Aircraft that succeeded on their second try?

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riggerrob

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Which airplanes failed their first round of tests, but were eventually successful?

For example, Bell submitted their YOH-4 Light Observation Helicopter to a US Army program that started in 1960, along with a dozen competitors from other manufacturers: Cessna, Hiller,Hughes, Kaiser, etc. Bell lost the first round of tests with the US Army. Hughes' 500 won that competition and sold Hughes 500 helicopters to dozens of armies and police forces around the world.

But Bell stretched their YOH-4 prototype into the Jet Ranger/Kiowa which sold in the thousands, including many to the US Army.

A second example is Grumman's first mono-plane, the F4 Wildcat/Martel which lost to the Brewster Buffalo. The US Navy and USMC, Finnland, Holland, etc. bought Buffalos, but they proved disappointing in combat.
Meanwhile, Grumman submitted their F4F prototype to vigorous testing in the NACA full-scale wind-tunnel, streamlining it, replaced the engine, fin, etc. to produce what Eric Brown called the best carrier fighter of early WW2.
 
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Without searching, the Blackburn Buccaneer comes to my mind. Underpowered and not able to take-off with full load from
a carrier deck in the S.1 version, the more powerful S.2 actually proved to be successful.
 
Nice questions, riggerbob!
Evolution of Sukhoi Su-27 comes to my mind: complete redisign of first prototypes allows to obtain needed charcteristcs and put aircraft in mass production, in many versions.
Is this case fits to your's list of second try?
 
Not sure T-10 fits. It wasn't bad and hasn't failed, and was in fact very close to serial production. It's info about supposed F-15 performance put some asses on fire and forced engineers to quicky push some envelopes even higher. Was a good decision as history shows, but not exactly fits into "first try failed".
 
The Cobra/Hornet seems obvious. YF-17 lost the Lightweight Fighter competition but came back and won the Navy VFAX contest. Say what you will about the process, but it's since had a very long and successful career.
 
An aircraft that didn't fail quite so badly the second time around:

The McDonnell F3H-2 (-2, -2M, -2N) Demon (Allison J71 motor) compared to the F3H-1 with the Westinghouse J40.
 
P51 is one them, right? It was a dud until the engine came along as I recall.

Oops already mentioned.

F-111?
 
how about the F-18?
it didnt get far as the F-17. cue in McDs to modify it and succeed in the Navy
 
The A-36 Apache was not that bad of an aircraft. The Allison might have sucked at altitude, but the RAF flew A-36 in low level pentration flights over northern France and they played havoc with german resources and infrastructure. Also they kicked asses of Fw-190 trying to tangle with them.

Early Mustangs were not bad, what sucked what USAAC complete blindness and stubborn refusal to acknowledge its sheer goodness until... Schweinfurt disasters.

Mystere II was a pilot-killer and clunker, Mystere IV worked superbly.

Same for Mirages, the I and II were turds, the III-01 and III-A were far better, the III-C was good.
 
Justo Miranda said:
Manchester-Lancaster
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Well, every single aircraft born with a Vulture (or Sabre) and getting either a Centaurus or Merlins or Griffon. Manchester and Tornado were hopeless. Typhoon, Tempest and Lancaster ruled the skies.

with the Westinghouse J40
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Same as the Vulture. Well even a dung-fueled motorcycle engine would be better than these two piece of junk. Change the engine and you probably save the airframe.

How about the Bloch piston-engine fighters ?

MB-150 couldn't even liftoff (drat !)
MB-151 flew very slowly and only 4*0.303 machine guns.
MB-152 was hardly better but at least had 20 mm guns.
MB-155 was passable enough
MB-157 was terrific (but never got a chance)

Same for Dewoitine.

D-513 was a miserable failure.
D-520 was good enough
D-551 could have been a French Mustang.

The MS-406 is a rather astounding example...

MS-405 and 406 were pathetic.
MS-410 was a passable improvement
...went to Switzerland as D-3800
D-3801 was far better
D-3802 was very good
D-3803 finally turned the hopeless MS-406 into Mustang level of awesomeness.
 
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Archibald said:
MB-157 was terrific (but never got a chance)

D-551 could have been a French Mustang.

D-3802 was very good
D-3803 finally turned the hopeless MS-406 into Mustang level of awesomeness.
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For the performance, yes, but, AFAIK, the problems of these four planes were the engines, because of the lack of reliability of GR 14R, HS 12Z and more powerful Swiss dérivatives of HS 12Y (Saurer YS2 and YS3).
In France, even after the war 14R and 12Z had always problems and at this time the preference and the money were for jet engines. At the beginning of the 50s, It was too late for GR 14U and HS 12B...

But yes, with a situation like WW1 (four years of plenty of means to improve these engines or to buy reliable foreign engines to replace them) the situation could have been different.

Alas, France did not have this possibility...

But we have today a lot of wonderful "What if" planes to imagine...;)
 
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B-29 could be considered such an aircraft, though it's disastrous test flight was down to human error on the part of some of the ground crew.
 
The B-35. Although should be counted as a double first try (B-35 to B-49 & B-49 to B-2).

With obviously the triple threat, considering the B-2 to B-21 case...

!!
 
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Helicopters: Aerospatiale "Dauphin" family:
SA360: 34
SA365 C series: 80
AS365/366/565/EC155: 1000+
 
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Archibald said:
Justo Miranda said:
Manchester-Lancaster
Click to expand...

Well, every single aircraft born with a Vulture (or Sabre) and getting either a Centaurus or Merlins or Griffon. Manchester and Tornado were hopeless. Typhoon, Tempest and Lancaster ruled the skies.

with the Westinghouse J40
Click to expand...

Same as the Vulture. Well even a dung-fueled motorcycle engine would be better than these two piece of junk. Change the engine and you probably save the airframe.

How about the Bloch piston-engine fighters ?

MB-150 couldn't even liftoff (drat !)
MB-151 flew very slowly and only 4*0.303 machine guns.
MB-152 was hardly better but at least had 20 mm guns.
MB-155 was passable enough
MB-157 was terrific (but never got a chance)

Same for Dewoitine.

D-513 was a miserable failure.
D-520 was good enough
D-551 could have been a French Mustang.

The MS-406 is a rather astounding example...

MS-405 and 406 were pathetic.
MS-410 was a passable improvement
...went to Switzerland as D-3800
D-3801 was far better
D-3802 was very good
D-3803 finally turned the hopeless MS-406 into Mustang level of awesomeness.
Click to expand...

- German hostility forced the Swiss to depend on fighters of their own manufacture. In 1939 Saurer began the manufacture under license of the 1,020 hp H.S.12 Y-51 French engine to improve the performances of the D-3800. Between October 1939 and December 1942, the companies Doflug-Altenrhein and SWS-Schlieren manufactured 207 units of the improved version D-3801. According to some sources, it was the Swiss version of the Morane-Saulnier M.S.412 C-1.

The new fighter was 33 kph faster and was equipped with armoured windshield and dorsal plate, SE-012 R/T device and Swiss Munerelle Agm 40 oxygen equipment. At the end of 1943 the Swiss Air Force had eleven Flieger Kompagnien equipped with D-3800 and D-3801 fighters. After the June 1940 armistice the French continued improving the Morane fighters and their engines in Switzerland and Spain.

At the beginning of 1943 the drawings of M.S.460 C.1 (1939), M.S.540 C.1 (1941) and M.S.640 C.1 (1940) fighter projects and of the H.S.12 Z-17 experimental engine, were delivered to the Swiss by Morane-Saulnier personnel that collaborated with Dr. Studer, chief engineer of Doflug, in the design of the D-3802 (640 kph) the Swiss version of the M.S.540. Possibly also included were parts of the M.S.450 prototype for the study of their manufacturing techniques.

The D-3802 was powered by a 1,230 hp H.S.12Y-89 (Saurer YS-2) driving a four-bladed Escher-Wyss EW V-8 constant-speed propeller with reverse pitch. It conserved the wing structure of the D-3801 but with the Plymax, replaced with all-aluminium covering, glycol radiators under the wings, Fowler type flaps and variable-incidence tailplane. The armament consisted of one 20 mm. H.S. 404 T.I cannon and four 7.5 mm Fl.Mg.24 machine guns.

Four aircraft were manufactured in 1944, as prototypes of the production model D-3802A, the Swiss version of the M.S.550 with squared wingtips, bulged canopy and three H.S. 404 cannons. Only eleven copies were built between 1946 and 1950.

The D-3803, described as M.S. 560 by some authors, with modified dorsal fuselage, all-round visibility canopy and 1,430 hp Saurer YS-3 engine, was built as a prototype only in 1947. Its mass production was dismissed after the acquisition of hundred-and-thirty war-surplus P-51D Mustangs.
 
The best fighter in the world in 1937 was French. The airplane, named Morane-Saulnier M.S.405, was a single-engine, single-seat, low wing monoplane with retractable undercarriage and closed cockpit.

The production model M.S.406 C.1 of 1939 was armed with a 20 mm gun (a secret weapon at that time) firing through the propeller hub, capable of shooting any German bombers in service. It also possessed enough speed and manoeuvrability to face the Bf 109 B, C and D of the Luftwaffe using its MAC machine guns.

During the Phoney War (3 September 1939 to 10 May 1940) the M.S.406 made 10,119 combat missions destroying 81 German airplanes. The appearance of the Bf 109 E over the French skies on 21 September 1939, amounted to a technological advantage that gave the aerial superiority to Germans at the critical moment of the Blitzkrieg offensive in May 1940.

The French answer was an improved version of the M.S.406, the M.S.410, that was externally different from the M.S.406 by having four guns in the wings, a fixed cooler, increased armour, a more inclined windshield (to house the GH 38 gunsight), Ratier 1607 electric propeller and Bronzavia propulsive exhaust pipes. It did not arrive on time though and only five 406s were transformed before the defeat.
 
Hmmm... you are a little too kind with the MS-406. It was so slow it had difficulty catching even Do-17 and He-111. also the 20 mm gun was a red herring, it did not work properly but also had not enough rounds, 60. The MS-406 had the aerodynamics of a barn door, somewhat like the P-40 it was a matter of radiator.
If 1940 french fighters were to be ranked it would be akin to
- D-520, top notch
- Curtiss H-75 (agile but not fast enough and light machine guns)
- MB-152 slow, heavy like a led brick, but very strongly build and able to disintegrate anything with two 20 mm guns
- MS-406 - easy to handle and... well that's all.

Most discouraging, however, was the entirely disfunctional background, all the way from AdA RFP to combat tactics - prototypes, industry, accessories, politics, numbers, pilot schools, tactics, armement, performance, ferry flights - EVERYTHING was dysfunctional, one way or another.
Well a good case could be made that the entire late 30's France was an entirely dysfunctional system ready to collapse. Even if the Germans were insanely lucky, french armies really faced impossible odds heavily stacked against them. And just in case, they missed no occasion to shoot themselves in the foot.

The lone Maurice Gamelin by itself was a monumental tribute to incompetency, idiocy - to criminal levels.

We have a running joke at the French Fights On forums - we are collecting Gamelin dumbest catchphrases. Gamelin and others - Reynaud "nous vaincrons car nous sommes les plus forts" is well known, but certainly not the worse of the lot.

A couple of memorable punchlines, from my collection

Charles Huntziger, commander of one of the two armies to be soon crushed in the Ardennes
- April 1940
- repeated on May 7, 1940 for good measure
verbatim
"I can't really see the German armies attacking through the Ardennes forrest."

Gamelin, on May 14, 1940 - discussing the German breakthrough near Sedan

"It is only a local attack, a minor diversion"

Gamelin to Corap, Huntziger right flank in the Ardennes - and the lucid, realist one who saw the disaster come right in front of him, weeks in advance, and tried to raise alarm (only to be ridiculed)

"La meuse, Corap, ça ne m'intéresse pas" (Corap, your sector, the Meuse river, is of no interest to me).

Basically reading that you have that nasty feeling the French army of 1940 was led by a HQ made of Simpson males - in a bad day
(remember that episode where it is revealed all Simpsons males are doomed to absolute idiocy because of a defective gene not present on Simpson females - with obvious results ?)

Crap, french HQ 1940 is essentially THIS

 
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To avoid competing against Morane-Saulnier for the Hispano-Suiza engines, the Marcel Bloch firm chose the Gnome-Rhône Série 14 radial engines to propel its fighters between 1937 and 1942. Its first design, the Bloch M.B.150, was a loser in the Chasseur Monoplace C.1 contest of 1934. However, the publication of Plan V (15 March 1938) allowed the firm to obtain a contract for the manufacture of 140 units of the improved M.B.151 model, powered by a 920 hp Gnôme-Rhône 14N-35.

During the Spanish Civil War, the radial engine fighters proved that they needed a 30 per cent of extra power to fight on equal terms with the in-line engine fighters. The M.B. 151 had 180 hp less than the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E, was 105 kph slower due to the poor aerodynamic design of the engine cowling and was only armed with four 7.5 mm MAC 34A drum-feed machine guns, with 300 rounds each.

On July 1939, after some tests carried out in the Centre d’Expériences at Rheims, the M.B.151 was considered unsuited for first-line duties. l’Armée de l’Air and l’Aéronavale (French naval aviation) mainly used it as advanced trainer at the Centres d’Instruction de Chasse. It was eventually used in combat, four were destroyed and one of them rammed a Fiat C.R.42 of the Regia Aeronautica.

They tried to correct all these deficiencies with the M.B.152, using a 1,100 hp fourteen-cylinder air-cooled Gnôme-Rhône 14N-49, with a new 85 cm diameter cowling, inspired by that of the Curtiss H.75A, driving a variable-pitch Chauvière 371 propeller. Its armament consisted of two H.S.404 cannon and two MAC 34A machine guns installed on the wings. The gunsight reflector was a Baille-Lemaire GH 38.

The new fighter was 88 kph slower than the Bf 109 E-1 in level flight and 50 kph slower in dive but surpassed the German aircraft in firepower and structural strength. Forced to prematurely entering service, the M.B.152 suffered several accidents. The engine caught fire in inverted flight due to of a bad design of the carburettor. The deficient pneumatically-actuated firing system operated the weapons with delay and did not have enough pressure to operate the cannons at an altitude above 7,000 m.

After the German-Soviet non-aggression Pact (23 August 1939) the French communists received order of delaying the weapons production through a program of strikes and coordinated sabotages. The most affected were the Farman and Renault factories that manufactured the only bomber capable of reaching Berlin and the tanks that could surpass those of the Germans. But the biggest damage was the chaos created in the manufacture and distribution of aircraft components.

When the Allies declared war on Germany (3 September 1939) out of the hundred-and-twenty-three Bloch fighters that have been built, ninety-five did not have propellers and half of them had not yet received weapons, radio equipment or gunsights. At the beginning of 1940, delays in the delivery of the Messier landing gear forced the manufacture suspension of fifty-nine M.B.152 fighters. Fearing that the machine guns would fall into the hands of communists, l'Armée de l'Air was in charge of the installation, but the process was slow and required numerous modifications.

The M.B.152 came from factory temporarily equipped with wooden propellers, 14N-25 engines with the old cowling of 100 cm diameter and OPL R-39 gunsights. Faced with a shortage of Chauvière 371 propellers, many were sent to combat with Gnôme-Rhône 2590 propellers (with adjustable pitch in ground only) or armed only with machine guns, due to the delays in the delivery of the H.S.404 cannons.

The replacement of the waste pneumatic firing system by Deltour-Jay electro-pneumatic devices which ensured a more rapid trigger response, caused further delays at the beginning of 1940. On 10 March 1940 there still were fifty Bloch M.B.152 fighters without armament and propellers in the Entrepôt 301 centre. When the German attack came thirty days later, hundred-and-forty M.B.151, three-hundred-and-sixty-three M.B.152, four M.B.155 and one M.B.153, with Twin Wasp engine, had been accepted by l’Armée de l’Air, but only eighty-three of them, considered bons de guerre (combat-ready), had been delivered to the Groupes de Chasse. During the Battle of France, the Bloch fighters shot downed 146 German aircraft, including forty-five Bf 109 fighters. Eighty M.B.152 and four M.B.151 were destroyed for different causes.

Worse still was the availability of the bombers, whose priority was lower than that of the fighters. The delivery of the Amiot 350, Bloch M.B.174 and Breguet 693 bons de guerre to the Groupes de Bombardement suffered from inadequate supplies of the Alkan and Gardy bomb racks and many LeO 45 did not receive the Gnôme-Rhône 2590 propellers in time, being destroyed in land without any opportunity to combat.

Consequence of the disorganization caused by the sabotages, on Armistice Day (25 June 1940) l’Armée de l’Air had 2,348 planes, many more than on the invasion day, even counting losses. Most fell intact in the hands of the Germans.
 
Kawasaki Ki.60/Ki.61/Ki.100 Hien​

Japan acquired the manufacturing license of the German Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine in 1938. In 1940 the IJA assigned their production to the Akashi plant of the Kawasaki firm, under the name Ha-40. The engine was to be used to propel the Ki.60 and Ki.61 future fighters as well as a fast bomber commissioned by the IJN to Yokosuka.

The Ki.60 was built by the standards of the fighters used in Europe, but it was not satisfactory to the Japanese pilots due to its low manoeuvrability, excessive wing load and high landing speed. These features were removed from the design Ki.61, including many aerodynamic solutions already tested in the Heinkel He 100, as well as a larger wing surface and a lighter armament of four machine guns.

The Ki.61 began operations with the 68th and 78th Sentais in New Guinea, in May 1944. The tropical climate and poor maintenance conditions affected the delicate engines and the general availability of the aircraft. Many were immobilized on the ground and destroyed by the strafing attacks of the American P-38s. The Hien proved to be superior to the P-39s and P-40s in air combat, although these airplanes were difficult to shoot down using machine guns only, due to its robust airframe, armoured cockpit and self-sealing fuel tanks.

Even more difficult was fighting the strongly armed heavy bombers B-17s and B-24s, leading to the IJA to order the construction of the Ki.61-I-Otsu version, equipped with 20 mm cannons and two droppable fuel tanks of 200 litres or two bombs of 250 kg hanging under the wings. The IJA had no access to the Oerlikon cannons used by the IJN Zeros and was forced to buy 800 Mauser MG 151 cannons of 20 mm to Germany that were carried by submarine to Japan in August 1943. The special ammunition for the MG 151 was also imported and could not be renewed.

At the end of the year the Ho-5 cannon built in Japan was already available. Its installation on the wings of the new Ki.61-I-KAI-Hei fighters started immediately, but the weapons proved insufficient against the B-29 bombers. Some aircraft of this series were experimentally provided with Ho-155 cannons of 35 mm that proved too heavy to quickly reach the altitude of the enemy planes.

Despite the encountered difficulties, the Ki.61 achieved some successes. On 3 December 1944, the B-29 42-24656 was shot down over Tokyo by a Hien of the 244th Sentai piloted by Cap. Teruhiko Kobayashi. On 3 January 1945, a B-29 of the 73rd BW was shot down over Nagoya by an airplane of the 55th Sentai piloted by 2Lt. Takeo Adachi. On the 23rd of the same month, the 42-24785 of the 882nd BS was destroyed over the Mitsubishi-Hamamatsu factory by a Ki.61. On the 27th, during a raid on the Nakajima-Tokyo factory, the ‘Haley's Comet’ 42-24616 and ‘Shady Lady’ 42-24619 were shot down by two Hiens of the 244th Sentai piloted by Cap. Teruhiko Kobayashi and Sgt. Chuichi Ichikawa.

The numerous problems experienced with the Ha-40 engine were due mainly to the weak construction of the cylinder block, improperly designed to make it lighter than the heavy Daimler-Benz. Failures also occurred in the operation due to dust and sand from the landing strips and from the poor maintenance conditions in tropical climates. The engineers redesigned the engine as Ha-140 that was somewhat more reliable, being used to propel the Ki.61-II-KAI from April 1944 onwards. Despite its excellent performance in tests, only 374 airframes were made and when the Akashi factory was destroyed in a bombing on 19 January, only ninety-nine Ha-140s were completed, just enough to equip four Sentais.

The situation forced the Kawasaki engineers to consider installing a new Mitsubishi Type 4 Ha-112-II radial engine of 1,500 hp. To achieve its integration into the Ki.61 airframe, they conducted a study of the only Focke-Wulf Fw190 fighter existing in Japan to analyse how the Germans had solved the problem. Surprisingly, as it happened with the Mustang, changing the engine produced an excellent fighter with greater manoeuvrability and climb rate that was also easier to maintain. Named Ki.100-I Type 5, it was used by six Sentais of elite, fighting on equal terms against Hellcats and Corsairs in Okinawa and against Mustangs over Japan.

The best combat altitude for Type 5 was 6,000 m but it was almost useless against the Superfortress at 9,000 m. Some aircraft of the 111th Sentai, assigned to the defence of Osaka, removed the machine guns to save weight, but the head-on attacks carried with two 20 mm cannons only were not destructive enough to achieve results against a B-29 and some aircraft of the Sentai were experimentally fitted with air-to-air Ro.San Dan rockets of 10 cm.

During the night from 14 to 15 April 1945, the B-29s of the 313rd and 314th BW conducted a medium altitude attack against the Kawasaki factory losing eleven aircraft (42-24821, 42-63545, 42-93893, 42-93962 , 42-94034, 44-69673, 44-69834, 44-69871, 44-69882, 44-69907 and 42-24664) one of them rammed by a Ki.100 of the 244th Sentai piloted by Capt. Chuichi Ichikawa.
 
The Royal Hellenic Air Force (EVA) order of battle in October 1940 consisted of 53 fighters of the types Avia BH-33, Avia B-534 III, Gloster Gladiator Mk.I, P.Z.L. P.24 F/G and Marcel Bloch M.B. 151 C.1, twenty-nine bombers Potez 633 B2, Bristol Blenheim Mk IV, and Fairey Battle Mk.II, forty-one reconnaissance airplanes Breguet Br XIX A2/B2, Potez 25 A2 and Henschel Hs 126 K-6 and thirty naval airplanes Fairey IIIF, Dornier Do 22 and Avro Anson Mk.I.

Out of twenty-five Bloch M.B.151 C.1 (415 kph) ordered before the German invasion of France, only nine were delivered (without spares) in April 1940, equipped with 900 hp Gnôme-Rhône 14 N. These engines were often well used, suffering problems of warming, and they only generated a real power of 700 hp, they were optimized to operate at 3,000 m ceiling and could not compete with the DB 601 of the German fighters.

The aircraft lacked oxygen equipment, were only armed with four 7.5 mm MAC 34 M39 machine guns and their R/T device was not compatible with that of other Greek fighters. Despite these shortcomings the Bloch managed to destroy a Fiat B.R.20, three CANT Z.1007 bis bombers and a Dornier Do 17Z reconnaissance airplane. On 14 April 1941 they still had three aircraft in flying condition operating with the 24th Squadron. One was shot down that same day by a Bf 109E-4 of II/JG 27 and the two remaining were strafed by 109's four days later, along with eleven P.24 and eight Gladiators.
 
Lancer-Thunderbolt

- After the destruction of the only Curtiss ‘Interceptor’ available in China, the A.V.G. had no means to intercept the high-flying Mitsubishi Ki.46-II Dinah reconnaissance airplanes from the IJA 8th Sentai. To provide high-altitude cover to the slow P-40B, the U.S. Administration authorized the export to China of seventy-two fighters Republic P-43 ‘Lancer’ and hundred-and-eight P-43 A-1‘Chinese Lancer’, through Lend-Lease Act.

The long sea voyage damaged the Fairplane cement used to seal the wing fuel tanks, a circumstance that went unnoticed during its assembly in India and that caused the loss of 139 aircraft during the Karachi-Chengtu ferry flight. Most of the accidents were fires caused by the fuel dripping under the fuselage belly until reaching the hot turbo-exhaust.

On July 1942, ten P-43A were delivered to the A.V.G. The turbo-supercharger provided the Lancer good power through 9,000 m and American pilots who tested it in flight were satisfied with its good handly and rapid rate of roll, but the A.V.G. staff did not trust them as interceptors and chose to use them as reconnaissance airplanes. However, one of them managed to shoot down a Dinah over Bhamo.

The P-43 A-1 were used by the C.A.F. against the Ki.46, with little success, since both models had the same speed at 6,000 m. On 24 October 1942, the 24th Sqn ‘Chinese Lancers’ downed a Dinah, from 18th Dokuritsu Chutai, over Si Bao and one Kawasaki Ki.48 from 16th Sentai over Han-Sou on 12 January 1943.

The turbo-supercharger was a complex piece of equipment and the C.A.F. simply did not have the resources to train people to properly maintain the units. The P-43 A-1 had a limited use in combat and the Dinah completely lost its immunity only when the Lockheed P-38 began operating in the Far East.

In August 1942 the RAAF received four P-43 A-1 and two P-43D ‘Lancers’ from the USAAF, plus two more P-43D in November. These airplanes had the same engine than the ‘Boomerang’ but they were also equipped with a belly mounted turbo-supercharger General Electric B-2 that considerably improved its performances at high altitude. Unfortunately, the Americans had been extremely reluctant to provide B-2 superchargers, 125 of which had been approved by Lend-Lease at the beginning of 1942. The reasons behind this political attitude were the plans of the North American company to manufacture the P-51 Mustang, propelled by a British Merlin engine, in Australia.
 
Justo Miranda said:
After the German-Soviet non-aggression Pact (23 August 1939) the French communists received order of delaying the weapons production through a program of strikes and coordinated sabotages. The most affected were the Farman and Renault factories that manufactured the only bomber capable of reaching Berlin and the tanks that could surpass those of the Germans. But the biggest damage was the chaos created in the manufacture and distribution of aircraft components.
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According to Wikipédia :

-In 1951, author Rossi spoke of Communists sabotages in Farman Aircraft plant, Capra Aircraft plant, Tanks Somua plant, Renault (tanks I presume) plant, lifting materials Weitz plant in Lyon, powder manufacturing plant in Sorgues and a mechanical engineering company near Paris.
-Later, author Azéma spoke of only one propaganda Leaflet and sabotages only in Farman Aircraft plant and in a powder manufacturing plant. But he said too that only the Farman engines fall is sure
-Author Courtois said that the sabotage fall is almost non existent.
-In 1987, author Buton said that the Farman fall is an unique case.
-For the Farman case (sabotaged engines), 6 workers were condemned, but only one claimed to be a communist.
-On 20.06.1940, the French government said that 14 saboteurs were sentenced to death, but nothing is said about what was sabotaged.
-Authors Berlière and Liaigre report several other sabotages and incitement to sabotage, with, at least : leaflet(s?) from February 1940, 58 sabotaged anti-tank guns in October 1939, sabotaged spark plugs in a plant in November 1939 and with leaflets, sabotaged Renault tanks in a plant near Paris in December 1939, a cartridge factory in Toulouse betwenn December 1939 and February 1940, sabotages too in the shipyards of Saint Nazaire.
 
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Wow!
For once, Hanlon's Razor was wrong!
"When forced to blame a mistake on malice or stupidity, opt for stupidity first."
Those dastardly French communists sabotaged their own country!

It was hard to believe that French industrialists were that stupid.
 
Justo Miranda said:
Mustang
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P-51? Hm, can't agree. The Allison engined Mustangs certainly were not failures and did very well for themselves in RAF service and were not generally replaced by the later Merlin engined variants in role. Some 16 RAF squadrons used them and the RAF continued to do so until the very end of the war. All those nice pictures of the Normandy beach defences were taken by tac recon Mustangs. A lot of people deride the Allison engined Mustang, but when the first entered service in January 1942 it was the only RAF fighter that could take on the Bf 109F and Fw 190 on more or less equal terms, and it had phenomenal range for a single-seater, over 900 miles. That it didn't have the altitude performance that Fighter Command wanted meant it was relegated to reconnaissance role, but it was exceptionally good at that.
 
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I'll add the Handley Page Halifax. Beset with weight and drag issues, a deadly tendency to suffer the effects of rudder overbalance, which led to deaths in trials and service and poor overall performance, i.e. not being able to reach the stated performance as advertised, it wasn't until the Hali Mk.III that the aircraft began to overcome its early faults and that was over two years after it first entered service and a change of powerplant that made a big difference to drag.

Agree on the Avro Manchester - the Manchester Mk.III became the Lancaster, although the basic design was actually little changed in the Lanc, except bigger, strengthened wing, different engines and new vertical stabilisers, retrospectively applied to Manchesters and the deletion of the terrible FN.7 mid-upper turret.

The Blackburn Botha - it would have made an excellent boat anchor or artificial reef.
 
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I have a feeling had the X-32 been selected.. it might make this list
the re-design seems to fix a lot of the first model's concerns

like wise perhaps the FC-31 also meets this as it seems the first variant was disappointing, leading to a heavily modified second one
 
Justo Miranda said:
The best fighter in the world in 1937 was French. The airplane, named Morane-Saulnier M.S.405, was a single-engine, single-seat, low wing monoplane with retractable undercarriage and closed cockpit.

The production model M.S.406 C.1 of 1939 was armed with a 20 mm gun (a secret weapon at that time) firing through the propeller hub, capable of shooting any German bombers in service. It also possessed enough speed and manoeuvrability to face the Bf 109 B, C and D of the Luftwaffe using its MAC machine guns.

During the Phoney War (3 September 1939 to 10 May 1940) the M.S.406 made 10,119 combat missions destroying 81 German airplanes. The appearance of the Bf 109 E over the French skies on 21 September 1939, amounted to a technological advantage that gave the aerial superiority to Germans at the critical moment of the Blitzkrieg offensive in May 1940.

The French answer was an improved version of the M.S.406, the M.S.410, that was externally different from the M.S.406 by having four guns in the wings, a fixed cooler, increased armour, a more inclined windshield (to house the GH 38 gunsight), Ratier 1607 electric propeller and Bronzavia propulsive exhaust pipes. It did not arrive on time though and only five 406s were transformed before the defeat.
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Yes, a worthy opponent, but the MS.405 derivatives all had one foot in the past in their construction and design, and they were outperformed by the Spitfire Mk.I once it entered service. They kind of matched the Hawker Hurricane in development and performance. By the end of 1940 when the Bf 109F was about to enter service the design was bordering on obsolescence, whereas there was still much development potential in both the Bf 109 and Spitfire.
 
riggerrob said:
Wow!
For once, Hanlon's Razor was wrong!
"When forced to blame a mistake on malice or stupidity, opt for stupidity first."
Those dastardly French communists sabotaged their own country!

It was hard to believe that French industrialists were that stupid.
Click to expand...

No no no. Deltafan is correct.

The real story, the truth, is even more weird.

Basically

1939-40 French aircraft were crippled by innumerable issues. Silly things like, no propellers, no bomb sights, no radios, and defective engines.

Why that ? Because airframe builders were paid for the number of airframes they churned out of their plants, every month.

What went wrong ? well, the airframe manufacteurs, and the air ministry above them, were unable to shake propellers, radios, bombsights and engine manufacturers a) for their products to work properly and b) crucially, for their production and deliveries to match airframe builders.

This meant that airframes got out of the factory "naked" - bombsights ? propellers ? radios ? NOT MY PROBLEM ANYMORE. I DID MY JOB, AIRFRAME IS DELIVERED.

Typical criminally dumb mistake: the propeller industry was so bad, aircraft were ferried from industry to combat units with wooden, two blade propellers, SPAD 1918 style.

But hey, the airframe manufacturer did not cared as long as the freakkin' airframe cleared his plant and he could told the Air Ministry "I delivered the goods." Dang.

As for the engines, the issue was different: Gnome&Rhone (the 14 A / B / M / N / R series) bosses were greedy pigs, really, who only cared about money and not about delivering functional engines.

Hispano Suiza (12Y) was hardly better.

Now you guess, French pilots were COMPLETELY enraged by fighting and dying with such crippled aircraft.

When they got complete D-520s (with sights, radios and the correct propeller, a damn miracle that usually took two weeks, even in May 1940), it was the 12Y that did not functioned properly.

But those enraged pilots simply couldn't imagine that the industry was THAT CRIMINALLY DUMB. See above.

So instead a couple of myths sprung to explain all those issues - remember, conspiracy theories ? "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity "

Conspiracionists are explaining STUPIDITY by MALICE.

For example, the 9-11-2001.

Just think about it: The Mighty United States, with the most powerful armies in the world, prepared against every single possible threat in the entire universe and history - were successfully attacked and got 3000 people killed by 19 bearded, illiterate SOBs without even a firearm: just knifes and cutters.

That sounds so impossible, so unreal (even 20 years later) conspiracionists simply can't accept THAT truth. And instead they prefers the "conspiracy explanation" because it more reassuring to them. "those 19 SOBs defeated us, somewhat, but it was an inside job, otherwise, they couldn't do it alone."

Well, France 1940 collapse is our 9-11: to people at the time, it was an unexplainable collapse. Don't laugh, with perfect hindsight, it seems laughable but by spring 1940 they just didn't understood what the frack was happening. See Gamelin Huntziger, Reynaud, so many others.

So just like the "9-11 truthers" they took the "reassuring conspiracy option" and claimed "it was an inside job ! Some traitors sabotaged us, stabbed us in the back."

Remarquably, in this case there were two opposite "culprits"

Culprit 1
The german 5th column : Abwher agents had infiltrated french aviation plants to sabotage.

Culprit 2
Communist traitors - as explained by Deltafan.

But make no mistake: BOTH EXPLANATIONS ARE MYTHS. The reality was that French aviation industry and ministry were arseholes (sorry for the crude word, but frack, they really were. Criminal ones).

So https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor - as you said, except don't blame NON existing communists or abwher agents.

Fundamentally, the french aircraft industry short herself ALONE in the foot.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

And that's the crux of the matter: late 30's France had colossal amount of stupidity. If you don't believe believe me, try browsing Maurice Gamelin.
I can tell you, with Gamelins everywhere, there is no need for a conspiracy to sink 1940 France. Sheer stupidity did the job.

Here is a startling example of that complacency...

General Charles Huntziger, in command of the French 2nd Army, guarding the Ardennes ( to be soon anihilated by 7 German panzer divisions, right there)
May 7, 1940 - what did he declared ? "It just beyond me, that somebody can even remotely think the German armies could attack in the Ardennes sector."

Such an inspired luminary !

Enough said...
 
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Archibald said:
Fundamentally, the french aircraft industry short herself ALONE in the foot.
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I agree. The "Fall of France" began on 11.11.1918...

I can just propose this link (only in French, sorry, and too long and with too much interesting things to be translated with a few lines by my bad English), for some explanations of the fall of the French aviation engines industry between WW1 and WW2 (I only regret that the technical situation of GR approaching WW2 is not much discussed).

 
Hey Deltafan, Galgot - France Fights On is recruiting. You should register and have an eye.

1940 - La France continue la guerre - Fantasque Time Line

Fantasque Time Line
1940lafrancecontinue.org

I learned a lots of things about interwar France there. Some are truly unbelievable - what I wrote here is only the tip of a much larger iceberg.

Basically, you are left wondering

- what's more insane, between

a) Hitler / Manstein / Rommel luck in May 1940 (France should never have lost this one, not this way at least)

and

b) the startling amount of sheer stupidness on the French HQ side (well, maybe we were bound to lose this one, because Gamelin and because Huntziger levels of dumbarsery)

I don't want to derail this thread further so I'll stop right there.
 
MV/CV-22B - may not fit here, but after the mishaps the aircraft went through significant modifications internally.
 
MV/CV-22 had to no competitors to lose to.
V-22 still has no competitors in the VTOL tilt-rotor business.

Look at other first-in-class airplanes (e.g. VTOL Hawker Harrier) to see how many iterations/models/marks/modifications they went through before entering full service.
 

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