It’s easy to forget that, by the start of the Second World War,
aeroplanes had only been around for about 30 years. Aircraft design was still a new science,
and no one knew exactly what the aircraft of the future would look like. For all
the successes of the Supermarine Spitfire, the B-29 Superfortress, and the Messerschmidt 262,
there were legions of failures. Wildly uncontrollable, monumentally slow,
and prone to exploding, these are the absolute worst aircraft of the Second World War.
In 1935, the British Government put out a tender for a three-man, twin-engined aircraft for use as
a torpedo bomber and recon plane. Two designs were accepted: the Bristol Beaufort and the Blackburn
Botha. But before things could be finalised, the government changed the specifications. Now,
they wanted a four-man aircraft. This called for more powerful engines, but they weren’t available.
The designers tried to call off the project but they were overruled. The
Blackburn Botha had to make do with what it had.
What it had were two 930-horsepower Perseus engines and an extremely heavy airframe.
It lumbered around the sky at just over 180 knots and had no rear-facing windows
and minimal visibility out the side. The Botha was about as far from a fast-moving
recon plane as it could possibly be. Still, 442 were ordered in 1936.
By the time the air war over Britain had begun in 1940, the Botha was considered a deathtrap.
Experienced pilots struggled to keep it under control, and a series of fatal crashes cemented
its reputation. Bothas were moved back to training squadrons, but it did even more damage there.
Of the 478 sent to training squadrons, 24 were lost at sea following engine
failure and another 145 crashed on land. Scores of novice pilots and crewmen met
their ends trying to land the lumbering beast. By 1944, the design was scrapped.
Across the Channel, the Luftwaffe was having design problems of its own. The
Messerschmitt Bf-110 was outdated, and they were working on something new to replace it.
The result was the peak of German engineering: the Me-210. On paper it looked great:
two powerful engines, a bomb bay to reduce drag, and state-of-the-art
remote-control guns. The problems started, however, as soon as the Me-210 took off.
In the air, the experimental plane shuddered wildly. It was totally
unstable in turns and had a nasty habit of stalling and then going into a deadly spin.
The second prototype was lost this way, the test pilot bailing out after deeming
the spin unrecoverable. More prototypes and design modifications changed nothing,
and pilots soon dreaded having to fly the Me-210. Messerschmitt chief test pilot Fritz Wendel went
so far as to describe it as having “all the least desirable attributes an aeroplane could possess.”
The project was rushed through, and by April 1942, Luftwaffe units were
receiving new Me-210s. The airmen hated the planes and generally believed getting inside
them was about as safe as playing Russian Roulette with a Panzerfaust. Within a month,
production was halted and a redesign was in progress. The redesigned aircraft was
designated the Me-410 in an effort to convince the Luftwaffe crews it was a different plane.
It seems the aircraft manufacturer Blackburn brought no end of trouble
to the Royal Air Force during World War Two. One of their carrier-based fighters,
the Roc, proved to be so useless it only shot down a single enemy plane.
The Blackburn Roc was designed in 1936 amid the wave of British enthusiasm for so-called “turret
fighters.” These were fighter planes with a rear-facing mobile turret fixed behind the
pilot’s seat. The air marshals envisioned squadrons of turret fighters intercepting
bombers and shooting them down with interlocking machinegun fire. It made sense to those who’d
learned to fight in the static trenches of World War One, but the theory was outdated by the 1930s.
Nevertheless, the Roc’s development went ahead. It took off for its maiden flight in 1938 and
quickly proved too heavy, too slow, and sluggish in manoeuvres. The Chief of Naval Air Services,
Alexander Ramsay, tried to scrap the whole project there and then, but he was overruled.
Production continued, and the Blackburn Roc was ready for combat in time for the Allied
Campaign in Norway. Operating from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, Rocs flew out to intercept
German bombers. It was here, however, that a fatal design flaw was discovered.
The Blackburn Roc had no forward-facing guns, meaning it could only shoot sideways or backwards,
and it was significantly slower than German aircraft. Combined,
both factors made it impossible to engage in combat effectively. It was useless. On its own,
a Roc never managed to shoot down a single enemy plane.
By late 1940, the Roc had been withdrawn from frontline service and given over
to target towing and training. Some had their turrets removed,
and when fixed in the ground, these proved excellent at anti-aircraft defence.
But not all of the war’s worst-performing aircraft started out with poor design choices.
The Italian Breda 88 was, in fact, a world-record holder for speed. So what went wrong?
The Breda 88 Lince was designed in 1936 to fulfil what many at the time believed were
totally unrealistic expectations from Fascist Italy’s Regia Aeronautica. Mussolini’s men
wanted a fighter-bomber that could reach a speed of 530 kilometres per hour and also
had a range of 2,000 kilometres. This was faster than any aircraft yet made.
The Italians succeeded, and in 1937, their prototype broke the world speed record over a
100-kilometre stage by averaging 554 kilometres per hour. It broke another record later that
same year, reaching an average speed of 530 kilometres per hour over a 1000-kilometre
stage. Fascist propaganda lauded the achievements of Italy’s designers and
engineers; the Breda 88 was destined to be the next evolution in aerial warfare.
And then it failed, spectacularly.
To fit military specs, the plane had to be loaded with over a ton of ancillary equipment.
Radios, weapons, and ammunition all substantially increased the aircraft’s weight. For a precision
racing machine, this weight increase was crippling. To make matters worse, Italian
technicians fitted sand filters to the air intakes when the planes arrived in North Africa. This cut
the plane’s power by more than half, with some proving so cumbersome they couldn’t even take off.
With their planes literally unable to fly, Italian ground crews stripped them for parts and scattered
them around decoy airfields. An ignominious end for the pride of Fascist engineering.
While the Italians were struggling to get their wonder-plane into the air,
the Germans were struggling to land,
particularly with the Messerschmidt Me-163, otherwise known as the Komet.
Interestingly, this pocket rocket was not one of the inventions that resulted from Hermann
Goring’s 1944 Emergency Fighter Program—a last-ditch effort to retake control of their
skies from the scourge of Allied bombers. The Komet had actually been in development
since 1937 and first flew in 1941. In October of that year, it set a world speed record of
1,004 kilometres per hour—a record that would not be surpassed until well after the war.
The Komet’s incredible speed came from light construction and a liquid-fuelled rocket engine.
The brainchild of engineer Hellmuth Walter, the rocket fuel – a substance called“T-stoff” – was
so reactive that it exploded when it came into contact with organic matter. More than
a few pilots and ground crews were seriously injured or killed by the Komet’s fuel alone.
But in the war’s final days, this was a price Goring was willing to pay. The Komet’s
speed meant it couldn’t be intercepted by Allied fighters, thus leaving Allied bombers vulnerable.
The counterpoint was that the Komet only had about seven seconds of fuel before it became a glider.
This was all the time the pilot had to shoot down an enemy. Once the fuel was spent, the Komet was a
far easier target. Komet pilots racked up just nine kills over the course of the entire war.
Walter designed the Komet to glide exceptionally well. Perhaps too well, as a small gust of wind
could easily lift it out of its landing approach into trees, a hill, or a building.
Some 80% of Komet pilots were killed trying to land their snub-nosed rocket-planes.
But for a time, they were effective, which is far more than can be said for many of
the other planes featured here. But what do you think? Was bad theory or bad design responsible
for these aerial mishaps? What do you think it would have been like to fly a Me-163 Komet?
Which are your top five WORST planes of the Second World war? Let us know in the comments!