Well if they area at all decent you are probably right. But there are a few that were considered junk from the word go.

Well, of course those ones would be accurately rated...


You can't toss a Me-262 around like a piston fighter and the engines are weak.
The Zero and Oscar have no speed capabilities.
The Warhawk has second echelon performance.
The Hellcat is a tank and handles like one.
The Fw-190D-9 isn't all that manoeuvrable.
The Spitfire has its maximum performance limited to specific altitude zones.
The Emil has deadly low speed handling.
The Yak has no altitude performance.
The MiG has no low-altitude performance.
The Me-163 Komet likes to melt pilots to death in the cockpit.
The Lightning likes to break up in dives.
The Thunderbolt has average low-altitude performance and can easily desintegrate in high speed dives.
The Mustang stalls easy and needs the extra fuselage tank empty when manoeuvring.
The Fw-190A likes to spin out, which Allied pilots actually thought was a combat manoeuvre.

I dunno, pick something. I like simulations of the F4U, except for the ground handling/pilot view, it's got pretty good characteristics. The La-7 doesn't seem to have any handling points to complain about. The Yak-9U seems pretty good, so does the Ki-84 and N1K2. I suspect each of these aircraft have pretty detailed maintenance schedules however.

I think wartime fighters, being at the forefront of technology with each new model were necessarily part experimental and part service equipment. Hence when we read about them half a century later, we tend to overrate the vast majority, thinking they just fly reliably like a modern aircraft or a (non-simulation) arcade game. They were more like racing planes, finicky and full of deathtraps, pretty much each one.

You made me think of how WWII would be if the fighters and bombers took as long to develope as they do today. From drawing board to production averages around 15+ years and even after all that they still have problems.

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Very true and a good point. Had strict peacetime airworthy guidelines been enforced the Mark IX Spitfire would never have been produced, nor the F-1, F-2, G-6AS and G-14 Messerschmitts, the first Fw-190 to enter service would have been the A-8, the first Yak the Yak-9 and so on. It's the same story with almost every fighter type. They were really rushed from the drawing board into the air, with barely enough time for manufacturers to even build them. New engines were often untested, it goes on.

That being said, it is cool to consider the vast bulk of fighter development from biplanes to Mach 3 jets with missiles, happened within the space of forty years.

For a real insight, read some books by test pilots who ran around independently service testing new models for aircrews, often warning them about exaggerated manufacturer claims and certain deadly quirks. You get a real impression of just how rough and ready, and coloured by sales marketing most of the marques in fact were (US models are particularly prone to this in every specification). Interestingly it was test pilots on the company payroll who initially reported operational guidelines, with bonuses for better figures achieved I'm sure...

Yes that is true ! I read that Curtiss aircraft were one of the worst for this. They would make sales material bound in leather and coated gold leaf pages and would give lavish parties to politicians and anyone in aircraft procurement inorder to keep the contracts coming. And if that did not work a good old bribe was used. The P-40 was kept in production into 1944 so it must have worked !

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Work Harder ! Millions on welfare are depending on you.

Vanir. You missed out that the Spitfire has terrible diving capabilities, with the engine cutting out when the nose is forced down.

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

It was solved by a splash plate fitted to the Rolls Royce carburettor (an American invention actually, probably taken from the Allison), to prevent this happening from the Mark V in 1941.

The highest Mach speed ever recorded for a piston fighter was 0.9 in a dive by Griffon engine Spitfire (a prototype, fitted with laminar flow wings). Mind you a regular P-51D (fitted with a Merlin) could hit 0.8 Mach in a dive no problem. Any faster and they'd be sending a flag home...

During the Battle of Britain however you are quite right. Early on the two types (Messerschmitt and Spitfire) were regarded equivalent with differing characteristics. But during the latter stages, when the Me-109 was ordered close escort to the bombers, its advantages of altitude performance and vertical manoeuvring capabilities were literally taken away by Göring (whilst the Spit had far better turn capabilities and now, had much higher contact airspeed on their side).
What both sides immediately found is that Luftwaffe pilots could still escape combat by nosing over into a sudden dive, where the Spit's early Merlin promptly cut out. RAF averages were really very good, but this matter kept things relatively even.

By late 1941 all things were even and the Me-109F-4 was probably just a better fighter than the Mark V Spit, but of course this was a short lived advantage in a constantly switching tide between the two contemporaries.

It was designed by a Miss Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling, 1909-1990 who was one of the first lady Farnborough boffins.

Her negative-g fix (a small metal disk with a hole in the middle) was nicknamed "Miss Shilling's Orifice" and was fitted to all Merlin equipped aircraft in fighter command in 1941 and remained there until RR came up with a better carburettor.

The lady was also a very well known motorcycle racer pre-war, and when she married (an aerodynamicist named George Naylor) she was presented with a set of stocks and dies by her colleagues, and was said to have turned her own wedding ring on a lathe from stainless steel.

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if in doubt....Panic!!!!

I stand corrected, excellent information redcoat!

Is it possible such a device appeared on US aero carbs first I wonder, I read the plate was American at a reputable source, but it didn't elaborate much?

Nevertheless, awesome stuff mate.

Did someone say F-104?

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I agree with you, I think your spot on. Its impossible to make the perfect plane, there will always be weak points. Its opportunity cost.

Winner of most overated aircraft of ww2....(drumroll)
....The Zero (applause)
(announcer-possibly Bob Barker) "Congratulations Miss Zero. And how do you explain this honor?"
(Miss Zero) " Well, G.I. see's me far, far at sea. He gets weak knee's. Too scared to dance. But then he gets to know me , and then all G.I. want to dance... I was a swan but now am a Turkey"

Tom you need to get your facts right my friend

On the early Spitfire in a negative-g condition the carburettor would stop pumping fuel to the engine but was fixed by fitting a plate over the carb
The Spitfire had very good diving capabilities to
A Spitfire XI was dived at a true airspeed of 600mph not bad for a plane with terrible diving capabilities

I agree with you on this one. Although it was extremely manuverable, it was slow and vulnerable and didn't really face too much opposition in the beginning of the war.

What made the Stuka formidable was its fearsome reputation. It turned out to be bloated but while that reputation lasted, the Stuka did its thing.

what nitwit would install a float carburator in a fighter plane? the MEs all had direct fuel injection engines.

Well apparently they thought it was a good idea at the time. Aint Hindsight Great?

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

The Helldiver

Based on what happened at Midway, how could you replace the SBD Dauntless?

When I used to go to Luke AFB in Arizona back in the 70s the Luftwaffe was still flying the F-104 there. I met a few of the crew and Pilots. What a crazy bunch they were .

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I still don't see why the Stuka was any more vunerable than the Dauntless or a IlyushinIL-2.
All 3 had roughly the same top-speed and un-escorted, faced the same danger.

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..total lack of armor protection, thats why ..the Il-2 did what it did because it was very efficiently armored both against fire from the ground and from enemy fighters.. a 109 ace could expend an entire magazine on the Il-2 without necessarily bringing it down ...see some of Bergstrom's recent Eastern Front tomes for accounts