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The world’s worst air force
- vacuumator 10y agoWithout reading the actual article, I was going to say something like: "Even the worst air force might be better than no air force at all, unless of course, you consider how much money gets wasted, and how many lives a fleet of death traps needlessly costs a country." But that was maybe in the sense that an odd third world country might have been nurturing some money pit of a vehicle pool. Having read the article about a hypothetical air force, I kind of like the look of all those ineffective airplanes. It reminds me of that web page with the simulator video game, where the polygonal race cars evolve to endure a randomized terrain, according to a genetic algorithm.
- rodgerd 10y agoWell, the South or Central American country with the longest-lived and most stable democracy is the one that abolished its professional millitary, so at least sometimes "no air force" is the right answer. (Similarly the Spanish republic might have lasted a big longer if they hadn't had an air force...)
- simonebrunozzi 10y agoI immediately thought about Argentina's air force. Main reason for it being so bad wasn't technical, but political (corruption, etc...).
- arethuza 10y agoThat seems a bit harsh - UK accounts of the Falklands War tend to be rather respectful of the performance of the Argentinian air force.
- dingaling 10y agoThey were respectful of the pilots ( "good stick-and-rudder men" is a quote I remember ) but not of the tactics or overall strategy. For example on 1 May 1982 a 'maximum effort' was launched again the British ships. But the Mirage & Dagger fighters were used to escort the attack aircraft, rather than first achieving local air superiority. In the resulting chaos none of the attack aircraft found their targets and three of the escorts attacked the ships instead. With the disparity of air assets available to them versus those of the two small British carriers, in theory the Argentinians should have eliminated the surface fleet without much problem. Yet three weeks later the amphibious landings commenced...
- arethuza 10y agoYes, good point - I did think that I should have changed it before seeing your comment but the edit link had timed out.
- protomyth 10y agoLooking at the conversation under the "Messerschmitt 163" entry, I wonder how many HN folks have had the software version of that conversation?
- Rebelgecko 10y agoIt reminded me the feature creep scene in HBO's Pentagon Wars, which is eerily similar to what can happen in the software world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA
- CapitalistCartr 10y agoI've often imagined WWII's "best" air force. The worst, somehow, I didn't consider.
- mikeash 10y agoI assume that would be a hypothetical best created by combining aircraft from many different countries? What do you imagine that would look like?
- CapitalistCartr 10y agoYes, exactly. P51 D-H Mustangs, Spitfires, Messerschmitt 109s for fighters. Serious shame they didn't have midair refueling. I consider jets, ie Messerschmitt 262s to be outside the idea. For bombers Lancasters, B17s, and B29s, of course. But picking an air force of the worst is much funnier.
- mikeash 10y agoIt's interesting to consider where jets fit into the picture versus the best prop-driven fighters. The Me262 was amazing but it also had some major disadvantages. Maybe you'd want to have it as a part of a healthy mix of different types.
- coldcode 10y agoIf the ME262 had come earlier and was built in large quantities it might have made a difference. But it was developed too late to build in large numbers, it needed another generation of engine development and it needed to have better airfields and support and a better understanding of how to use it in a group. Still every time I see a real one it's one sexy airplane. Like the Tiger it scared people when it showed up, but given the numerical advantage of the Allies it had no chance.
- ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
- ptaipale 10y agoThe headline makes me think what Stalin would have said about the air force of Vatican.
- sandworm101 10y agoI'd be more interested in seeing the exercise applied to modern or cold-war era equipment. There are some great lemons out there, but nobody dares mention them for fear of angering any living pilots. Sticking to the 40s makes that very unlikely. F-104.
- greydius 10y agoThe modern list will start with the F-35.
- arethuza 10y agoThe air defence variant (ADV) of the Tornado might be on that list as well - taking an aircraft that was designed for low level bombing and making it into an interceptor must have seemed like a good idea to someone.
- willvarfar 10y agoAnd the tornado adv went into service before the radar was ready to be fitted, so the first squadrons had concrete blocks of equivalent weight in the nose. This was mockingly dubbed "blue circle" after the "rainbow" code-naming convention and the well-known cement company. Luckily the Russians didn't come.
- sandworm101 10y agoI'd say that, for the purposes of the exercise, the f-35 isn't yet a plane. It is a development program. The aircraft hasn't yet been deployed and so cannot be judged. Some very successful aircraft have come from questionable programs (f-15, U2 etc). We shouldn't blame the airframe for how it was created.
- gozur88 10y agoThe first squadron of F-35As was declared operational in August. The plane is officially out of development and can be sent into combat.
- flyinglizard 10y agoThere's a common theme for just about all of those aircraft: they're ugly. There's truth in the saying that good aircraft are always beautiful aircraft.
- rgrieselhuber 10y agoBeauty is truth.
- 67726e 10y agoThat's an incredibly subjective metric.
- IshKebab 10y agoOr is it that we associate beauty with 'conventional' planes, which by definition fly well.
- Godel_unicode 10y agoGoogle "A10 warthog". This is probably the exception which proves the rule. The air force hates it because it's ugly, but they can't eliminate it because it's amazing at doing what it does.
- maxerickson 10y agoCongress funded the Warthog in spite of what the Air Force requested, a request that had little to do with appearance.
- goodcanadian 10y agoI actually find that to be a reasonably attractive plane: unusual to be sure, but not ugly.
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- justsid 10y agoI would like to one up you, I find it to be quite a sexy plane! I can’t even put my finger on why it does, but I just find it way better looking than regular figher jets.
- hudibras 10y agoAt the Battle of Midway, forty-one TBD Devastators were launched between 7 and 9 a.m. By 11 o'clock, 35 had been shot down. After the battle, all other Devastators were withdrawn from non-training units and they never again flew in combat. The Devastator was so bad that the Navy destroyed all remaining planes by the end of 1944. So there are now no museum exhibits anywhere of what was at one time the U.S. Navy's frontline torpedo bomber.
- Jeema101 10y agoThey were terrible outdated planes that should have never been flown into battle, but they did at least serve one important role at Midway by diverting the Japanese fighters at just the right moment so that the US Navy's dive bombers could approach almost undetected.
- JamesNK 10y agoAnd the torpedo they dropped barely worked. Later in tests the US Navy found there was a 2/3 chance the torpedo would break up, not start or simply sink when it hit the water.
- lvs 10y agoThis article reminded me of the RAF banter sketch from Monty Python. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myIB1TrPpTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myIB1TrPpTE
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- suhith 10y ago"Its main tank could hold 300 gallons of fuel but it wouldn’t take off with more than 80 gallons on board"
- boznz 10y agoEven the worst plane on here could take out the the NZ air force :-( luckily nothing has the range to get here :-)
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