10 Worst British aircraft designs

[MigBuster 2,884]

If you want something done slowly, expensively and possibly very well, you go to the British. While Britain created the immortal Spitfire, Lancaster and Edgley Optica, it also created a wealth of dangerous, disgraceful and diabolical designs. These are just ten plucked from a shortlist of thirty.  In defining ‘worst’- we’ve looked for one, or a combination, of the following: design flaws, conceptual mistakes, being extremely dangerous, being unpleasant to fly, or obsolete at the point of service entry (and the type must have entered service). Grab a cup of tea, and prepare for ire as you read about ten machines they wanted your dad, grandad or great granddad to fly to war.

 

 

http://hushkit.net/2016/03/02/the-ten-worst-british-military-aircraft/

[Spinners 15,986]

Weird how the Swift is pictured but doesn't make the list. I agree about the Tornado ADV (I'd lump the F2 and F3 together) but a shame to see the Scimitar and Sea Vixen on there. I'd save them and put the Defiant and Battle in there.

[+Trotski 936]

Yup there are some horrors in there for sure the Roc was awful, as awful as the defiant , until that stalwart was made a night fighter, where it was quite successful , I never ever liked the Tornado, at all, we should have bought F-16's , used to see Beverlys quite a lot as a kid as I lived on RAF Lyneham , so all the transport command aircraft came through there, the Javelin, may have been a bit crap, but it did stay in service for 12 years, and crap or not, its a cool looking aircraft......We on the other side of the coin has some superb aircraft too, the Buccaneer, the Spey engined F4 the Hunter, the Jaguar, the Lightning, to name but a few, I guess every country has its fair share of howlers.

[fallenphoenix1986 603]

 

 

a worse bomber than the Buccaneer - the Scimitar

 

Hardly surprising since the Buccaneer was designed specifically  to replace the Scimitar... its almost as shocking as an F-22 being superior to the F-15 

 

As for the late entry to service of the Sea Vixen that was political more than technical... Javelin on he other hand... why the RAF went for the "Harmonious-Dragmaster" over the DH-110 I will never know, the Javelin being inferior in every respect.

 

Craig

[+Trotski 936]

wonder if it had anything to do with the Farnbrough disaster ?  Also were procurements different for the RAF and the FAA......there was a lot of political wrangling going on at the time too the Labour Government of the time wasn't very Forces friendly. TSR2 scrapped etc. plus I guess there was some amount of competition between British aircraft companies and the American ones as well, so that may have caused a few issues as well......Didn't we aquire the Phantom as a stop gap ? and look how long the Rhino served in both the FAA and the RAF.

[BlitzGreek 34]

 Where are the Venom and Viper....those were ugly..also the Lightning is as ugly as can be  ..but i guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder ?  

P.S. The Tornado is a beauty ..all of them

Edited March 21, 2016 by BlitzGreek

[+Trotski 936]

its got nothing to do with looks....the F4 Phantom was even called a double ugly, and look what a great aircraft it was, Tornado was ok as an attack aircraft, but it was crap as a fighter, especially compared to the likes of the F-15 and 16, and the Mig 29 & Su-27 s as for being a beauty.......errr...no.....the Jag was a beauty, the Bucc was, the Tornado was all fin and nothing else.......The Lightning was never ugly...Brutal yes, ugly no...and what pray is a Viper ? unless you mean the F-16 so the article is about the actual aircraft and how pants they were, and nothing at all to do with how poncy they looked....Just sayin'

[+streakeagle 871]

Absolutely brutal article. But it is hard to argue the history of any aircraft that kills many of its pilots or incapable of performing its intended mission or any other mission for that matter. I still generally love all airplanes and especially fighter planes, even if they aren't always pretty or successful.

[+Gunrunner 314]

I can't fathom how the Sea Vixen made the list yet they failed to include the Attacker...

 

I heard a joke about the Attacker's only strength being how fast it was, so fast it was out of service almost as soon as it entered it.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Gunrunner

[jeanba 1,920]

About the Tornado as well as some Mirage 2000 radars, it must be noted that the french were responsible for the delay :

This is all about Vladimir Vetrov, a soviet spy who worked for the french, better known as Farewell :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Vetrov

 

He gave info on all the technologies spied by the soviet, including the FoxHunetr and RDI Radars (in a french TV show, we could explicitly see references to them), so they had to redesign completly the radar

[MigBuster 2,884]

 Where are the Venom and Viper....those were ugly..also the Lightning is as ugly as can be  ..but i guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder ?  

P.S. The Tornado is a beauty ..all of them

Do you mean the DH Vampire?

Yup there are some horrors in there for sure the Roc was awful, as awful as the defiant , until that stalwart was made a night fighter, where it was quite successful , I never ever liked the Tornado, at all, we should have bought F-16's , used to see Beverlys quite a lot as a kid as I lived on RAF Lyneham , so all the transport command aircraft came through there, the Javelin, may have been a bit crap, but it did stay in service for 12 years, and crap or not, its a cool looking aircraft......We on the other side of the coin has some superb aircraft too, the Buccaneer, the Spey engined F4 the Hunter, the Jaguar, the Lightning, to name but a few, I guess every country has its fair share of howlers.

 

Totally unaware of the Beverly have to say and interesting we have ended up with pretty much a twin engine F-16.

[+Trotski 936]

_{Yes the RAF were using several types at the time in Transport Command, the Beverly, the Argosy ( whistling wheelbarrow ) the Andover , the Britannia, and the Belfast, also the Comet 2 and 4 the Beverly was phased out once we started re equipping with the C130 also the Argosy went too, the Belfast stayed in service until around 1977 I do remember my Father who was a Flight engineer on Britannias praying not to be posted on to a Herc Squadron, as he disliked the C130 for some reason, I never did find out why, So after the Brits were retired from service, he was posted fromm 99 Squadron at Lyneham, to 53 Squadron at Brize Norton, and he went on to fly on the Belfast, an aircraft he loved almost as much as the Britannia, when the Belfast was demobbed in 77, the RAF in their wisdom decieded that a Master Flight Engineer, who had served from 1942 until that time, and only had about 18months of service left before mandatory retirement , that they would post him to a VC 10 squadron, my Dad was horrified and mystified at the same time, as he had never flown on Blow jobs, as he always said a good screw is much better  So he banged his notice in and ended up flying with Heavy Lift on the Belfast so he was a very happy bunny indeed.}

[fallenphoenix1986 603]

In fairness to the Tornado F.3 it was never meant to go toe to toe with another fighter, think of it more as a mobile SAM site... fly out very far from the coast relatively quickly and wait there until there's something to shoot at. In that context it actually did its job quite well, better in some respects than an F-15 could have and cheaper than an F-14. Dunno if I'd fancy trying that mission profile in an F-16, even if it magically did have the legs for it.

 

As for the F-4, I can't really speak for the RAF but the FAA were desperate to get their hands on Phantoms, nothing in service or realistic and on the drawing board came close to what the F-4 was already doing at the time.

 

Craig

[+Trotski 936]

Spey engined Phantoms rocked ! bloody things used to deafen us on IRF as our GDoc was right on the taxiway at Akrotiri.

[MigBuster 2,884]

In fairness to the Tornado F.3 it was never meant to go toe to toe with another fighter, think of it more as a mobile SAM site... fly out very far from the coast relatively quickly and wait there until there's something to shoot at. In that context it actually did its job quite well, better in some respects than an F-15 could have and cheaper than an F-14. Dunno if I'd fancy trying that mission profile in an F-16, even if it magically did have the legs for it.

 

Craig

 

F-15A didn't have the range, with the C you need CFTs which reduced its handling quite a bit anyway. Not so sure but suspect the F-15C radar automated most of what was done by the Tornado rear seater.

 

F-16 was potentially a cheaper option until all the mods came...what do we think (1986 delivery):

 

Block 30 airframe

RR Spey engine (29,000 lbf rated)

IFF built into radar

Internal ECM fit

 

but 2 AIM-7/9 less and a shorter reach radar.

Edited March 23, 2016 by MigBuster

[fallenphoenix1986 603]

Not to mention that operating single engine bird a few hundred miles out over the North Atlantic at night in winter isn't exactly an appetizing proposition for any pilot (SHAR pilots were just nuts....)

 

Craig