Brian Abraham & barit1,

Thanks for the info on the C-87!

At the risk of firther thread drift, I believe that the B-52 BUFF has downward firing seats for the Nav and Rad-Nav officers.

Min. safe ejection height 700 feet.

SD

henry crun #36
 

You're right. Point taken.

It never went into large-scale production but the initial test-pilot's report on the Blackburn Botha went along the lines,
"Entry into the cockpit is extremely difficult. It ought to be made bloody IMPOSSIBLE !

widow makers
 

I don't think anybodys mentioned the Sopwith Camel yet.Apparently it had a,shall we say,interesting fuel mixture system which required much concentration from the pilot.Again,ok for the experienced but a b*****d for the novice.

PaperTiger,

Yes, agreed that they had a few, but mostly the other. :)

The Sopwith Camel also had vicious gyroscopic effects from its rotary engine that claimed a lot of pilot's lives, mainly in take-off and landing accidents. But on balance I believe that it accounted for far more of the enemy than its pilots.

SD

I don't know how many widows the aircraft created, but The Royal Aircraft Factory BE.9 Pulpit fighter must have been a piece of work. It was a two place aircraft with a pilot and an observer/gunner. This unlucky individual sat in a pulpit ahead of the propeller and operated the forward firing machine gun. On landing, in the case of a nose-over the propeller would have sliced the poor man into little gunner/observer cutlets.

Not to be outdone, the French manufactured their own copy of this abortion, the Spad A2.

If you want a Russian aircraft with a bad reputation, take the TU-22 Blinder. We used to respect/fear the Backfire and Blackjack, but not the Blinder. Supersonic dash, but such a fuel guzzler it had no range. Awful performance, and downward firing ejector seats for the 3 man crew. Minimum ejection altitude was 2000mtrs. :uhoh:

http://www.airforce.ru/aircraft/misc...2_seats_00.jpg

http://www.airforce.ru/aircraft/misc...2_seats_03.jpg

Pigboat,

The description of the Spad A2 from your link has this wonderfully amusing ending:

What a delightfully French solution to the problem - give them to the Russians!

SD

SD, I build model airplanes as a hobby. Somewhere, I have forgotten where, I once saw a model of the Spad A2 in Russian colours, on skis! :ooh:

IIRC the wing was adapted or based upon the one used on the Shorts Sunderland flying boat

I've read that about 20% were lost in accidents and it was regarded by its crews as unflyable...indeed at one point in the 1960s SAF's crews actually refused to fly it..:eek:

Widowmakers
 

Try the Luton Major

My husband was killed in one back in 1981 after the Manchester Air Show at Barton.

It should never have been allowed to be airborne at all.

For a modern aircraft, the Mitsubishi MU-2 rates right up near the top. Aviation lawyers love them. 755 built, of which 21% have crashed (more than 180 crashes) .. killing over 200 people. If that ain't a widowmaker, I don't know what is.

You'd expect military aircraft to have a high attrition rate, as they are flown to their limits, and often over .. but not a twin t/prop passenger plane.

An MU-2 fell out of the sky here, over the Goldfields of Western Australia, in 1988, and took 10 people with it (no survivors) - the third worst aviation disaster in the State ..

The FAA initiated a major safety inquiry into the MU-2 in Oct 2005, after 11 of them fell out of the sky in an 18 month period.

OPSQUEEN & onetrack
 

Sorry, the original heading of Widowmakers threw me

Didnt spot the ICAO aircraft designator was involved

Apologies to all

evanb - Sorry, I was led off-track by Capn Pit Bull suggesting civilian widowmakers, and clean forgot the preciseness of the original question.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Christmas Bullet :mad:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...mas/bullet.jpg

Wasn't part of the WGAF F-104 problems that they turned a silk purse into a sow's ear by changing an aircraft designed as a high altitude interceptor into a low level ground attack machine?

Not really, as a result of a NATO competition for a new fighter-bomber the F-104 was developed into the F-104G which was the model bought by just about everybody who ended up operating the F-104.

To be frank, as an interceptor the F-104 was a complete and utter waste of space. No legs, appalling turn radius, lousy radar. Doing exercises and intercepts against them was easy, and in combat their only real tactic was a quick supersonic dash, blow through, and head straight for home claiming fuel priority. Even the F-104S wasn't up too much.

Thanks.
 

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for such a generous response to my post. Really quite astonishing - and a massive help.