The Daftest Aircraft

[Daz]

Well, we've had the best looking aircraft, the ugliest aircraft, so how about the daftest? - to kick off we have the Rotary Rocket, a fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) manned spacecraft cunningly disguised as a 21st century windmill

Or how about the Perkenalkan ‘Black Knight Transformer’.... It's a tad confused, is it a truck?? is it a helicopter? Not even it's makers are sure..... and more importantly, what's the bloody point of it?


Bonus points to the most lethal to it's crew or innocent bystanders - double bonus points if you can correctly identify what class A drugs the designers were ingesting when they came up with the concept.

 

[Egg on Leggs]

Goodyear Inflatoplane - Wikipedia

ww2 inflatable aeroplane - Yahoo Image Search results

 

[pete_the_reader]

Parasite fighter aircraft

Parasite aircraft - Wikipedia

 

[beardyProf]

Parasite fighter aircraft

Parasite aircraft - Wikipedia

Worth remembering that the early experiments were at a time when airships had significant performance advantages over fixed wing aircraft in many areas.

 

[tiv]

The whole tail sitting vertical take-off thing:

 

[Daz]

Which is why the Germans went down the real VTOL route - the EWR VJ 101... I wonder if they drew straws to see who would be the (un)lucky test pilot?

 

[NorthfleetNinja]

A tank with wings is pretty daft imo
Antonov A-40 - Wikipedia

 

[Helm]

Guns on the front you say? That would be a bit silly old boy.

 

[greyfergie]

 

[CaptainRidiculous]

 

[Cloth bomber]

View attachment 301061

Nose down as he accelerates back to middle wallop with the new gazelle replacement

 

[smartarse]

FICON project - Wikipedia

 

[CaptainRidiculous]

I suppose, in hindsight, they are quite daft.
But the old adage applies:
'seemed like a good idea at the time'

 

[tiv]

Guns on the front you say? That would be a bit silly old boy.

The Defiant wasn't the problem, it was the theory that it was designed to. It was envisaged that there would be mass attacks by German bombers across the North Sea, unescorted because of the distances involved. The Defiants would then be able to position themselves in a blind spot and blast away while being immune to the bombers defensive fire. This theory didn't allow for a typical shabby Nazi trick, invading France allowing it's bombers to attack across the Channel with fighter escort.

Having said that, there is no excuse for the Roc.

 

[Lindermyer]

The Defiant did all right as a night fighter IIRC -

 

[Daz]

Once more with value added German engineering, the Bachem Ba 349,
A vertical take-off point-defense rocket-powered interceptor, one you can’t land in, but instead the pilot parachutes back to earth along with the reusable engine – trouble is, the one and only time they tried it, it killed the poor bugger at the controls.

 

[NorthfleetNinja]

Guns on the front you say? That would be a bit silly old boy.

Night fighter?

 

[tiv]

While that was flown it's a shame that it's big brother, the XF-5U, never got airborne, only taxi trial being done before the project was cancelled.

 

[CaptainRidiculous]

While that was flown it's a shame that it's big brother, the XF-5U, never got airborne, only taxi trial being done before the project was cancelled.

View attachment 301065

With stuff like that, the Flying Wing etc etc etc zapping about the desert, there's little wonder that folks started seeing UFOs in the late 40s/early 50s!

 

[Archimedes]

Pemberton Billing PB31. Designed for anti-Zeppelin ops, it overcame the problem of having to climb quickly to height by having a large fuel capacity, enabling it to mount standing patrols of up to 18 hours duration.

Problems being:

1. It had no means of knowing when a Zeppelin was nearby, unless one was illuminated in a searchlight beam from the ground, or by its own searchlight.
2. It was too slow to catch any Zeppelin which didn't fly past it at the same altitude
3. The engines would overheat after a couple of hours use, making the long duration standing patrol a tad tricky.
4. Its rate of climb was rather poor - so any Zeppelin which adopted the usual manoeuvre to avoid an intercepting fighter, namely dashing for height, stood a decent chance of being back in Germany before the PB31 got up there (granted, most defending fighters couldn't reach either, but they at least got to the height in time to see the airship run away)

You'd not think it was the grandfather of