Happy Holidays, everybody! Allow us to celebrate the season by looking at an airplane with the word Christmas right in the name. As it happens, the plane.
Experts have nominated a few standout failures.
Here s What You Need to Remember: The wooden He-162 was designed to be flown by teenage pilots with only rudimentary training, but the He-162, though an excellent design, needed careful handling. Things weren’t helped by the location of the engine – right above the cockpit – meaning escaping pilots ran the risk of being sucked into the engine.
The F-35 stealth fighter suffers a litany of design and production flaws. It’s heavy and expensive. It lacks maneuverability. Its internal weapons bay is too small. At high speeds, it can tear itself apart.
But for all its problems, the F-35 isn’t the world’s worst fighter. Not by a long shot. Exactly which of history’s hundreds of fighter designs qualifies as the worst is a matter of opinion. Experts have nominated a few standout failures.