The worst:
5. Royal B.E.2
4. Brewster Buffalo
3. Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3
2. Century Series (F-101, F-102, F-104, F-105)
1. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23
The best:
5. Spad S.XIII
4. Grumman F6F Hellcat
3. Messerschmitt Me-262 Swallow
2. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 “Fishbed”
1. McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle
Let the debate commence!
Fokker DVII over the Spad. It was actually included in the Treaty of Versailles that the Germans had to turn them all over to the Allies.
Me-262 caused a huge impact despite the few numbers involved. Fighters circled their airbases with heavy losses to AA. We even brought over P-80 jet prototypes to Europe to help morale.
MiG 21 was/is a dog, overrated.
F-15 definitely for #1, over 100 kills and not 1 loss in air to air combat.
B.E.2 wasn’t a fighter.
Lagg-3 was almost entirely built of wood including it’s wing spars which would shatter under German aircraft cannon fighter. So was its successor the La-5 which had better performance.
Brewster Buffalo wasn’t much worse in performance than other American fighters of the time. It was ugly though and had inexperienced pilots against Japanese that had more combat hours than Americans had flying hours.
Not sure where the Century Series hate comes from, there were much worse in the Cold War era.
MiG-23 was a dog but by no means the absolute worst fighter ever.
I’d give that to the ME-163 rocket fighter that probably killed more of its own pilots than that of the American bombers it was supposed to intercept.
I’ll bet that a Brewster Buffalo (on the worst list) will always win a dogfight with a Spad XIII (on the best list).
Vought F4U Corsair
Lockheed P-38 Lightning
Time spans or a bit broad categories since it’s like comparing Justin Verlander to Cy Young. Can’t see a list not having F-16 Fighting Falcon that has earned its reputation and F4 Phantom for sure getting the job done over a long time even with some limitations made up for by other advantages German drivers I talk to in the 90s said they didn’t want the new eurofighter they were happy with their Phantoms.
Whoever wrote this list really knows nothing about fighter aircraft or history
The f6f would not ever be in the top 3 for ww2 fighter
Both the A6M “Zero” and FW190 would be on the list for sheer game changing dominance when they 1st appeared on the scene
The Merlin engine P51 for being just being the right tool at the right time for what was needed in the ETO.
Conversely the poor little F2a “Buffalo” that always gets slammed was actually a very good fighter ..the rips all come from the Pacific where was going up against the A6M at the very earliest part of the war in desperate odds a course it was gonna look bad Especially because they’re all The later so called improved models that were really loaded down with armor and self sealing fuel tanks said just stole their good qualities
Converse the Finn with the early models kick the crap out of the Soviets and love the dam plane
It a Finn F2a Buffalo that has probably the highest individual airframe him kill count for any US built fighter aircraft in history for that historical fact alone you can’t say it’s one of the 5 worst
Site is unnavigable on a tablet. So thans for posting the list.
The riiculous absence of the P51 is just to be controversial. Both lists suck. I can think of etter candidates for all 10 planes listed.
The Buffalo is proof that the most important component of any fighter is the pilot. Put the Japanese pilots that dominated the skies over Southeast Asia in Buffalos, and their opponents in Zeros, and they still dominate. The Allied pilots just did not have the necessary experience to face Japanese pilots who had been fighting for years over China. Likewise the Finns dominated in Buffalos because they had more flying experience than the second rate Russian pilots sent off to a literal backwoods front.
The SPAD certainly was the greatest fighter of the era. A case could probably be made that the Fokker D7 deserves a mention, but it arrived too late to make much difference (like the ME 262 in the next war) and was still flame bait for the faster SPAD.
I've had the pleasure of watching this one take off and land in person on more than one occasion:
It's basically airborne in 50 yards of runway field.