WWII fighter beauty contest.

[Giancarlo]

Bah.. if I could I change my vote to the Republic Thunderbolt. It is better.

[Agathon]

I'm surprised to see the Zero getting so many votes; after all it is a pretty utilitarian looking plane.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Bah, Dora wins hands down:

The FW 190 D9:

What is that pic from? IL Sturmovik?

[Chemical Ollie]

In the beauty contest, I would vote for the ME-2?? German jet fighter, which name I can't remember this early in the morning.

[Al B. Sure!]

The Zero was very slick looking... utilitarian-looking planes would be the early American Navy planes like the Brewster Buffolo and Grumman Wildcat... those things looked like stubby chunks of metal with wings attached... they were also both very tough planes especially the Wildcat... Zeros had a tendency to burst into flames after a single hit to the fuel tanks or engine. I'm sure there's dozens of pics on the internet of Wildcats that returned from sorties with half their wing missing and dozens of bulletholes all along the fuselage. those were ugly utilitarian planes. the Zero was sleek

[Spiffor]

Yep, but the Zero was beautiful

[Agathon]

Doesn't the Buffalo rank among the worst aircraft ever built?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kramerman


Because volume of fire was seen as more important than caliber of fire. And at the speeds of dog fighting, they can make some good arguements. For interceptors tho, large calibers are superior, IMHO.

Two main factors for the US were the number of rounds carried, and muzzle velocity, both of which were critical to deflection shooting.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
What is that pic from? IL Sturmovik?

I don't know, I just snagged it off of Google. I've never come across any pics in books or otherwise of the Dora-9, although I do have some illustrations of it in a German book I have on the FW-190 series. I'm too lazy to hunt the book down and scan the illustrations, though.

[Al B. Sure!]

Agathon:

yeah it was like a flying chunk of metal... the Wildcat wasn't much better but at least it was tough as ****. they both look ugly and unflyable but somehow managed at least alright.

amazingly, the Hellcat looked exactly like the wildcat except somehow the hellcat could actually outmaneuver zeros... don't know how they did it without changing the design

[Al B. Sure!]

i guess another reason why we didnt use cannons was because we never had to combat heavy bombers... machine guns work good enough on fighters...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Agathon:

yeah it was like a flying chunk of metal... the Wildcat wasn't much better but at least it was tough as ****. they both look ugly and unflyable but somehow managed at least alright.

amazingly, the Hellcat looked exactly like the wildcat except somehow the hellcat could actually outmaneuver zeros... don't know how they did it without changing the design

The Buffalo was underpowered and obsolete by the time it encountered zeros.

The Wildcat was actually very decent to fly, which was important for the US at the time, with a lot of inexperienced pilots being created as fast as possible. Nothing wrong with the plane design - it traded durability and endurance (thus weight) for the maneuverability and climb rate of the Rei-sen (zero), which gained it's attributes at the cost of radios, armor and self-sealing fuel tanks.

A Wildcat had no chance in a one on one fight against Zeros, but in two on two or four on four or larger fights, the Wildcats were able to more than hold their own against the A6M2 and A6M3 models by adapting their fighting tactics to the nature of the aircraft.

The Hellcat couldn't ever outmaneuver any model of Zero or George unless at speeds approaching 300 knots, which was way faster than air combat maneuvering speed at the time - if you bounced a Zero from above, maneuverability didn't matter. Get down under 200 knots, and the Zero or George would own the Hellcat's ass any time, every time, unless the Hellcat got help in a hurry. US pilots simply learned to stay in a flight regime that favored their aircraft, and to avoid the flight regimes that favored enemy aircraft, or die.

The Hellcat did have substantially more horsepower for little extra weight, and better control surfaces, so it was a bit more maneuverable than the F4F3 model Wildcat, but not a lot - the difference was primarily in speed and rate of climb, but you still didn't want to take your Hellcat into a climbing contest with any model Zero, at least if you didn't want to end up buried in it.

The Corsair was the first aircraft that could really outperform the Zero all around, except below 150 knots, but with all that power, there was just no reason to go that slow. The only trouble was the Corsair was a lethal, unforgiving ***** to fly, with a nasty habit of rolling inverted on landing, and doing this cute little roll-spin-stall-roll thing on takeoff if you didn't manage the torque and initial angle of climb. One of its nicknames was the "Ensign eliminator"

[Agathon]

Does anyone remember the Northrop P-61 - it was a night fighter so I suppose it qualifies.

[Al B. Sure!]

MtG:

I was under the impression that HellCats were able to outmaneuver Zeros but i guess not... i guess it is because of the "turkey shots" where Hellcat pilots shot down dozens of Japanese easily with barely any losses but i guess such sucesses were mainly due to tactics not the maneuverability of the Hellcat itself. makes sense.

but with the corsair, why are the most maneuverable planes universally always the hardest to pilot? I mean the Sopwith Camel and Fokker Triplane back in the first world war were also extremely maneuverable but killed plenty of new pilots especially the Camel. is there something about the structure that provides maneuverability that also makes them hard to fly?

[Zero]

I vote for ZERO!!!!!