My vote would probably go to the Canberra. It was essentially a medium bomber that was so stellar at what it did that it was replacing heavy bombers and attackers and others. It basically replaced the Mosquito in many of its roles (aside from maybe night fighter), all of the WWII-era bombers (Lancaster, Lincoln, etc), the WWII-era bomber trainers, photo-reconnaissance and numerous others. Add to that the new roles it took on, such as ELINT.

When it came out, British fighters couldn’t catch it for anything. Even in the era of the Phantom, I’ve read that Canberras would toy with them by flying higher than RAF Phantoms could intercept. That’s impressive.

Logan Hartke

Logan, I agree with your view fully. In terms of range-payload specifications, the F-15 is indeed the best fighter plane of the 4th as well as 4.5th generation of all times. In my view, the F-15’s successful conclusion was probably one of the reasons why the US did not ‘experiment’ much with “fanciful” devices like canards, and TVC also. I think this may further be a “testimony” to it’s good design.

Now be careful. I personally believe the -SG is the best in large part because of the powerful AESA radar, which isn’t the most important thing to have happened to fighter aircraft, but it definitely is a major factor to be considered in respective aircraft effectiveness. Just seeing the relevant US Navy evaluations of the blocks of Super Hornet with APG-79 AESA radar compared to those with the earlier APG-73 is astonishing.

I think that all else equal, the Su-30MKM is almost certainly superior to an F-15A in most roles, but an F-15A and an F-15SG are very different beasts, just as the Su-27 and the Su-30MKM are very different.

As for the US not experimenting with canards and TVC because the F-15’s superior design, you may want to look at the F-15 S/MTD/ACTIVE.

Logan Hartke

There were plenty of worse aircraft than that. It advanced flight control technology, composites technology, and simply showed what was possible and practical with large aircraft and what wasn’t. I won’t call it an unqualified success by any stretch, but it wasn’t the worst aircraft by any means. It got into the air with no trouble at all and showed that it was capable of doing more, even if the same eccentric billionaire that designed it chose not to do more with it.

Again, unqualified success? No. Total abject failure? Not that either.

Logan Hartke

The potez 75 was a French army (not Air force) project. It was designed as an anti-tank aircraft and was expected to use the (then under development) anti-tank guided missiles SS-11 from Aerospatiale…
Still, I can’t help but considering it (from a tactical concept’s point of view) as tha A-10 thunderbolt’s ancestor…

From your description, it sounds more like a 1950’s take on an AH-56 Cheyenne.

Finally, the only prototype crashed, killing the crew and ending the project…

Was there any cause of that mentioned?

Some more infos here (in french)
http://avions.legendaires.free.fr/potez75.php
http://www.aviafrance.com/875.htm
and in PDF
http://richard.ferriere.free.fr/archives/essai/potez75.pdf

Thanks, I’ve seen the first two links but the pdf is new to me.

Your memory wasn’t so bad, Merlock. Very interesting.

Cheers,

Logan Hartke

I would be careful in writing off the F-15 in the air-to-air role. In the not too implausible Su-30MKI/MKK/MKM vs. F-15SG matchup, I know that the F-15SG is probably the one to beat. Even in the WVR fight, the F-15 is often underrated. I know pilots of a National Guard F-15 unit in the area who are used to winning against F-16 units in the WVR more often than they lose, to say nothing of the pre-show AMRAAM battle. They don’t do those WVR high-G dogfights too much anymore in the F-15A-D models due to airframe fatigue, but in war they would be. As far as the F-15E/K/SG goes, it has additional weight (lots of pounds for air to ground), but uses a lot of composites and more powerful engines, so is still no slouch in that arena. Add to that the extra pair of eyes in the back seat, the HMS + AIM-9X, and the AESA radar that are not just in “proposed variants” or anything, but in service and you have an aircraft that you would do well not to underestimate in a knife fight.

I know that before they went to Lakenheath, the Swedes (used to whomping Norwegian F-16s and Finnish F/A-18s) were concerned with the sheer power of the F-15E in the WVR arena. I read that the JAS 39 unit had never gone up against a fighter with that sort of sheer power and knew that they were going to learn a few lessons in the DACT.

Logan Hartke

It seems just about any aircraft flown by anyone other that the Germans at the start of WWII…everything (except the Spit & Hurricane) was outclassed.
Not bad airplanes, just obsolete or designed for the “last ” war.

The French had plenty of great aircraft, fighters especially. The Americans had some excellent aircraft at the time, as well. Even the Russians had some respectable designs. The main problem for those forces was the number of serviceable aircraft and their employment. When half of your aircraft are unserviceable for various reasons (the French and Russians), forward-deployed to airfields far too close to the front lines (Russians and Poles), and employed improperly (nearly everybody but the Germans were still flying vics *shudder*), then you’re going to lose whether the Germans had He 100s, Bf 109s, or He 51s. This played out in the Spanish Civil War when Germans flying He 51s still achieved greater than 3:1 kill ratios against Russians in far superior I-15s and I-16s. It wasn’t so much superior German hardware as it was tactics.

Fokker, Morane-Saulnier, Dewoitine, Arsenal, Koolhoven, Avia, PZL, Lavochkin, Yakovlev, Mikoyan-Gurevich, Curtiss, Seversky, Lockheed, and Grumman were all designing and building aircraft that were just as modern as what Great Britain and the Axis had at the time. The slow pace of their parent countries’ rearmament, however, put those countries far behind when it came to actually equipping their air arms with such advanced aircraft.

Now there were some outdated aircraft being flown by the countries in WWII, especially in the field of bombers. The Battle, Blenheim, Bombay, Harrow, Hampden, Whitley, Amiot 143, Bloch MB 200 & 210, Farman F.223, Fokker F.IX, Fokker T.V, LWS-6 Żubr, Tupolev TB-3, Tupolev SB, Martin B-10, and B-18 Bolo all showed that the Allies were behind the Germans when it came to bombers. Even the shining stars of the time for the Allies (Wellington, Stirling, Boeing B-17B, Douglas DB-7, LeO 451, Ilyushin Il-4, PZL.37 Łoś, etc.) still either showed major deficiencies or showed that they were not yet ready for primetime.

What it boils down to is that the Germans were ready for a war. The Allies were not.

Logan Hartke

I wonder none have already mentioned Yak-38 Forger…

…It could take of vertically and land vertically or in a dive…and reportetly flight straight ahead too but thats just about it. It was a unrealibletechnology demostrator put to service in a haste and under political pressure to ensure that soviets had “shipborne naval aviation”.

It was a completely impractical aircraft that was more of a danger to its pilots than anything else, but in a world where its opponents were more likely to be P-3 Orions or helicopters, it was better than nothing. It also gave the Soviets fixed wing aviation from a ship, something that the Soviet Union had acheived little of in the past. It was short-legged, slow, and dangerous, but it was better than nothing.

I can see it making the list, though. As far as the AMX goes, I think you could do a lot worse, to be sure.

Logan Hartke

I agree, bar the Battle – it was simply so awful in the lives it took & it was thoroughly out of time and place. Practically every aircraft could be used as an aircraft tug, so why should that count?

Same for the Defiant – no forward armament, what were they thinking?? But at least some use in the night fighter role. :rolleyes:

Well, I just know that there were plenty of aircraft that were no good as combat aircraft, but gave sterling service in training, target tug, and engine testbed roles. The true dregs of the aviation world were best off not flown at all, lest they kill you. That was true of most of the aircraft I nominated.

I wanted to put the LaGG-1/3 in but held off thinking they did lead to the rather creditable variants such as the La-7 which by all accounts did pretty well for themselves, including combat.

Well, the La-7 and La-9 were less variants of the LaGGs than the Lancaster was of the Manchester. The La-5, maybe, but even then, though, there was a lot of change that made it a credible fighter. As I understand, they redid some of the controls as far as handling goes in addition to the engine change.

In many cases, an engine change is enough.

Logan Hartke