was towed.
The man's life was beyond belief
Breda 88 was an absolutely gorgeous plane. I love Italian WW2 designs that combine performance and aesthetics.
The Italians had a fighter that out performed even the 109 . The problem was it took twice as long to build and at the time Italian manufact had a hard time getting skilled workers.
agreed, and i find it really good in warthunder too
@@winfriedkloeser3244 Add a chronic lack of raw materials
It sounded to me the Breda 88 was actually revolutionary, but as soon as it was to become a warplane, the issue started. Goes to show failure and success can go hand-in-hand. Same thing with the Komet btw.
@@winfriedkloeser3244Fiat G55. It used the engine of Bf-109G. Only started entering service in 1943 and around 50 wrere produced in all. Nothing to really write home about.
Many of the planes fielded by the Regia Areonautica were actually built in Reggio Emilia at the "Reggiane". My grandpa (born in 1930) often remembered of going to the testing airstrip, the "Campo Volo", to whatch the planes take off and land, both before and during the war
Tragic, the loss of lives in the Botha. Young airmen sent to an early death. Unforgivable imo..as majority was training.
Another fault was in production. 'Planes that were obviously obsolete, even by 1939 were kept rolling off production lines, such as the Blenheim and the Battle. The decision to send such a/c as the Botha into training is mind-bending. I am glad you posted the training losses for the Botha.
That name is so odd I thought this comment was a joke
@@toasterhavingabath6980 lmao
yeah, loss of their loves in Botha deez nuts lmao gottem
@@toasterhavingabath6980 "Many Bothans died to bring us this information". -Mon Mothma
I read an article where they interviewed a pilot who had flown the Bristol Beaufighter. He started in the Beaufighter and later transferred to Mosquitos. He obviously loved the Mosquito. The one comment he made about the Beaufighter that stuck in my mind was when asked about maneuverability he said, "The best way to take evasive action in a Beaufighter was to get up and run around the cockpit".
My Father flew both the Botha and Roc as a ferry pilot in the first year of WW2. He said the Botha nearly killed him as it went into an almost uncontrollable spin while in a turn, only his considerable experience and differential power on the engines saved him. Not an easy aircraft to fly or operate.
The Me210 wasn’t a total loss. The actual aerodynamic changes between the Me210 and 410 weren’t actually that major and were concentrated on the outer wing panels which were swept forward (to fix its center of gravity issues), an extended fuselage (to fix directional control issues) and more powerful engines. So more an issue of rushed development than a irremediably bad concept.
It's actually a beautiful plane.
Nor did its delays terribly affect the Luftwaffe's prospects. Germany couldn't build heaps of stuff but they proved pretty able to build a lot of airplanes. The issue became shortages of pilots-with the Luftwaffe basically out of qualified pilots by 1944 aside from a tiny cadre of super aces. Other than those guys everyone was green.
@@capthawkeye8010
Their small cadre of super aces were mostly the one's that stayed in the east, most of the high scoring aces that got transferred to west were shot down and killed, there they weren't flying against pilots who had their gunsight's drawn on the inside of their windscreens with a grease pencil.
If they'd have sent Hartmann to the west he'd have been hammered out of the sky and killed like most of the rest of them.
The Hungarian aircraft industry methodically tested and addressed all the issues with the original design, resulting in a useful and not flawed airplane. They exported the finished aircraft to Germany, in fact.
It just had a few issues like fuel tank leaks melting the pilot, the wheels bouncing up at take-off to destroy the plane, the fuels combusting at the touch of any organic manner leading to explosions while refuelling, having to glide down to land making itslef vulnerable to enemy fighters, a pitifully short range and a tendancy to explode for no aparent reason when the motor was lit up.
sure about the 7 seconds of fuel dor the comet? were around 7 minutes as far as I have read
It has to be a mistake
@@hicknopunk actually it's 7.5 minutes of powered flight
Mistakes were made, thanks for pointing that out...
Upon going back into the video, seems to have been a typo in our writing process and then a miss in our fact-checking process. Got some systems our end to tighten up. Regardless, hope you enjoyed the rest of the video!
@@ianturpin9180 🤣
@@TheFront yes enjoyed it for sure, thx and keep on going :)
Just a point of fact regarding the ME-163: you mention that Walter designed it whereas he was the designer of the rocket motor. The original concept of the hypergolic rocket motor that Walter designed was intended to power an advanced torpedo. The airframe of the ME-163 was actually designed by Prof Alexander Lippisch who designed a series of fairly successful flying wing gliders pre-WW2. After the war Lippisch was taken to the USA where his work on tailless and delta wing designs heavily influenced Delta Dagger and Delta Dart series of fighters. 🙂
I thought someone would correct this oversight. Lippisch’s influence can also be seen in the Space Shuttle. Tailless design, delta wing, rocket power into flight and return as a glider. Just one of a few innovations by the man. But the Komet was perhaps too far ahead of the prevailing technology of the day.
Wernher von Braun was asked to make an alcohol/oxygen rocketengine for the 163, but the bombing of Travemünde put a stop to that. It would have made it a lot less lethal to fly, and have given a lager range.
@@noahwail2444 I didn’t know that. That’s interesting. Thank you for the info. Would you point me towards the reference? I’d like to do some more reading on that.
@@riconui5227 indeed. Lippisch’s work would have influenced, or been the basis for, all subsequent delta winged aircraft including the Fairey Delta and the Dassault Mirage series. It’s amazing to think how quickly and how far aviation technology advanced in the first few decades of the 20th century.
@@harrikeinonen7576 I am sorry, I can´t recall where I found this information, but I have come across it more than once, and from quite reliable sources. I think one of them was a doku about Peenemünde, and the bombing of it.
When I was a kid I was in air cadets and we worked out of the aircraft museum in Ottawa (Canada). At the time (not sure if it's still there) we had one of the only ME163's. It was so rare and valuable that it wasn't on display for the general public. It was kept in a hangar and only pulled out for special occasions. I had to help clean it before a Canada day event. As a 12yr old, I didn't understand the significance of that. Now, at 37 I feel very privileged to be one of the only people to have actually seen and touched one.
Only 37?! These Air Cadets was during WW2? How do you do that? Flyng near lightspeed?
The Ba.88 was a beautiful aircraft with great lines. Had it been used as a basis for a new aircraft instead of being developed itself, and had Breda had access to high powered engines; It could’ve been one of the best ever.
Such a fast plane could have been used for reconnaissance.
I'm not sure but maybe the sm91 did what the Breda 88 couldn't do
@@agravemisunderstanding9668 The SM.91?! Are you sure you’re talking about the right aircraft? The SM.91 was just a prototype that wasn’t begun until 1942, and hadn’t finished testing when Italy capitulated. It’s like saying “oh the J7W could do for the Japanese Navy what the J1N couldn’t do”….
Yes, had it been capable of flight it would have been the finest aircraft ever designed. Instead it is a particularly large paperweight.
@@oldschooloverlord It was capable of flight. Prototypes broke records.
I wouldn't call the Me 163 bad necessarily, just generally insane.
correct but it had fewer losses than the F104 in the 60ies !
@@michaelpielorz9283 By that logic the bf109 would be the worst plane ever...
With something so obviously unhinged... yet they still managed to get people who knew something about flying to sit in them!
It killed 80% of its pilots. Seems bad. Imagine knowing you had to fly that! Better luck getting sent to the eastern front, or uboats!
@@richarddoig1865 Yes, but in contrast to lets say, putting a traversible turret on the back of a plane it was not a bad concept. Which, to be fair also goes for the Me 210, which after the design was fixed and renamed Me 410 became quite a decent aircraft.
Between the "basic" Me-210 and the Me-410, there was the Me-210Ca-1, license built in (the Kingdom of) Hungary. The lenghtened fuselage made if way more pilot friendly aircaft, a successfull fast/light bomber on the Eastern Front, a few were even equipped for tank hunting (with two triple rocket launchers and a 40mm Bofors anti-tank gun in the bomb bay).
Against US 8th Air Force bombers (especially the escorting P-38s) however they suffered heavy losses.
The Komet pilot's life was short but absolutely action-packed. It was the equal opportunity fighter -- as dangerous to its crew as to its target.
In addition to your list, I would like to mention the Morane Saulnier MS-406: it had a radiator that needed be lowered into the airflow at high speeds, thus acting as an airbrake, and poorly fixed cannons that would become wobbly after a few short bursts, and a number of other defects.
And how to forget the flying fish tanks, the Amiot bombers such as the 143, under powered, under defended, under loaded, under protected…
The Finnish variation of MS-406 was rather good plane i would argue, they replaced the engine with soviet Klimov M-105 and added German MG 151/20 autocannon.
@@CompagnonDeMisere25 The Finns could make anything a useful plane. 😁
Well again, Morane's problem was rather that it was obsolete in 1939/40 than a bad design per se. Similarly with Amiots. Those were the planes that could use a success had the war started at 1935, but the development speed accelerated too much during the last years before the war.
9:20 Me-163 only had about seven MINUTES of fuel, not "seven seconds".
I'm sure in flight it seemed like only 7 seconds.
In defence of the Blackburn Roc (sort of), there's a theory going around that it was intended for use as an escort for the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers that - as biplanes - were obsolete and vulnerable, as evidenced when six Swordfish attempted to attack the German heavy cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen during Operation Cerberus (aka 'the Channel Dash') and all six, including that piloted by Bismarck hero Eugene Esmond, were shot down with the loss of all crewmen. According to the Roc theory, having a "fighter" that was as slow and lumbering as the torpedo bombers would be an advantage, as it would be able to keep pace with the Swordfish without having to throttle back, while keeping their tails clear of German fighters. Alas, we'll never know because, just like the Boulton Paul Defiants, the war the Rocs were designed for was not the war they ended up fighting.
Very good point, very well made
To be fair I don't think the Swordfish was obsolete in 1939. They didn't take long to become obsolete, but they were still fairly capable at the start of the war, and no one else really had better carrier planes. Most still had biplanes and TBD Devestators were just as bad.
You have to remember that, being biplanes, the Swordfish was excellent at carrier operations. The stability made lining up torpedoes easy for the pilots. She became obsolete quickly, but the Fleet Air Arm played 2nd fiddle to the RAF and never got what it wanted.
I'm surprised the Albacore wasn't on the list though. Pretty much worse in every way to the Swordfish she was meant to replace.
The Swordfish got into service in 1936 which is about the same time as the early versions of the Bf 109.
So all that obsolete nonsence, like the Swordfish was a prehistoric biplane or something, for an aircraftdesign that was basically brandspanking new.
Fairey made it a biplane as a carrier based torpedobomber going as fast a singleseat fighter just wasn't realistically possible and they rather made it safe and effective in its job and rely on tactics like element of surprise to get around enemy fighter screens.
You could say the same thing happened in the late '50s and '60s after the speedcraze died down and the USN started to make bombtrucks like the A-6 and A-7 that sacrificed speed for having greater range and payload.
Sharnhorst and Gneisenau were Battleships, with 11 inch guns.
@@Joshua-fi4ji What about the Japanese Navy planes?
The Manchester bomber deserves an honorable mention, due to it having two X24 engines which basically consisted of two siamese V12 engines with a common crankshaft, which meant that one of the V12's had to be upside down. It was wisely discontinued in favour of the Lancaster bomber which had four Rolls Royce merlin V12s, all the right way up, which were far more reliable. H24 engines (two flat 12's mounted one above the other with the crankshafts geared together) were developed later and were pretty good.
Also: the poor Hurricane, which will always be remembered for being Britain's second best WWII fighter after the Spitfire.
Good thing the Germans never figured out that putting 2 engines on a common crankshaft wouldn't work (consider the disaster the HE-177 was). Funnily enough, Avro had the Lancaster as a backup design in case the Manchester proved to be a failure. In fact, some of the first Lancaster fuselages were actually built as Manchesters.
@@nicholasconder4703 HE-177 engnes were two V12's with separate crankshafts geared to a common propeller, which is a better idea than the X24 common crankshaft idea. The trouble was the V12's were inverted. Never a good idea (except on a air cooled radial where it is an essential part of the design.) Oil collecting in cylinders when shut down. And in the case of the HE-177, all the leaky bits at the bottom, creating a pool of flammable liquid at the bottom of the nacelle. The Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major air cooled radial with 4 x 7 = 28 cylinders was a reasonably reliable engine (but not without problems and not as good as the 18 cylinder double wasp.) Still, I'm glad Avro were allowed to go the right way in the end.
MOD: we want a twin engine bomber
Avro: we can make a reliable 4 engine bomber.
MOD: we want a twin engine bomber
Avro: OK
MOD: your twin engine bomber is unreliable
Avro: Would you like a reliable 4 engine bomber?
Unfortunately this stuff still goes on all the time.
@@londonalicante You do realize that the most produced fighter in history, the ME-109, also used the Daimler-Benz DB 601 inverted V engine. As did the ME-110 and several other German aircraft. And they didn't suffer from that issue. The issue they had with the HE-177 was the same one with the Manchester - the radiator system could not dissipate heat fast enough and the engines would overheat and catch fire. It has nothing to do with oil collecting in the cylinders.
@@nicholasconder4703 DB601 was a very successful engine but I have never understood why they made it hard for themselves by building it upside down. One reason most V's (basically all wet sump V's) are the other way up is to avoid oil collecting in the cylinders. Inverted V requires a dry sump. Perhaps the designers thought from the start that they wanted it to operate in any orientation. It's well know that the direct fuel injection helped a DB601 figher outmanoeuvre an early Merlin
As already I said, DB601 worked fine in other applications, it was only the HE-177 with the twinned engines and inadequate cooling that caused the problem.
The Brits went out of their way to produce engines that were so compl;icated to be useless. I wonder how they came up with the Merlin!
He-177 is definetly missing.
MiG-1 and -3 maybe ?
Ba-349 Natter could be an aspiring candidate.
Me-163 is hard to judge. The idea of a fast climbing interceptor was ahead of its time. It became again very popular in the 1950s with the F-104 program and similar results. Coincidentally, F-104 was the first aircraft to beat Me-163 in climb rate.
The 177 'Grief' wasn't a failure if I remember correctly. It was the first strategic bomber project of Germany meant to bomb Ural Factories but very few were ever built thanks to Germany's doctrine (just about 1,200). The development took a while thanks to needing more powerful engines to be designed. The initial engines selected were prone to catching fire.
In the end though Germany had a Two-Engine strategic bomber with the Payload of most four engine Allied Bombers. In the end the Bomber entered service in 1942 after constant role changes as a bomber.
@@rebelgaming1.5.14 Sorry, but you're wrong. He-177 GREIF ("griffon") was a 4-engined bomber. It's two engines per propeller !
This had something to do with the desire to enable dive-bombing. Which to me sounds like a stupid idea for a heavy bomber, but I'm sure somebody had some serious thoughts on the matter.
Yes there were some 1.140 built, but 1/3 of them didn't enter service at all. Fuel shortages.
First action was around Stalingrad to supply 6th Army, but most aircraft were deemed unfit for frontline service until July 1943.
Last bombing mission of He-177s was in July 1944 on the Eastern front, after which the most He-177 were withdrawn from frontline service and scrapped !
The aircraft was bad to begin with and when the biggest issues were sorted out, there was no fuel left.
The MiG-3 was just configured for a kind of fighting that was not predominant in the East. Tactical air support and dog fights at low altitude were the norm on the Eastern Front. The MiG-3 was too well optimized for high altitude flight. It was actually a pretty sophisticated airplane. Had it ended up on the Western Front it would've fit right in.
@@capthawkeye8010 Mig-3 certainly a better aircraft, but according to Russian pilots, MiG-1 sucked.
My 10000hr, 20yr wwii naval aviator father has time in the Curtiss SO3C Seamew. It was the only plane that scared him of the numerous types he flew. Intended to be a replacement for the Curtiss SOC on cruisers it failed miserably. Admiral Halsey refused their use in frontline fleet use and returned to using their obsolete biplane SOC.
I don't think that the ME-163 was a failure, it is too strong of a word because it depends on your perspective. From Allied perspective, yes, they would deem it a failure. To German, there was benefit (which we benefited later after the war by incorporating tech from this project into our designs). It advanced aircraft and rocket technology considerably, set world speed records, and the Third Reich was in its last days and need a point defense fighter that could rapidly engage allied bomber fleets. The Germans accepted the risks/drawbacks for specific benefits. It is very easy to arm-chair quarterback things from more than 70 years after the fact.
When Allied fliers saw the Komet in flight they were astonished. It was comically fast for the time. So there was some terror factor there.
@@1pcfred Yes, I saw some of the early photos and videos of them weaving through bomber fleets! It must have been scary as hell to US crews.
@@w.p.958 as if they needed another reason to be scared. 80% of the 8th air force were casualties. It was the most loss of any unit in the war. You stood a better chance of survival on a German U boat. Not much better, but a little. Everyone that flew knew what the odds were too.
@@1pcfred Excellent points. I don’t know how aloud boys did it!
@@w.p.958 some didn't. They'd have breakdowns and what have you. The pressure was immense.
Eric Winkle Brown flew the two seat Me 109 trainer from the back seat. It nearly killed him because there was no forward visibility at all, so landing was a problem. He flew parallel to the runway, then did a u-turn at the end and landed it by remembering where the runway was. It would have killed a lesser man.
Eric was the greatest test pilot ever.
When it comes to piloting skill everybody was “a lesser man” than Winkle Brown. Nice chap too apparently.
USN TBD Devastator? Absolutely hopeless in fighting the IJN and the only contribution was diverting IJN resources away from another USN attack during Midway.
It was better than the British swordfish that did well against the Italians at Taranto harbor and against the Bismark. Much of it's lack of success was do to the worst torpedoes of the war that rarely detonated. If the US had decant torpedoes it would have racked up some kills even at midway had a combined attack of fighters, dive bombes and torpedo planes been carried out obviously no torpedo bomber of the war would have succeeded at midway attacking all alone
Let's not forget the Brewster Buffalo .
@@johnvan6082 Buffalo actually performed pretty well when under Finnish air force, but was crap under USN, RAF and Dutch Air Force. Interesting.
Devastator was a product of its time. When it was introduced it was the most modern carrier plane in the world. It's problem isn't that it was crap. Rather, it's that it was obsolete.
Their losses were actually as the same level as newer crafts in Midway. Land or Ship based.
I remember a passage from the book 'Rocket Fighter' on the Me-163. A pilot had one dig in the nose and flip over onto its' back on landing. when the ground crew managed to get the plane tipped back over and opened the cockpit they were greeted by the horrific sight of the pilot, who had been doused with fuel from a broken line and half dissolved.
I had thought that no ME-163 has survived the war. I was very pleased to find one in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum at Dulles. I though the same about the Horton Ho, but was surprised to find one undergoing restoration at the Smithsonian. Two advance planes, that just did have the technology at the time to make them work.
The Air Force Museum in Dayton has one, too. They are surprisingly small when you see one up close.
There's one at the Flying Heritage Museum in Everett, WA too. In fact I believe it is the only airworthy example in existence; supposedly they actually flew it to the museum, towed behind an He-111. It was actually a pretty nice glider, as long as you don't fuel the damn thing up first.
I was in the Science Museum in London the other day, I'm sure there was a Komet there too, in the Flight section.
There is also one at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, ACT
@@Troy_Tempest I got to have a very, very close look at it while it was on a truck at my work. End of war or not the engineering was beautiful.
the numbers the Komet shot down is surprising as hell. I know they played about with photocells and upward facing guns and the like but put simply, Germany was a target rich environment for any defending interceptor so the idea it couldn't even break double figures seems wild
The Bolton Paul Defiant shares some of the failings of the Blackburn Roc and perhaps warrants honorable mention in this list if only that, unlike the Roc, it made use of a Merlin engine that would have had better application elsewhere.
Not by a long shot. The defiant was effective against ME 109´s over Dunkirk and useful as a night fighter until radar-equipped night fighters were available.
@@jesperlykkeberg7438 As I understand it, it was only effective against the 109 because it could be confused with the Hurricane. Clearly, any 109 pilot thus deceived was in for a nasty shock during a stern attack! Once the Germans realised this and found it had no forward-facing armament it was game over for the defiant in its original daytime role.
@@ColinMill1 The story of German pilots mistaking Defiants for Hurricanes is a popular myth. In reality the Defiant was very easy to distinguish from a Hurricane.
But more importantly: How would German pilots know that the Defiant had no forward firing guns or cannons when RAF at the time stubbornly insisted it had? The German pilots may have tried to avoid the three forward firing cannons or the 14 forward firing machine guns which, according to RAF at the time, was indeed fitted to the Defiant.
In any case: The Defiant wasn´t designed for dogfights against light enemy fighters since small fighters would not be in range of British airspace. That was true until the day Germany occupied Belgium and France.
It´s a fact however, that the 264 Squadron´s tactic of Defiants flying in a descending "Lufbery" circle had proven very effective against ME 109s. The 264 Squadron initially had great success with the Defiants and won many air battles even against ME 109´s. On the other hand, when the 141 squadron later chose to ignore such tactics it had serious consequences, especially when no top cover was available.
You can´t blame the Defiant for all RAF´s disastrous tactical failures. The Defiant was clearly not ideal as a daytime interceptor against bombers escorted by fighters, but the day-fighter squadrons equipped with Defiants still had a positive 25-17 kill ratio during the Battle of Britain.
When the Defiant was converted to a night fighter it was the best aircraft available. It had a fairly long career until mid-1942 in this role, and during the Blitz on London of 1940-41, the four Defiant-equipped squadrons were responsible for shooting down more enemy aircraft than any other type.
@@jesperlykkeberg7438Exactly.
The worst plane of WWII has to be the Me-163 Komet for the simple reason that it killed too many German pilots in exchange for absurdly few Allied heavy bombers shot down. Captain Eric Brown of the Royal Navy, one of Britain's top test pilots, flew a captured Komet and was very impressed with its climb rate and its performance as a glider. However, to call Eric Brown an exceptional pilot is to make a gross understatement. If there was such a thing as a world champion pilot Brown would have been a contender for that title. His natural skills coupled with his extensive experience allowed Brown to get performance from aircraft that 99% of other pilots could not, and I believe he never appreciated how his abilities tended to distort his assessments. Brown's test flights in the Me-163 strongly influenced DeHavilland's development of the DH-108 Swallow, which turned out to be a deathtrap. It took an extremely skillful and lucky pilot to fly the Komet and land it safely. The Komet had no landing gear as such, just a retractable skid. Nor did it have brakes or any means to steer. Once the Komet touched the ground it was an uncontrollable projectile. The pilot could only hope it would stop before it hit anything. The Me-163 required an exceptional pilot just to complete a flight and land safely, let alone survive an attack on a formation of B-17s guarded by Mustangs. However, by 1944 Gerrmay was running critically short of exceptional pilots. What the Luftwaffe needed was a plane that was easy to fly and easy to land. The Komet was the exact opposite.
The Me-163 was more than 300 mph faster than its intended target, the B-17G. One would think that fact alone would make the Komet an unbeatable interceptor, but that vast speed differential worked against the German pilot as often as it worked in his favor. American bombers generally flew their missions at very high altitudes -- between 20,000 and 30,000 feet. The Me-163 used nearly all of its fuel just getting up there with the enemy. After that, it was a glider. A powered fighter with fuel reserves can lose speed when needed and then regain it. This was not the case with the Komet. Any speed lost was lost permanently. On many occasions, Komet pilots failed to get hits because they overshot their targets. Furthermore, the Komet was poorly armed. The Rheinmetall Borsig MK-108 30mm cannon was a very effective gun when installed in a Me-262, an aircraft that could slow down and then speed up again, but not in a 500 mph glider. Many Komet pilots complained that because of the speed differential they had insufficient time to make effective shots. The projectile of the MK-108 was powerful enough to destroy a B-17, but it also had a rather low muzzle velocity (540 m/s) and a poor ballistic coefficient. Pilots had to both lead their target and shoot from above to compensate for the drop. In a conventional fighter, the pilot would have enough time to line up those shots and get consistent hits. This was often not the case during Komet missions. Throughout its operational history, the problem of an effective weapon for the Me-163 went mostly unsolved. In the closing months of the war, there were experiments with a pair of upward-firing cannons that used a photoelectric sensor to trigger firing rather than a button on the joystick. The Komet pilot was supposed to fly under his target and let the shadow of the B-17 trigger the guns.
The persistent problems of the Me-163's cannons led Erich Bachem, the designer of the Ba-349 Natter (viper), to dispense with guns completely. Like the Messerschmitt Komet, the Natter was a rocket fighter using the same Walter bi-fuel rocket motor as the Me-163. Nevertheless, the two aircraft were very different. Besides launching vertically using a gantry tower rather than a runway, the Ba-349's weapon was a cluster of 24 73mm unguided rockets fired in a single volley or salvo at an Allied bomber. The Natter was mainly built of plywood and had no means to land on an airfield. Instead, the pilot and rocket motor came down by parachute, while the airframe was allowed to crash. The Natter was a complete disaster. The only two manned test flights ended with a dead pilot.
“The worst plane of WWII has to be the Me-163”
Laughs in Bachem Natter 😛
Fun fact about those upward firing cannons; they were originally designed to fire all of the barrels simultaneously, but the recoil was so severe that it snapped both wings off of the test plane. They had to design in a ripple fire mechanic to prevent that from happening.
While the Komet wasnt the best plane the Third Reich has to offer, the rocket-powered interceptor programme did have a sound reasoning in late-war Germany. With the lack of good pilots and fuel to train them, expecting German fighters, even in jet, to win against the seasoned Allied pilot in dogfights (which requires years of experience and training) was simply out of question, so a feasible way was to simply bypass the fighter escorts with enough speed then target the bombers.
Komet's sort-of successor, the Ba-349 Natter program, tackle the pilot problem even more: It forgo the whole take-off and landing part, (sth the Komet had trouble to do well), to a point of not even using a airfield, just a simple launch pad and the rocket-powered plane is discarded after the interception run, with pilot and engine motor parachuted out. In fact most of the flight was meant to guided with autopilot with the pilot's only mission (thus the only training needed) being aiming the rockets towards bombers. Although it was still far from a safe aircraft, the fact that it probably could be piloted by Volkssturm conscripts meant it won't be much of a loss.
@@jetaddicted if you can call the natter a plane
Ya missed out on the Soviet LaGG-3, which its abbreviated to лакированный гарантированный гроб, or 'Varnished, Guaranteed Coffin'. This was partially because the engine the Soviets wanted to put in it was too unreliable, leading to them having to settle for an underpowered alternative, while tight production deadlines also meant the many flaws test pilots found couldn't be remedied. This led to it being soundly thrashed by the Germans.
Alternatively, if we're counting prototypes that never entered mass production, the Silvansky IS (not to be confused with the equally interesting but less comically awful Nikitin-Shvechenko IS series) is hard to beat. Designed by a man whose complete lack of qualifications earned him the nickname of 'The Son In Law', it was found near the end of production that he made the landing gear too long to fit into the landing gear wells. So of course, he simply cut it down to size. Then it was found that the propeller was now too long and would strike the ground on landing/taxi. Reportedly, upon finding this out, Silvansky went out to the plane, grabbed a hacksaw, and chopped several inches off each propeller blade. Surprisingly, the plane managed to fly, with the test pilot getting it up to 300 meters before bringing it back down and declaring it completely useless.
I don’t think the LaGG is on the same level as the planes in this list. It wasn’t a very good plane, but it wasn’t completely useless.
I'm aware the Italian Breda BA 88 Lince and the German Messerschmitt Me 210 were marked as worst planes built during WW2. The Me 210 almost led Willy Messerschmitt to resign as chief engineer of his own company by the aerodynamic problems the plane was facing; and the Ba 88 was far from an attack aircraft as fascist propaganda portrayed it after its world race records. Although the Me 163 also joined the list, I knew it was too fast to intercept Allied bombers in order to take down some. Other planes marked as the worst were the Heinkel He 177 Greif, Heinkel He 162 Salamander / Volksjäger, Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3, Morane Saulnier M.S.406 and Brewster F2A Buffalo.
The Finns made good use of both the M.S.406 and the Brewster Buffalo. They definitely weren't among the worst planes of the war.
The Buffalo ended up with the highest kills to losses ratio, for any fighter ever built.
He-162 was never flown in combat. According to RAF test pilot Eric Brown, it wasn't a bad aircraft.
@@CZ350tuner The Finns Fiat G.50 had a best kills to losses ratio. Also the kills to losses ratio of the Macchi C.200 the Italians used on the Russian front is similar. To have mostly newbies as opponents helps.
@@ottovonbismarck2443 The He-162 Spatz was an exceptional fighter design let down by poor glue after the original glue was unobtainable due to bombing of the factory that produced it.
The Komet was an excellent design for the desperate times. And it had far more than 7 seconds of thrust.
One of my personal favourites is the swordfish, an aircraft so Archaic and terrible that it circled round to being very good.
The canvas and wood construction allowed shrapnel and flak to pass clean through the body and wings, while the glacially slow speed allowed the aircraft to confuse modern anti aircraft fire control systems; allowing the elderly biplane to serve with remarkable distinction.
True. I believe that the main reason that the Swordfish were able to cripple the Bismarck was because the Bismarck's AA guns were set up to hit things going at over 200mph, and they missed just about every shot on the slow old Swordfish.
Those old biplanes had some unexpected advantages. The Polykarpov Po2 was flown by the night witches. It was so slow that it was hard to shoot down. It served even after WW2. It was very hard to pick up on radar. It´s probably the only biplane credited with an aerial victory over a jet fighter.
From what I've heard, the B-29 Superfortress wasn't quite the success claimed in the intro here. About twice as many crashed or caught fire than were destroyed by the enemy.
True, but don't tell that to an American.
The metric measured might be important: are you measuring plane destruction as a kill, or death of the crew as a kill?
A flaming plane doesn't mean everybody is dead. A lost tail or wing does...
But you're probably right that there were a large number of casualties and lost bombers, at least compared to the fighters that escorted them.
When Iwo Jima was developed as an airfield, B-29s had at least one place where they had a chance of being rescued.
There is film of B-29s ditching near to that island, as they could not land there, nor go on to their bases, due to damage. This saved some of the crews.
B-29 pilots often mention taking off fully loaded from short runways on islands, sometimes through the smoke and flames of planes that crashed into the sea after a simple reduction of power in one engine during take-off.
Lifting the nose a degree too much on take-off was enough to kill everyone on board.
I can't rember where I read it but the B-29 was a 'rush job" in development, because they needed it to use the Ulrimate Weapon of WW2...the A-bomb (apparently everything currently in use wasn't fast/high or strong enough to do the job) and the engines used were tweaked far PAST their optimal performance, resulting in a LOT of engine fires and failures.
„Before things could be finalized, the government changed the specifications.”
Sounds a bit like when the Luftwaffe adopted the F-104 and turned it into an all-weather fighter-bomber …
I'm surprised no Soviet designs got on this list
the Me-210 was actually quite popular among hungarian pilots, who used it with moderate success, so i wouldnt exactly call it one of the worst designed planes to be honest. Planes like the Saro Lerwick are more deserving for such a title
Didn't the Hungarians make some of the same changes to the Me 210 airframe that were made in the Me 410?
@@simong9067 Not entirely. The hungarians still used the DB 605 engine and didnt change the wings, after all. Dont quote me on that, but the sole changes they made were a longer fuselage, slightly different armaments (since one version had a 40mm 36M cannon, among other things) and some slight changes to the armour layout to accomodate for hungarian manufacture capacities of armour grade steel, at least if i remember correctly
In defense of the benighted Botha, the engineers at Blackburn realized that the aircraft was going to end up underpowered with its' two Perseus engines, especially after the Air Ministry changed the specs, including provision for a fourth crew member. However, while the Air Ministry gave Bristol permission to install more powerful Taurus engines in their competing Beaufort, the Air Ministry insisted that Blackburn had to take due with the lower-powered Perseus engines. Given the restrictions imposed by the Air Ministry, the deck was stacked against the Botha ever becoming any better than mediocre.
The Brewster Buffalo. Bizarre requirements that had no bearing on air combat lead to it being over armored in the fuselage and had underpowered engines. It performed so badly against german fighters it was sent to the pacific, where it performed worse against the japanese zeros. It helped hand total air superiority to the japanese in the early days of the war.
Yet it was famously deadly (to the enemy in this case) in Finnish hands
But set against this is the Brewster B239 (the export version of the Buffalo), which went to Finland for use in their fight against the Russians where, to this day, they hold the highest kill-to-loss ratio of any combat aircraft anywhere - something like thirty Brewster kills to every Brewster loss. The main reason is that, while the B239 was a poor aircraft, the planes flown by the Red Air Force were even worse. The Finns loved the B239 and nicknamed it "The Pearl of the Skies".
@@elennapointer701 it's still a lousy airplane. A combat record built on fighting essentially even worse airplanes.
@@WALTERBROADDUS You can only kill what is in front of you. But Yes the Buffalo was a bit of a dog. Botha and Roc totally deserve to be on this list. In fact did Blackburn ever design a decent aircraft (and before somebody says Buccaneer, the S Mk1 version of the aircraft was an underpowered dog!!!).
@@richardvernon317 in my opinion somebody at Blackburn must have had nude pictures of the king or somebody? There's no way to explain giving them this many contracts.
"... some had their turrets removed and when fixed in the ground, these proved excellent in anti-aircraft defense."
The only time in history an airplane proved more lethal to the enemy on the ground than in the air.
And others were fitted to motor torpedo boats
There's an Me-163 in the aviation museum in Ottawa. It's incredibly small, flying that thing should have earned the pilot the iron cross just for have the guts to strap themselves to a rocket willie coyote style.
Actually, the wingspan and length of the Me-163 are almost the same as for the I-16. The Boeing Peashooter was just a tad longer, with less wingspan. But these guys had proper radial engines in front, not some plywood nosecones ;).
Wiley got one from ACME and returned it saying; I'm not that hungry.
I'm wondering why no one mentioned the Fairey Battle. Basically a flying clay pigeon. Quickly withdrawn after most were shot down during just one air raid.
Tbf with the Battle, it was fine during its time but once ww2 started it was all obselete. Ironically, the US made a more successful Fairey Battle called the Boeing XF8B. It did well on tests but the US Navy made the reasonable decision to invest on jets than a multirole prop.
Well I think it is a difference between bad design and obsolete plane. Battle was not bad for 1936 time, but the development speed increased rapidly before the WWII and what was satisfactory in 1936 was no longer effective in 1939/40.
The Battle .. was later developed into the Fairey Fulmar which had some success early on in it's career
The odd thing is that the Battle could have been a highly effective tactical bomber in the Battle of France if the RAF had removed the useless and very heavy autopilot, replaced it with armour protecting the crew from ground fire and installed self-sealing fuel tanks. But they didn’t.
The Blackburn Botha had a complex fuel system that could very easily be set up such that both engines stopped simultaneously just as the aircraft took off. This was an unfortunate feature in an aircraft eventually used for training as nobody could think of anything else to do with them.
This could easily have been a top 10, with the Bell Airacuda, TBD Devestator, Potez 630 series, P-35 and arguably the worst of all: the LWS6 Zubr.
Make a part two with the Heinkel He 177 “Griffon” It was meant to be a heavy bomber / dive bomber combination. It suffered from many mechanical failures and engines catching fire.
The Balton-Paul Defiant was another turret fighter, with a little better performance. They actually got kills during the early days of the Battle of Britain, but mainly because they were mistaken by German pilots for Hawker Hurricanes. Later models of the Defiant got a slightly elevated turret and the ability to lock the turret guns firing forward, but that only helped so much. Once taken off the front lines, Defiants had similar roles to Rocs and also, with turrets removed, were used for photo recon and as a testbed for night fighting equipment.
Just a note, it was Boulton-Paul, who I believe were turret builders.
The Defiant was also used to carry Mandrel which was used to jam German Radars ( Freya & Wurzburg) which helped the night bomber attacks on Germany, repurposing an aircraft to become more effective
it turned out to be a decent night-fighter, as they took that role after an entire sqd was shot down in the BOB
@@celticguy197531It was the most successful British night fighter in the winter of 1940-41.
My grandfather was a Pilot who trained US Pilots in WWII. He primarily flew B-17s, but also the B-26, and later the B-29. After a few flights, he said that he would never again get into a B-26. He explained that it was constantly "floating" where you never had real control (the tail was always randomly slipping around). Apparently after the war, they discovered that it had such poor flight characteristics that it was essentially a brick with engines. You lose power, and you couldn't glide it to the ground.
Fun fact, I played the trumpets for the opening theme music.
The nav in the Fairey Battle was also the bomb aimer. Once over the target he was to leave his position behind the pilot and lie flat on his chest, look through a small window under the pilot's feet, and release the bombs by pressing a button on the end of a cable. With AA fire coming up from the ground that was the most dangerous place in the aeroplane It's impossible to imagine how brave those men were!
To condemn aircraft for their safety record means tossing all of them into the bin. Fact : of the 43000 US aircraft lost overseas during WW2 only 22000 was through enemy action. The Korean War was a better conflict for loss data , P-51 , F-80 50% lost because of accidents. , F-84 of a total loss of 358 , 109 by accidents. Of course not all accidents are fatal to the crew , crash landings , engine failures are just two examples where its possible to survive. I think it would be fair to say that the accidents of military aircraft have declined in proportion to their cost. Early Jets were death traps .
F-16's were lawn darts back in the 1990's until they figured out why their engines kept failing. About once a month you'd hear of one crashing at Luke Air Force Base. Sometimes 2.
Not WWII but care to look up early NA F-100 accidents ie Dutch roll problems.
Bear in mind that the military has an acceptable failure rate of 1 in 100,000, whereas civilian aircraft manufacture starts at an acceptable failure rate of 1 in 1,000,000. Generally speaking.
The ME-163 broke every record for speed and acceleration. It could have been a successful bomber interceptor if more resources were put into the project. The Germans developed the ME-263 which had longer endurance and landing gear but the war ended before it could go into production.
It’s crazy how the hun developed so many great designs that “just missed the war”
Almost like they were shit
The problem with the Me163 was the Walther rocket engine and the installation. If you landed with fuel in the tanks, it could blow up. If you flipped it when landing leaking fuel would dissolve the pilot. The act of climbing in the cockpit could result in a massive explosion.
@@BeaufighterGaming , luckily for everyone.
The ME-262 was operational in the war.
@@1pcfred really
I don't think the Me 163 was a bad design, w/o the rocket engine, it reaches 800kph only by gliding. The critical thing of the Me 163 were the two very aggressive Fuels, the engine for itself was stable and reliable. But also this is no worse design but a technical necessity to power it.
The ME-210 looks absolutely fantastic
Yet after 3 years of stumbling operational development it finally took a ROMANIAN redesign to iron out its awful flight characteristics, by which time it was "yesterday's aircraft".
The UK, Italy, Germany and I think Japan(?) had jet programmes that started before the war begun.
True.
Only one made it.
th-cam.com/video/4N5lNOYlOb8/w-d-xo.html
World War Two JET POWER
I knew Blackburn was going to be on here.
Been watching videos about bad and/or unknown planes from WWII on Rex's Hangar and man, there are some bad ones. The most common cause seemed to be the military telling their engineers that they needed to use X engine and Y guns and have space for Z crew, which often times just didn't seem to be workable. =/
There are reasons for that. Commonality reduces supply problems.
The Blackburn roc not having a forward facing gun is like a stove that cannot turn up the heat
The ME 210 being so unstable is a shame, because I do think it’s very pretty.
And the Breda Ba88 would make a fantastic private racing plane. In dark blue maybe. Rebuilding one today would be really cool, as it’s a genuinely fantastic aircraft, and it looks absolutely gorgeous!
The Me-410 looks almost identical, and was generally liked by its crews. So the design eventually saw some success
@@landonboone9119 That is lovely! Thanks for telling me! ^^
Interesting thing is that at least 1 other country developed a rocket interceptor -- Soviet Union. However during testing they found out that it(designation BI) tended to become uncontrollable and dive down to the ground. They also experienced problems with fuel(or maybe oxidizer).
To be fair, idea may have not been completely dead, if Germans finished Ba-349 Natter it maybe could have been used successfully. Wasserfall missile was, however, a much more promising design.
Certainly you must include the Brewster Buffalo in any list of the worst airplanes of WWII.
One thing all of these planes have in common- they just look wrong, and that's putting it gently. They range from weird- the Komet with its fat, stubby fuselage and lack of horizontal stabilizers- to the hideously ugly, i.e. the Roc. Even without the benefit of hindsight, you would think the powers-that-be could have just looked at the Botha and said, "that's crap", and then looked at the Mosquito and said, "that's greatness".
For WWII yes. However the YF-92,F-102,F-106,B-58, and (I do not remember the number) Convair seaplane fighter all had no horizontal stabilizers. The B-2 has neither horizontal or vertical stabilizers. Technology has to begin somewhere.
The Brewster Buccaneer deserves to be on the list it was so bad that many of them were taken to target ranges to train navy and marine piolts right after coming off the assembly line
Ah, finally someone who evidently rehearses foreign names’ pronunciation. Well done!
In hindsight, the Comet might just have been used to protect the landing sites. Used a lesser dangerously fuel. It might be really good at dogfighting attacking planes at the AF. It could accelerate fast, turn fast, etc.
Muesli, dangerousli, you are neutral-li, areli youli? Realli?
My Grandad was a bit of a maverick pilot who dropped bombs on Germany during the war, it caused quite a stir during desert storm
The daftest design’s were the invisible ones from nation’s that didn’t contribute during the war & now sit back making insults
Your precious B29 spontaneously caught fire. More B29s crashed from mechanical failure than were shot at by the enemy.
Engine parts exposed to heat made of flammable Magnesium metal; a fire could shear off a wing.
It never saw combat so it shouldn't qualify, but the rocket powered Bachem Ba 349 Natter made the Me 163 look like a completely safe and sane design. Basically a surface to air missile with an expendable human as the guidance unit.
Or the Fieseler F103R. Basically a V1 flying bomb with a cockpit. The Nazis insisted that it wasn't a kamikaze because the pilot had a chance to bail out before impact, but the "chance" was virtually nonexistent, given that you needed to lift the canopy about 90 degrees to jettison it, but the canopy would get stuck against the pulse jet intake at around 65 degrees. Again, never saw service, but possibly deserving of a dishonourable mention.
The plane was expandable, the pilot was supposed to disconect the reusable cockpit from the tail section and glide to earth with it on a parachute
@@TotallyNotAFox Other way around. The most valuable part was the fuselage, specifically the rocket motor in it. The nose and front of the cockpit were completely expendable. The pilot, well, given how much though was put into keeping the pilot alive before the first (and only) manned test flight, they were definitely considered more expendable than the fuselage.
@@JonMartinYXDWhile it’s true that the fuselage was supposed to parachute down, the pilot was supposed to as well.
@@russman3787 Yes, but as I said, a lot more design effort was put into the rocket motor recovery than into pilot survivability.
You make the ME 210 sound like a genuine pleasure to fly. 😉
For once, a "worst ever" compilation I couldn't on the whole argue with. It would be interesting to see, though, just how many fatal landing accidents there really were involving the Komet (which from all accounts, such as Eric "Winkle" Brown, was a delightful thing to fly in gliding mode (though neither Britain nor the US ever dared to fly one under power)) compared, proportionally, with the Bf 109
Brown actually flew one under power; he had to leave a document behind relieving the German ground crew of responsibility if anything went wrong.
I was expecting a few more planes in this list, inlcuding with at least 1/each entry for US and Japan as well.
Edit: anyway, nice video. I love the dedication you have for these videos and please keep going with them.
The Breda 88 done badly as a warplane and good as a racing plane, yet the Supermarine S5 was only a racing plane and the Spitfire its offspring!
The Blackburn Roc was never in service with the RAF. It was a Fleet Air Arm aircraft.
High marks for not picking some of the favorite WWII bottom-five whipping boys such as the Boulton Paul Defiant and the Brewster Buffalo. One commenter suggested the Fairey Battle, certainly a worthy(?) contender. One criterion - did the type redeem itself in some way? By which I mean:
1. B-26 Marauder (suggested below) had a rocky start partially due to being designed for an engine that would never actually exist. (The Blackburn Botha has a similar issue.) A lot of training accidents (if you lost an engine at low level the plane was going in) but one of the lowest casualty rates of U.S. bombers in the the European theater and very successful with medium-altitude precision bombing of infrastructure targets in France.
2. Boulton Paul Defiant, the Blackburn Roc with a Rolls-Royce engine. Not so good against fighters it did achieve positive kill ratios as an interceptor and was rather successful as an early night fighter, also serving as one of the earliest ECM planes against the German Freya radar. Having substantially more power than the ROC it also did yeoman service as a target tug.
3. Brewster Buffalo, the Flying Beer Barrel. Not an airplane you would want to fly against experienced Japanese pilots. However, the Finns never got the word, achieving a 33:1 kill ratio against the Soviets. (OK, mostly against I-16s, not exactly state of the art.) In the U.S. the Buffalo did excellent service as an advanced trainer.
I would say your list satisfies this criterion.
The Boulton Paul Defiant was not a Roc with a Merlin engine but was a completely different design by a different company to a similar requirement. The Blackburn Roc was actually derived from the Blackburn Skua.
The Me 163 was actually loved by its crew despite all the problems such as dangerous fuel, bad landing dynamics and stuff. They know once you open the booster literally nothing can catch up. Nothing will out pace it or out climb it.
My worst 5 of WWII: (not in order of how bad)
1. Fairey Albacore (glorified Swordfish, outdated before even existed)
2. Fw 190D (an intention to make Fw 190A keep up with the faster enemy but ends up defeating the purpose of even using the Fw 190 design to begin with. It's only because the Fw 190 base design was sound enough that it ended up not appearing in many people's worst 5 lists.)
3. Me 262 bomber model. Seriously, the sole biggest fuckup Hitler gave the Luftwaffe for the entire war. Me 262 was supposed to be a fast fighter, but Hitler's obsession with bombing meant the Me 262 fighter model was delayed for nothing, and Allies was able to have happy bombing days for a few extra months.
4. Early P-38 (A through E). It's just so plagued with problems that the model started service with F model. And despite P-38 later became successful, I believe these early problems made the USAAF reluctant to think about further developments such as replacing that lackluster Allison V-1710 engine.
5. Zero fighter late model (A6M5 and beyond). just like Fw 190D, they tried to MLU an outdated model but ends up removing the model's original advantage. Should've opted for A7M (a new design that was nevertheless based on the zero) earlier.
The Me 262 was actually delayed because of the jet engine problem rather than someone demanding the development of an extremely advanced and complex tech like putting bomb on a plane. In fact it is the turbojet engine development and production (within certain economic constraints) that is the biggest obstacles of the German late-war jet problem, with more Me262 airframe built than engine was available.
@@sthrich635 read Angriffshoehe 4000 (de facto "official" Luftwaffe history), it outlined all the reasons why Me 262was delayed. Engine problem was ironed out early, and it's generally due to the Luftwaffe's short-sightedness and Hitler's bomber requirements that delayed it to the date we knew.
@@borisglevrk Go watch The 'Real' Reason(s) Why The Me 262 Had Bombs on YT, it is more recent history that cover what actually delayed 262, and just because a history is official doesnt mean it is necessarily correct. Ever hear of the "clean Wehrmacht myth", it comes from the "official" Wehrmacht history.
The ME262 was supposed to be designed as fighter bomber from the start. A lesser designer might not have survived ignoring that and design a fighter instead. Repurposing it to a bomber was bound to be bad. Also the original design featured a tail wheel. That puts the CG a little too far aft for carrying bombs under the nose.
I'm sorry, while confidently stating that the Botha "had no rear facing windows" we see a picture of one with a rear facing turret with what looks like a gun barrel poking out of it. It would seem the primary issue that condemned this aeroplane was in fact that it had awful control function. Took you most of the commentary to get to that when it is the crux of the issue.
I couldn't help but notice a theme with a couple of these designs: It was suggested the program should be cancelled, but the Chairborn Warriors said no. So for some of these, it was bad bureaucracy, because the people designing the aircraft ALREADY KNEW the design wasn't going to work.
I’m betting kickbacks and outright bribes were in the mix as well.
@@tennesseewilliams101 My Father used to work for Lockheed (before that "other" company merged with them, and actually a bit after). Obviously, they worked overseas. When you work overseas, bribery is just a fact of life. Lockheed, being a forthright and reasonably honest company, had a budget item labeled "Bribes". Some ass-hat moralist in Washington found out, and they caught all kinds of hell for it. Probably went under "entertainment" or some shit like everyone else did.
Eric Brown described the Komet as by far the most dangerous aircraft he'd ever flown.
Blackburn "ROC" pilots: "In your race for power and glory, you forgot one small detail..."
Blackburn Aeroplane Company: "We forgot to install forward firing weapons!"
Blackburn "ROC" pilots: "You forgot to install forward firing weapons."
Same with the Defiant, which was decimated during the Battle of Britain, but was quite effective as an interim night-fighter.
@@johncartwright8154 I want to make sure I got this straight, you're telling me at least two British war-planes were built without forward firing weapons?
@@skyden24195 Yes. No-one in Britain in the mid-1930s envisaged that such a strong nation with the largest armed forces in Europe as France was would collapse so quickly in the inevitable forthcoming conflict.
It was presumed that bombers would have to fly long distances to British targets and would therefore not have fighter escort due to the short endurance of Luftwaffe fighters of the time, even the much vaunted Bf110 didn't have the range. Therefore it was assumed that the turret interceptor would fly in the bomber's blind spot and shoot them down with impunity unassailable by enemy fighters.
@@skyden24195 as were some American research not dumb comments
I had expected the widow maker to make an appearance, although I know virtually nothing about it. But with a name like that, it sounds list worthy. I expected to see a few American planes in the list, considering how many US pilots died in training.
The B-26 Martin Marauder was nicknamed that, not because it flew bad, or handled badly, it was the first operational bomber with laminar flow wings and trainee pilots weren't used to the higher landing speed the type of wing required. Once pilots were taught how to land at a higher speed, the aircraft became very popular and had one of the best sortie to loss ratios
How many Americans died in training...? Tell us.
@@rayjames6096 15 thousand according to google
@@Acousticmf123 In the 1940s few people had even been in an airplane and WWII was immense, the US produced over 300K aircraft during WWII and the AAF grew to be huge. All air forces had similar high training fatalities if taken into scale.
@@rayjames6096 i dont exactly see what this means it dosent matter if you had more planes than everyone else its either your a good or bad pilot if your a bad pilot you might crash and die while you are right that every country had similar deaths 15000 pilots dying is still plenty
The Brewster Buffalo was by itself one of the worst airplane designs ever inflicted upon the US military. It also was a flop in the RAF, RAAF, Dutch and Belgian Air Forces, often bested by the more nimble fighters of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy; however, it must be added that it wasn't a total loss, as it was redeemed in Finnish service.
How?
As it turns out, the aircraft was riddled with excess weight in nearly all the versions sold, except for the one bought by Finland. Gear normally demanded by naval use was not fitted, but it was ale to carry four machine guns instead of the standard two in US Navy employ. A more powerful engine, specifically required to run on 87 octane fuel, was installed - one that the Finns were able to improve by inverting one piston ring in each cylinder, something that improved its reliability. A fortunate advantage was provided by Finland's weather - the aircraft's engine easily exceeded its recommended temperature in warm climates, but the frigid temperatures encountered in the Northern latitudes prevented it from overheating. Before it was replaced, the Brewster - never called "Buffalo" there - enjoyed a kill-loss ratio of 26:1 against warplanes of the Soviet Air Force.
The Me 163 "Komet" was intended to be a point-defense interceptor. Its designers knew full well not only of how dangerous it was in its fuel/oxidizer mix, but also that inherently it had but a VERY short duration of powered flight. The tactic was simple: get up to altitude, quickly, turn about, and dive in with the sun at your back to pounce upon the Allied bombers with a one-shot pass. Its closing speed would be so fast that neither accompanying P-51s or P-38s, or the gunners on the B-17s and/or B-24s, had a chance to engage it, but the same great speed also hampered the aerial gunnery of the Komet's pilot. By then, of course, usually the rocket interceptor was already out of fuel, so once it'd made its pass; that was it, back to base. Being that it had to make it back to the airfield "dead stick", it couldn't maneuver if bounced by AAF fighters, and as it got on final approach to its airfield, its speed was much slower, leaving it a sitting duck, and then the aircraft, if it got down safely and skidded to a halt (yes, NO WHEELS), it had to be picked up by the airfield tug. Meanwhile, of course, it was a tempting target to any AAF fighters or fighter-bombers like the P-47.
hanna reish flew the 163 4 times..and a german pilot destroyed 3 american bombers on his first mission!
Core problem for many German designs was the inability to deliver high-powered engines in a small form factor. The Allies had monsters like the the Sabre, Centaurus, Double-Wasp and Duplex-Cyclone (among others), while Germany was still trying to make the Jumo 222 work when the war ended.
Always enjoy your videos dude, keep it up!
I've seen that the Messerschmitt 109 was a nightmare to land and cost a lot of lives. You would think that as a plane in combat from 1936 to 1945 they would have sorted it out. When the Russians got Hurricanes they thought them absolutely terrible. Some even got a gunner facing backwards. The great plane, the B29 cost three billion dollars (nukes two) and was a nightmare at first.
The initial big problem with the B29 was engine fires at high altitudes. Once these problems were sorted things improved. The Breda airplane reminds me of similar problems encountered with the Bristol Blenheim, initially built as a high speed mail carrier faster than many fighters of its day (1936), the Blenheim suffered reduced performance when fitted with real-world levels of military equipment and payload and also a 2 gun turret.
Blackburn seem to be plagued with ugly designs and slow performers. The Skua wasn't much better than the Roc. Adm Ramsey, mentioned in the video was much more famous as the naval leader of Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Dunkirk.
Planes with narrow track landing gear like the 109 had a habit of ground looping. The reason for the narrow track was so the gear could be attached to the fuselage directly instead of the wings, but it certainly had drawbacks.
The Spitfire had exactly the same problem with its narrow wheel base landing and taking off, but to claim that "lots of lives were lost" is just silly.
(34000 of the 109s were built.)
The narrow wheel base had an advantage when built and also when transported on trains wings detached.
The FW-190 perhaps the best propeller driven fighter of WW2 had that problem fixed.
th-cam.com/video/9QycCd3U4Hg/w-d-xo.html
Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Pt. 1, design philosophy and features.
@@hurri7720 Wheel track not wheelbase. But yes they were difficult to land,, one crashed on landing very recently. Though from most observations an excellent plane otherwise
@@ldnwholesale8552 , yes of course but it wasn't something the Germans didn't know and Tank got that right with the Fw 190 but the downside where the advantages in production and transportation the 109 had.
The Me210/410 had a difficult development time, too many roles to fulfill and late war long range single engine fighters made the Zerstoerer concept obsolete (but they were very effective bomber destroyers), but to call it one of the worst aircraft in WW2 is the usual internet hype. It is all about the history in 3 seconds approach which simplifies everything to click bait sound bites, over simplification and eventually dumbing down of people. The Me163 is another good example. This aircraft was pushing the edge of what possible in WW2. It was an extreme design for a single purpose, point defense intercepting bombers at high altitude. Was it practical, not really, was it dangerous to operate, absolutely. However desperate times call for desperate measures and some developments are more practical than others, but you only know if you try. The concept was not unique, nor was the design without its merit, it was however not practical and clearly the jet engine was the way to go forward. As a program it may have been a failure, but it was a fascinating part of aviation history. Again to call it one of the worst aircraft in WW2 is ignoring a plethora of other aircraft, many of which are unknown to most people. What exactly makes “a worst aircraft”?
No mention of two USN aircraft, that I think should have made the list. They are the F2A "Buffalo" fighter, and the TBD "Devestator" torpedo bomber. While the former did see some success in the hands of the Finns, elsewhere, it was outclassed and outfought. The Devestator was obsolete by the time the war started, and was dead meat for Zeros.
Devastators saw their greatest glory during the battle of Coral Sea the hen they sank a Japanese light carrier, most of the devastators in the inventory were lost at Midway. I believe there is one surviving devastator that was pulled out of Lake Michigan and restored.
I think the Ba-88 suffered the same problems as the Buffalo, for instance: too much weight for too weak a power unit. Only, cubed! By the way, my compliments on your italian pronounciation. Had you said "ottantotto" instead of "eighty eight" i would have been all the more surprised! Fine vid, well done and thank you!
Did Blackburn ever produce a good plane?
Actually did bouton Paul ever make a good aircraft either
Yes think the Buccaneer was pretty desent, it was a 1960s era navel strike aircraft highly manoeuvrable by all accounts.Not sure it was ever tested in combat though.
@@scottessery100 The Defiant was a very good plane.
@@voivod6871 the Buccaneers saw action in the Gulf War.
@@voivod6871 Buccaneer S Mk 1 was an underpowered dog!!! The S Mk 2 with the RR Spey was OK, but the Nav Attack system was pretty much day light only unless you were lobbing a Nuke (which is why it had the S for Strike designation). Nav Attack system on the A-6 Intruder was streets ahead. RAF found out the hard way that operating it over land at low level was not as easy on the aircraft as Blackburn claimed when wings started falling of 12 year old aircraft in 1980. One squadron had to be disbanded as a quarter of the fleet were found to be beyond economical repair. As for combat, South Africa used them to fight various wars and the RAF used them at Medium level in Gulf War One to provide Daylight laser designation for Paveway II LGB's dropped from Tornados and themselves.
Comet endurance 5 minutes under power. 7 seconds is inaccurate.
The worst German fighters/interceptor concept to fly would probably be the Bachem Ba349 Natter.
It actually flew successfully in unmanned trials. Unfortunately, in the one manned trial it did, one of the rockets failed causing it to lawn dart into the ground.
You missed mentioning one of the Komet's other truly lovely features: not only was its fuel (a mix of "T-stof" and "C-stof") highly explosive, it was so acidic that it would literally DISSOLVE ITS PILOT if it leaked, which records show actually happened. Ugghh.
Bro I for sure thought the he-162 would have made this list lol ITS LITTERLY WOOD GLUED TOGETHER AND A JET ENGINE WELDED ONTOP