What, ni mention of the Brewster Buffalo by anyone??

No WW2 pilot who ever flew one.... and survived, had anything nice to say about them.

The US Marine Corps originally nicknamed them "The Peanut Special", before WW2, afterwards they were re-nicknamed "The Flying Coffin".

Amongst British and Commenwealth pilots they were called "Flying Bricks", "Deathtraps", "The Flying Cigar Butt", "The Barrel", etc.

The Luftwaffe evaluated captured , and still crated up, Belgian Buffaloes, were horrified.... and sold them to the Finns.

In North Africa, during 1940, the RAF was desperate for a monoplane fighter to replace the obstelete Hawker Harts and Gloster Gladiator bi-planes that they were using agiant the Italian Airforce. They tried out a Buffalo, which, during a mock dogfight with a short nosed Blenhiem Bomber, not only saw the bomber out maneuver it, but end up on the Buffalo's tail, where it couldn't be lost except in a dive.

The Buffalo weighed nearly 2.5 times more than the Curtis P36, was underpowered, had a high roll to poor yaw and pitch rate.... and couldn't managed a sustained climb at more than 45 Degrees.

Basically, it was probally the worst handling fighter ever built.

So the allies decided to put them up against Zeroes.... with inevital results.

Allied pilots even flew with half ammunition loads to save weight.

However, in the hands of Finnish pilots, with serious modification, hold the all time kill to loss ratio for all aircraft.... 237 to 1.

The Spitfire and P51 only manage 15 to 1, so despite being the worst design fighter ever built, the Buffalo has the highest success rate.... baffling.

The Brewster Buffalo is simulated, for player use, in the X-Box 360 game "Battle Stations Midway".... where they are quite a challenge to fly in a simulated combat zone as even the Jap divebombers can out maneuver them.

Steve M wrote on Dec 16^th, 2008 at 6:38pm:

I'm inclined to disagree... the Hercules ("Spruce Goose" was a derisive monicker made up by the press; also it was made primarily of birch, not spruce) was expensive because it was a prototype of the largest aircraft ever built.  The best engines available; the best everything... and overseen by a very fussy guy (Hughes) who liked to micro-manage such projects. Every aircraft prototype costs more than the production models, and if it was a Hughes aircraft, it was going to be even more so.

It flew fine,at least in ground effect, even though it was legally not supposed to do so (Hughes only had permission for a taxi test). There were some minor vibration issues detected, but this is quite normal for testing of any new type.

Remember, its purpose was to haul huge payloads over oceans rapidly at low altitude, without using aluminum and other metals made scarce by the war. I believe it could have done so. It also would have presented a very minimal radar return given its size, although that was not the intention with the wood construction.

It also was completed after the war ended, and had no real peacetime role (flying boats were already becoming obsolete, since the war had brought rapid development of airports around the world, and fast, pressurized airliners had arrived); those are some reasons why Hughes basically abandoned the project (although he kept tinkering with it until 1952). I guess there was also not much future for large wooden aircraft, certainly not in the civilian market.

But it was kept ready to fly, as per his orders, until his death... many believe it could fly again, if the time and money were invested.

Hagar wrote on Dec 17^th, 2008 at 9:32am:



Considering the weight of 750 troops with gear, and the massive amount of fuel to run 8 3000 horse engines, I am inclined to agree with Hagar on this. Even though the plane flew empty wieght, I think it was far from ready to fly. I would say that Hughes was a brilliant man to get it to its current stage. Most of our current aircraft now cannot hold 750 troops, not that I'm aware of. I would love to go see it and sit in the pilots seat.

beaky wrote on Jul 13^th, 2008 at 7:11pm:


http://www.aviastar.org/pictures/usa/christmas_bullet.jpg

I can only imagine why...

Quote:

That's an incredible piece of film. I think it confirms that airships will always be vulnerable near the ground however well they're designed.

Quote:

These two were experimental types. The McDonnell Goblin was designed as a "Parasite Fighter" to be carried below a large bomber for defence against enemy fighters. The idea was never really practical.

The last one looks like a piloted version of the Fi 103 "Doodlebug" or V-1. This was built for testing purposes although a "suicide" version was suggested. (The Japanese "Oka" piloted bomb was based on it.) The unpiloted production V-1 was very successful & the world's first practical Cruise Missile.

Quote:

Oh, I have to agree there. It seems a very strange idea now but I suppose it made sense at the time. There are still people who believe in the future of the large airship. I'm not one of them.

Here is a topical answer, the worst aircraft of all time, the one that has crashed (for what ever reason ((just over 70 involving at least one death))) the most, currently running at about 180............the 737

Matt