Military Aircraft that should have never been built?

S. Marlowski

S. Marlowski

What is some military aircraft that should've never entered service. (Though awful prototypes are welcomed as dishonorable mentions, but aircraft that have actually entered service is going to be the main focus here.)

My list are the:
Blackburn Roc - An airplane which was the wrong concept applied to the wrong airframe.
MiG-23 - A supersonic fighter aircraft that turned out to be inferior to the MiG-21, a plane that it was supposed to replace.
Me-410 - The fighter that might've been great in concept, but failed due to it being designed to do way too many things at once.
 

tomo pauk

S. Marlowski said:
What is some military aircraft that should've never entered service.
...
My list are the:
Blackburn Roc - An airplane which was the wrong concept applied to the wrong airframe.
MiG-23 - A supersonic fighter aircraft that turned out to be inferior to the MiG-21, a plane that it was supposed to replace.
Me-410 - The fighter that might've been great in concept, but failed due to it being designed to do way too many things at once.
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Roc - certainly, along with Blackburn Botha.
MiG-21 was apaling in BVR fight, and had no combat radius worth speaking about. MiG-23 versions that were trashed by Israel were mostly dumbed-down export versions with avionics and missiles from MiG-21, without support from from own C3I network (credit to Israelis here).
About Me-410: yes, kill it, even better kill the Me 210 before it.

Italians - Ba.88.
Japan - Ki-45 (28 cylinders to carry one cannon??)
USA - B-26, P-63.
UK - Defiant, Albacore.
Germany - He 177.
USSR - I'm so tempted with Il-2...
Poland -PZL P.24 (make a proper fighter instead, so there is something to replace the ancient P.11s and P.7s); PZL.23 Karas (again - make fighters, and then more fighters)
 

Ramontxo

Donor
Whoever designed the He-177 with the two engines in a single nacelle* merits a Victory Cross and a Order of Lenin.
Edited to add that the free world was very lucky they didn't got Fairey engineers to do the job

* (wiki says that was done to enable the big bomber to dive bomb, really? I mean a bloody big bomber diving? Surely not even them could be such fools that must be a mistake...)
 
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westwoodlans

to throw a hand grenade into to this thread My candidate is the TSR 2 if it hadn't been built it would not have become the mystical what if of the UK aviation industry. Adequate engine in a totally sub standard Airframe, that for some reason has become the totem for dreamers
 

Pseudo

westwoodlans said:
to throw a hand grenade into to this thread My candidate is the TSR 2 if it hadn't been built it would not have become the mystical what if of the UK aviation industry. Adequate engine in a totally sub standard Airframe, that for some reason has become the totem for dreamers
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The expense of it could well have killed the British combat aircraft industry too. TSR 2 would have meant no Tornado, so no Panavia and likely as not no Eurofighter following the on from it.
 
BlackDragon98

BlackDragon98

Banned
I much as it hurts me to say this...
Me 163
It was cool, but a technological blind alley that consumed money and resources at a time when Germany could not afford to squander either.
 

Bougnas

The Morane-Saulnier MS 406.
This 1935 French fighter aircraft was exactly one of the things WW2 France shouldn't have had. While performance was somewhat acceptable for 1935 when it was procured, the fact that mass production was delayed until 1939, mainly due to an extremely archaic construction (as is, very artisanal to produce) that didn't lend itself to industrial manufacturing, meant that it was effectively obsolete before it even entered service.
Moreover it didn't receive any improvements in the meantime which meant that it was plagued with aerodynamic nightmares, such as a mobile radiator that had to be recessed to get to high speeds but then caused the engine to quickly overheat, meaning it could only be fast for a short time (and by fast we are talking about 445kph tops, far from the claimed but completely wrong 486kph figure). And while agility was good, it had a terrible climb rate (sometimes lower than modern French light bombers), and weapon controls had a tendency to freeze at high altitude due to appalling hydraulics.

Overall, the aircraft was completely unsuited to 1940 Armée de l'Air's needs in its state, and what is worse is that it was chosen over the perfectly capable Loire-Nieuport 161 which could achieve more than twice the climb rate, had better range, could exceed 500kph with the same engine, was very maneuverable and easy to fly, and most importantly had a design suited for mass production. The sole reasons it was not chosen is that it crashed once, mostly because it landed (and stalled) at higher speeds than the Morane (mainly because the latter was such a brick) and the pilot made a mistake. The radiators had some issues too but that could perfectly have been fixed well before the Morane entered service had it received priority.
 

riggerrob

Westland Lysander was a hopelessly complex effort at building an airplane when the job (artillery spotting) could be done equally well by a simple Piper Cub, Taylorcraft, Auster, etc.
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
The B-1 Lancer. By the time Reagan ordered it into production, it had already become clear that stealth was the way forward. It did nothing that the B-52 couldn't (the supersonic speed has proven worse than useless in service) and the B-2 was already in development at the time production started on the BONE. Massive waste of resources
 

Bougnas

SsgtC said:
The B-1 Lancer. By the time Reagan ordered it into production, it had already become clear that stealth was the way forward. It did nothing that the B-52 couldn't (the supersonic speed has proven worse than useless in service) and the B-2 was already in development at the time production started on the BONE. Massive waste of resources
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Wasn't Reagan somewhat overspending on shiny new toys and capabilities the US did not really need or want? With the B1 Lancer and the story of the 600-Ship Navy and Iowa refurbishments this sounds like this to me.
Sadly he also cancelled the US Roland which was just entering service. Not that it wasn't becoming really expensive because of serious goldplating but it was something that worked and was a definite upgrade over the Chaparral it was supposed to replace, offered greater commonality with European air defense systems and offered valuable information the Euros used to upgrade their own Rolands. Wish he spent part of the money of those ridiculous projects to fund the 500 Roland systems the US procured.
 
S. Marlowski

S. Marlowski

And here's another plane
Mitsubishi_G4M_captured_on_ground_1945.jpg

The G4M Betty bomber, aka the flying cigar.
 
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Orcbuster

SsgtC said:
The B-1 Lancer. By the time Reagan ordered it into production, it had already become clear that stealth was the way forward. It did nothing that the B-52 couldn't (the supersonic speed has proven worse than useless in service) and the B-2 was already in development at the time production started on the BONE. Massive waste of resources
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Still cheaper to operate than the B-52 though.
 

DougM

The Super Hornet. Just build a new fighter or bomber without the restriction of making it look like the older aircraft.
Also pitch the one plan does it all out the window, As other then maintenance issues you would be better off with updated modern version of the aircraft it was designed to replace,
 

riggerrob

Armstrong Albemarle bomber.
There was nothing seriously wrong with the Albemarle, but it never really progressed beyond a its Mark 1 version. Since it could not out-perform its Wellington predecessor, it was soon relegated to minor roles like towing gliders and dropping paratroopers ten at a time. British paratroopers were so hard up for airplanes that they took anything available. Sadly, Albemarle retained the hideous belly hatch of first generation British jump planes.

The Albemarle prototype made its first flight at the same time as the NAA B-25 Mitchel medium bomber. With American factories cranking out better-performing B-25s by the thousands, there was little need for Albemarles The same British wood-workers - who built Albemarle wings - would have been better employed gluing wings for Mosquitos.
 
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