5 Of the Most Underrated Planes Ever
YouTube / History in the Dark
Here’s a list of the five most underrated planes in history:
5. Vickers Valiant
The Vickers Valiant was the first of the Royal Air Force’s V-bomber strategic deterrent force.
Out of the three V-bombers, it was the only one that could actually drop a nuke in 1956, making it the first British aircraft to ever drop a live atomic bomb during the Buffalo R3/Kite Test in Australia.
Today, there’s only one fully intact Vickers Valiant in existence displayed at the RAF Museum.
4. P-61 Black Widow
The Black Widow was the first US aircraft that was designed as a night fighter.
It was an all-metal construction, twin-engine, twin-boom design armed with four forward-firing 20 mm Hispano autocannons, four 50-inch M2 Browing machine guns, and a dorsal gun turret.
A handful of these planes are still around, and one is actually being restored at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Pennsylvania.
3. Cessna A-37 Dragonfly
When they were first introduced, the A-37A didn’t have enough range, endurance, and there were heavy control responses during attack runs as the flight controls weren’t power boosted.
Cessna was eventually awarded to design the A-37B with newer airframes, which can pull six G’s instead of five, and had a longer fatigue life of 4,000 hours.
By the end of the Vietnam War, it flew over 160,000 combat sorties and suffered only 22 losses.
2. Saab 35 Draken
Sometimes called ‘The Kite’ or ‘The Dragon,’ this Swedish plane first flew in October 1955.
It was the first European-built combat aircraft with true supersonic capability to enter service and the first supersonic aircraft to be deployed in Europe.
This was also the first known jet that could pull off the Cobra Maneuver.
1. Heinkel He-162 Spatz
The 162 is sometimes called the Volksjager, which means the People’s Fighter.
While the He-162 was built out of good components, the main structure of the competing designs would utilize cheap and unsophisticated parts made of wood and non-strategic material.
Today, a lot of captured examples are on display around the world.
