A flaw in the dsign, the 15 worst planes ever made.

[The Great Saiyaman]

Okay, let's be honest, for every successful design, there is a far larger amount of duds. The Supermarine Spitfire for example was a very successful plane but in the annals of Supermarine aviation it was a very notable exception because subsequent fighter planes by Supermarine such as the Spiteful, Seafang, Attacker, Swift and Scimitar were hampered by bad designs and stability ssues.

But as bad as those were, they weren't the worst planes by far.

Here's my Top fifteen of the worst ever planes, in both designs and attitude behind their creation.

So fasten your seat belts, remember the instructions you got from the flight attendants on keeping yourself safe and hope you'll never have to fly in one of these.

First up

Number 15. The Tupolev Tu-144 "Charger"

The Press were against this majestic looking plane from day one, dubbing it "Concorski" because of how similar it looked to its Anglo-French made counterpart. In addition it was also revealed that it was insufficiently sound proof, suffered frequent cabin depressurization problems and that its engines were unreliable and not very economic. That it actually flew faster than the Concorde and established world records that to this day remain unbroken was deliberately overlooked.

It was that very same attitude which also decided this plane's fate, when the Tu-144 appeared on the Paris airshow in 1973, the time allotted by the French authorities for the Charger to do its demonstration flight was cut in half and there was a covert recon plane ready to film the while demonstration flight in full so that the boffins could later study the footage on how the plane flew.

The crew of the Charger of course were none the wiser, they took off did the routine but as they gained altitude for their display flight, came in visual contact with the recon plane and nearly collided with it, the pilot did a desperate evasive maneuver and in doing so lost control of the aircraft which crashed in a suburb, killing several including the crew.

Fearing an international incident, the French and Russian authorities made a deal in which the whole thing was covered up and the Official report was that the Charger crashed due to mechanical failure. Of course the press had a field day with that and the general trust in the Charger was forever tarnished.

Number 14. The Avia S-199 Mezek

It is one of aviation's greatest ironies that the Messerschmitt BF-109 would fly with the Israeli Air Force, brandishing Stars of David where Swastikas used to be. Except, they weren't really. Because what they actually flew were Czech made Avia S-199 Mezek fighter which were license built BF-109G-10 models but fitted with a different engine.

Now when Messerschmitt came up with the BF-109F "Friedrich" model, they hit on the winning formula, the fuselage was sleek, the aerodynamics were top notch. Everything added would only spoil perfection. But when the Friedrich began to face more advanced allied planes, it was painfully obvious that without a serious update, the type would not stand a chance. Enter the BF-109G "Gustav" which was the most built version of the type which included versions made in Spain as the Hispano 1110 Tripala and 1112 Buchon and in Czechoslovakia as the S-99.

When a fire destroyed the inventory of Daimler-Benz DB-605 engines, the Czech decided to use the more powerful Junkers engines they had for their Heinkel He-111 bombers, creating the S-199 but in doing so made the sore point that they were actually dealing with a plane which had long since passed its sell by date even more apparent.

Because the S-199 basically was still using the "Friedrich" construction and the plane wasn't designed to deal with the forces generated from the Junkers engine, many S-199 crashed during take off, when the sheer torque of the Junkers would flip the plane upside down.

And as for that name "Mezek?" Well it's Czech for "Mule" on account on how stubborn and unforgiving the plane was to fly.

Number 13. The Yakovlev Yak-38 "Forger"

Now if the name "Forger" isn't a clue, I don't know what else is. But the Yak-38 fulfilled the same role as the Hawker Siddeley Harrier and also looked very similar, which is something that the press immediately latched onto.

But the Yak-38 is a very different beast indeed, different from the Harrier it wasn't powered by a single engine which provided vectored thrust. In fact it actually had three engines which included two smaller jets just behind the cockpit for lift while the main engine had swiveling nozzles like on a Harrier.

So far so good but why is this plane in this list?

The Forger’s engines had difficult performing in high temperatures, the heat from the lift jets rapidly damaged takeoff surfaces and kicked up tremendous dust that clogged engine intakes. In the end, the Yak-38 simply lacked the range and weapons load. Having mentioned the Engines, if one of the lift engines failed, it upset the balance so bad it would crash the plane. So to make sure no pilots lost their lives when that happened the Forger was fitted with an automatic ejection seat which fired when the plane when in hover mode keeled forwards by 60 degrees. Which although well intended, sometimes made that during take off some perfectly fine planes crashed when all of a sudden their pilot was gone.

When the Sea Harrier turned out to be as successful as it was during the Falklands war, the Soviets were keen to prove that their own VTOL fighter was equally as good if not better and dispatched the Forger to Afghanistan, with disastrous results. It was a sitting duck and very easily shot out of the sky.

The Yak-38 Forged on (Pun intended) to 1991 and was withdrawn from service but by that time a third of all 231 units made had been lost in accidents.

Well then, from one VTOL plane to another...

Number 12. The SNECMA Coléoptère

Bar none one of the weirdest looking planes ever made. In the 1950's everybody and their grandmother had the idea that a VTOL plane should lift off like a rocket, the Ryan Verti-jet, the Lockheed Salmon and the Convair Pogo. But none of them were as strange as the French made Coléoptère (Beetle) where people decided to forgo the traditional wing and gave it an all round wing design which encapsulated the back half of the fuselage.
The picture dramatically shows the all round wing design.

The Coléoptère made eight flights in which the plane basically went up and down, reaching at height of a respectable 800 m (2,625 ft) before the pilot had to very gently release the throttle and brought the plane back down. It was decided that with the ninth flight, the pilot would try horizontal flight. But with insufficient instrumentation and a lack of visual benchmarks the aircraft became too inclined and too slow to maintain altitude. The Pilot managed to escape but the plane cashed, a second example was never finished as the French decided that it was not worth the effort.

Number 11. The Granville Brothers Gee Bee Racer.
It's just so clearly a plane of its day, the Gee Bee was a 1930's plane and it shows so clearly.


The Gee Bee was designed for speed, air racing was something new in those days and the Gee Bee was going to be the fastest of them all. You take an fuselage which is as light as possible, fit an engine as big as possible, reduce as much drag as possible and just look what it does!

A warning in advance, this is not footage for the faint of heart...

When it comes to being difficult to fly, the Gee Bee is up there as one of the worst ever planes to take to the sky.


Number 10: The Brewster F2/B-339 Buffalo

The Buffalo was the first monoplane to enter service as a carrier borne fighter with the US Navy, who quickly found out that it was completely useless. But as time would show, the outbreak of the second world war gave Brewster aviation a whole slew of Customers as many air forces around the world needed fighter planes. And the Buffalo was readily available and sold in their thousands.

But in combat, the de-rated Wright Cyclone engines were prone to overheating, the plane was under powered and the machine guns were prone to jamming. Many pilot lucky enough to have survived a dogfight against a Japanese Zero would often shout in frustration at his own plane.

In Finland however, that wasn't the case, the Arctic conditions of the country remedied the overheating problem and the pilots deemed it a pleasant flyer.

But yeah, despite not being totally useless, in overall the Brewster Buffalo earned its place in this list.

That was part one...

[The Great Saiyaman]

And here's part two of our count down of disasters with wings attached.

Number 9. The Baade 152

The very first German made jet airliner and as it stands the only East-German made airliner is actually the very last plane to have been designed at what was once the famous Junkers factory.

The Baade had a striking resemblance to the Boeing B-47 stratojet bomber in both its lay out, shoulder decker configuration, bicycle under carriage and use of twin engines in a single pod. It was being marketed to supply airliners with a cutting edge plane which would replace the aging propliners and bring the DDR into the modern age.

This promotion video for the Baade 152 starts with the words "Fast", "Safe" and "Adequate", words which as it turns out, the plane itself was not living up to. It was unstable to fly and a persistent problem with the fuel pipes led the prototype to crash during its second flight.

With only three made, the Baade 152 never lived up to expectations and with the Soviet made Tupolev Tu-124 "Cookpot" in good supply, was deemed redundant straight away.

Number 8. The De Havilland DH-106 Comet

Or "Here-is-why-you-should-not-design-a-jetliner-using-propliner-technology" This particular one is the last remaining complete example of the first version of the Comet. The very last one with the square windows which made it that the fuselage would tear open in mid flight because of metal fatigue.

Sadly, that happened after the plane had been sold in quite some numbers to several airlines. Later versions of the Comet rectified that issue and the plane itself actually flew until the eighties but for many, the De Havilland Comet will always remain a failure.

Oh and that picture, if you're a Top Gear fan, there's an Easter egg with the spitfire standing in front of it...

Number 7. The Curtis SB2C Helldiver

Now you KNOW you've got a dog on your hand when a professor of aeronautical engineering declares you crazy if you actually build more of them when wind tunnel testing revealed inherent issues with the plane's overall balance and stability. Even more so if that plane was meant as a dive bomber where balance and Stability are the KEY features.

But because the US Navy was in short supply of Dive Bombers to replace the obsolete Douglas SBD Dauntless, Curtiss got the order to start mass producing the SB2C, basically they were bought sight unseen.

It came back to haunt them in a very real way. The SB2C required more than what the rookie pilots could even hope to supply and many found their death in landing accidents. Both the pilots and the carrier crews began to hate the "Son of a B!*$# second class" because of its instability issues and high accident rate.

One man who had their profound sympathy was famed English test pilot Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown, who tested the Helldiver for the Royal Navy and declared that it was unfit to fulfill the task it was designed for in the first place. Brown even went as far as never going near an aircraft carrier in a Helldiver.

Number 6. The Fisher P-75 Eagle

Proof that even when you mix up some excellent aircraft together, it doesn't mean that you will end up with a winner.

The P-75 had the fuselage of a Douglas SBD dauntless, married to the wings of a P-51 Mustang, the undercarriage of a Chance-Vought F-4U Corsair and the cockpit of a Bell P-39 Airacobra. It was meant as a long range escort fighter but when tested against already in service designs fell hopelessly short of expectation. It was too large, too heavy and not nearly nimble enough to fulfill what it was designed to do in the first place.

Still, it has its looks going for it and that contra rotating propeller is just the coolest.

Number 5. The Royal Aircraft factory B.E.9

Ah, the first world war, the very first military conflict in which air power was employed. The first role those planes fulfilled was aerial reconnaissance But the design of the planes themselves didn't really lend itself for that purpose because with the big engine in front and the big wings at both sides of the cockpit left very little place for the photographer to get his camera out and take pictures the way he was supposed to do.

So the solution was to add a gondola in front of the engine and put the navigator, photographer in there: problem solved, he now had an unobstructed view of the battlefield. But was also in constant peril of being sucked into the spinning propeller or crushed to death if the aircraft did a nose up landing. With only one example built, the project was deemed too dangerous and abandoned.

But the story doesn't end there because apparently the French thought otherwise and developed the SPAD S.A-2 which used the same configuration.
It was an unpopular plane on account of the same flaws that the Brits had long since identified.

Number 4. The McDonell XF-85 Goblin.

Don't you guys love that juxtaposition with the humble Bumblebee, which according to common laws of physics shouldn't be able to fly and yet it DOES.

The XF-85 was meant to be taken on board a B36 bomber as its own fighter protection. It was a good idea but a flawed one because the Goblin was difficult to fly and because it had no internal landing gear of its own, no way of landing it, otherwise then just hooking it back up to its mother ship bomber which brought it back to earth. There was no way this concept was ever going to be practical.

Number 3. The De Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle.
We have all read those comics of super heroes using jet packs to fly into action, it is a cool idea and it has people experimenting to achieve just that. In the 1950s, the U.S. Army thought that having their infantryman hover into battle was the right thing to do. Not with jet packs, but on a one-person helicopter.

Right, you probably see where this is going: a TINY platform on which the soldier going into battle is standing on and four inches below that platform are twin spinning blades. It gives a horrifying new meaning to the word "Chopper"

Number 2. The Christmas Bullet

This is what you get when somebody who has no experience in aeronautical science figures "How hard can it be?" and designs a plane.

It was designed by Dr. William Christmas who had his own very specific idea on how the wings of a plane should flex with the wind the way nature is also flexing birds' wings as they fly, as such the Bullet was designed to be without the reinforcing struts which give Wings their strength.

Only two Bullets were ever made, both of them crashing during the maiden flights when their wing designs came apart and in both cases costing the lives of the pilots.

Now among aircraft enthusiasts, the Christmas bullet is the worst ever plane but I argue that there is a worse one and not just because of it being a failed design but also because it was involved in a scandal and all being masterminded by somebody who should have known better.

Well, here we are, the one you've all been waiting for...

Number 1: The Langley Aerodrome A.

A very dramatic picture of Samuel Langley's attempt at achieving powered flight gone wrong. Langley was a curator for the Smithsonian museum had a bit of an ego to match, so when he learned about the Wright Brothers trying to create a motorized airplane he was dead set on beating them at the punch. He got backing from the Army and set out to work. But Langley used the wing designs of Otto Lillienthal of which the Wright brothers had discovered were flawed, they would NEVER work for powered flight. As such, Langley's plane was never capable of flying.

But big headed as he was, Langley argued with the Wrights that his plane WAS capable of flying and thus HE should be in the Smithsonian as the first man who achieved powered flight and to prove it he brought out his prototype to another rival of the Wrights, Glenn Curtis who flew it, taking away the title from the Wrights.

But not that much later, it was revealed that Langley had Curtis rebuild the wings completely incorporating Curtis' modifications to the Wrights wing design which made it airworthy and after the flight had the old wing reattached again. In short, he cheated. It took until 1942 before a court ruled against the Smithsonian and the Wright brothers were rightfully reinstated as the pioneers they were.

So because of being a plane which never could have successfully flown and then being used in a ruse to take away the credit from the people who truly deserved it. Langley Aerodrome A. is the number one worst plane ever.

[Leo656]

You missed one...



.........I, uh... I don't know anything about planes. ((Leaves quietly))