The Five Worst Fighters Ever—and the Lessons They Taught
Key Points and Summary
-“Worst” isn’t just about ugly airframes—it’s about fighters that couldn’t deliver on mission, safety, or sustainment.
-The Blackburn Roc proved the turret-fighter idea was dead on arrival.
-The Brewster Buffalo gained weight and lost the performance edge it needed in the Pacific. America’s first jet, the Bell P-59, validated turbines but not combat capability.
-Vought’s F7U Cutlass leapt ahead of its engines and punished carrier crews for it.
-The Yakovlev Yak-38 offered VTOL without the range, radar, or weapons to defend a fleet.
-Each failure underscores the same rules: mature engines matter, weight kills, sensors win, and the mission must drive the machine.
The 5 Worst Fighters Ever (And Why They Went Wrong)
“Worst” can mean many things: a fighter that killed too many of its own pilots, missed its moment technologically, or never matched the mission it was bought to fly.
Context matters—some of these aircraft taught valuable lessons or worked better in one air force than another.
But taken on the whole—design intent vs. delivered performance, safety, combat effectiveness, and sustainment—these five stand out for the wrong reasons.
Blackburn Roc: Turret Thinking Meets Air Combat Reality
Britain’s Fleet Air Arm ordered the Roc around a flawed idea already wilting on land: the turret fighter. A derivative of the Blackburn Skua dive bomber, the Roc replaced a forward gun battery with a four-gun power turret, betting that a slow naval interceptor could slide alongside enemy bombers and rake them without aiming the whole airplane.
Reality at sea was harsher. The Roc was heavy and underpowered, struggled to take off from carriers with useful fuel or weapons, and was hopeless against enemy fighters. Lacking speed, climb, or punch, it found brief utility as a coastal patrol and target-tug platform—jobs any number of lesser aircraft could do. As a “fighter,” it never had a chance; the concept died with it.
What went wrong: The airframe couldn’t carry the turret without destroying fighter performance; the mission concept was obsolete on arrival; carrier suitability compounded the problem.
Brewster F2A Buffalo: From Hopeful Prototype To Pacific Punching Bag
On paper, the U.S. Navy’s first monoplane carrier fighter looked like progress: retractable gear, enclosed cockpit, decent early agility. But as the F2A gained armor, fuel, and equipment in later variants, it got fat and lost the zip that made the prototype promising.
When the shooting started in 1941–42, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps pilots flying overweight Buffalos in the tropics met adversaries with better climb and acceleration—and paid for it. British and Dutch units fared no better in Southeast Asia.
The irony is that export-standard Buffalos (lighter, earlier models) flown by Finland against the Soviets did respectable work, proving there was a decent little fighter buried in there somewhere. The U.S. service versions, however, were outclassed and short-lived on the front line.
What went wrong: Weight growth crushed performance; operating conditions magnified weaknesses; later opponents exploited the type’s poor climb, speed, and durability in combat.
Bell P-59 Airacomet: The Jet That Wasn’t Faster Than The Piston Crowd
The P-59 made American jet aviation real—but not competitive. Rushed to validate the turbojet concept, it emerged with weak engines, marginal acceleration, and top speeds that could be matched—or beaten—by the best late-war piston fighters. Its handling was acceptable, but the airplane never delivered the step change in speed, climb, or altitude that would justify frontline deployment. The U.S. Army Air Forces wisely used it as a trainer and familiarization platform, then moved on. As a technology demonstrator, the P-59 was invaluable: pilots learned jet procedures, ground crews learned new maintenance rhythms, and the services built the human capital needed for better jets to come. As a fighter, it was a non-starter.
What went wrong: Immature engines; inadequate performance delta over piston contemporaries; built to learn, not to win—then overtaken instantly by better designs.
Vought F7U Cutlass: Visionary Lines, Lethal Teething
The F7U Cutlass looked like the future—tailless, swept, and dramatic. On deck and in the air, it was often a nightmare. Born before engine technology could match its aerodynamic ambition, the Cutlass relied on underperforming, temperamental powerplants that never delivered the thrust or reliability the design demanded. The airframe’s handling quirks, long landing gear, and poor low-speed behavior made carrier operations hazardous, and accident rates climbed.
A handful of operational deployments couldn’t overcome the jet’s reputation or its maintenance burden. The Navy retired the type quickly, and the Cutlass became a cautionary tale: don’t leap too far ahead of your engine room.
What went wrong: Underpowered, unreliable engines; unforgiving carrier handling; high accident rate; limited combat credibility despite bold design.
Yakovlev Yak-38 Forger: VTOL Without The Range Or Radar
The Soviet Navy wanted a VTOL fighter for its Kiev-class aviation cruisers; it got the Yak-38, a compromise that met deck and hangar constraints but rarely the tactical need. Using a lift-jet arrangement that gulped fuel and added weight, the Forger had meager range and payload, struggled in hot-and-high conditions, and lacked a modern search radar, constraining it to fair-weather, short-legged tasks and visual intercepts.
In a role where fleet defense depends on early detection and quick reach, the Yak-38 was a day, good-weather point defender at best—and a maintenance headache for crews. Limited deployments and trials hinted at potential utility in niche roles, but as a fighter that could protect a task group at sea, it was out of its depth.
What went wrong: VTOL architecture sapped performance; no credible radar; short legs and thin weapons options; concept boxed in by ship design rather than air-combat reality.
Why These Five Fighters Missed The Mark
All five suffered from one or more of the same sins:
Concept Over Reality. Turret fighters and early VTOL “fighters” privileged a single idea over the basics: speed, endurance, sensors, and weapons.
Engine Mismatch. The Cutlass and Airacomet illustrate the danger of pairing ambitious airframes with immature powerplants.
Weight Creep. The Buffalo shows how added armor and gear can sink an airframe designed with tight margins.
Mission/Platform Misfit. The Yak-38’s mission was defined by ship constraints, not by what air defense actually required.
Each also reminds us that failure can be instructive. The P-59 trained the first generation of U.S. jet pilots. The Cutlass forced hard lessons about carrier handling and engine reliability. Even the Roc and Buffalo helped move their services away from dead-end concepts and toward fighters that actually won wars.
Honorable (Or Dishonorable) Fighter Mentions
There are other candidates depending on criteria: early rocket or pulse-jet interceptors that were too dangerous to their pilots, naval fighters built around engines that never matured, or designs that arrived too late to justify their costs. Some notorious types had mixed records—excellent in one nation’s service, disastrous in another because of training, maintenance, or mission misuse. Those edge cases complicate any “worst” list; the five above do not.
The Takeaway: Performance, Patience, And Purpose
Bad fighters aren’t inevitable; they’re choices. Programs that chase novelty without engine and sensor maturity, or that let weight growth outrun the wing, or that bend the mission to fit a ship or a budget, invite disappointment.
The best fighters marry a clear purpose to realistic engineering and then leave room to grow. The worst ignore one of those three—and ask crews to pay the bill.
About the Author: Harry J. Kazianis
Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is Editor-In-Chief and President of National Security Journal. He was the former Senior Director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest (CFTNI), a foreign policy think tank founded by Richard Nixon based in Washington, DC. Harry has over a decade of experience in think tanks and national security publishing. His ideas have been published in the NY Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and many other outlets worldwide. He has held positions at CSIS, the Heritage Foundation, the University of Nottingham, and several other institutions related to national security research and studies. He is the former Executive Editor of the National Interest and the Diplomat. He holds a Master’s degree focusing on international affairs from Harvard University.
More Military
The F/A-18 Super Hornet Fighter Has Reached the End of the Line
The Ferrari F-35 Could Be a Sky Monster
F-22 Super: The ‘New’ Stealth Fighter Is Coming
S
September 8, 2025 at 12:15 pm
OOF!
I’m pretty sure the first two were not “Fighter Jets.”
A bbb
September 8, 2025 at 1:29 pm
Full of bs
Toady
September 9, 2025 at 3:25 am
Re: the Brewster Buffalo. British and Dutch units actually faired pretty well considering they were badly outnumbered and their Pacific Island outposts were ill-prepared for the war. Everything was in such short supply on in 1939-1940, that the Dutch used heavy airliner aviation radios and tired, underpowered overhauled former commercial airliner engines to have defending airplanes in the Pacific at all. They flew some British Buffalos and believed that the Brit’s had a more powerful engine when really it was a fresh engine and a lighter radio. The Sakae on the Zero was inspired by the PW-1820 (in the Brewster) producing a similar output, so on paper an Buffalo with no armor was a fairly close match. Of course the Navy added armor and self-sealing tanks. The Finns had 36 B-239 Buffalo aces (flying 44 airplanes) and nine of the top 10 Finnish pilots had kills in the Buffalo, the highest scoring had 39 kills in the Buffalo (and the Finns would not confirm a kill unless there was wreckage, floating debris, or independent ground confirmation so kills over enemy territory rarely counted). The Finns did this flying in units of no more than two pairs working the same mission and on most occasions always badly outnumbered. I’d say that record is a healthy margin better than “respectable.”