We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

5 Worst Fighters, Explained – Key Points: The article examines five fighter jets considered the worst in aviation history due to poor design, unreliable performance, and operational failures.

-The Soviet Sukhoi Su-7 suffered from poor maneuverability and limited range.

-The Yakovlev Yak-38, designed as a VTOL aircraft, was plagued by unreliable engines and limited payload capacity.

-The MiG-9, the Soviet Union’s first jet fighter, had severe design flaws, including gun placement that caused engine stalls.

-The American F-102 Delta Dagger was slow and dangerous to fly, resulting in many accidents.

-Lastly, the Vought F7U Cutlass, dubbed the “Gutless Cutlass,” struggled with underpowered engines and operational unreliability.

The 5 Worst Fighter Jets of All Time

There have been too many terrible fighter jets to mention since World War Two, so it was difficult to trim such a list down. 

The Soviet Union had to take the prize for making the most awful airplanes during the jet age, but the United States also had some stinkers. 

The biggest problems were unsatisfactory airframe design and bad engines. 

The engineers always intended the warbirds on this inglorious list to be great dogfighters, but that was not to be. 

Some of these jets were flying coffins that killed their pilots. 

Others just spent too much downtime because of reliability issues. C

Check out this list of the five worst fighter jets of all time: 

Sukhoi Su-7 Fighter

The Sukhoi Su-7 was a post-World War Two fighter that never lived up to its promise. The Su-7 had swept wings and was supposed to be supersonic. 

The idea was to keep the entire design simple so it could take advantage of what the Soviets thought was a high speed at the time. 

So, it was meant for low-altitude dogfighting. The Su-7 was known for its ugly open nose at the front.

The Su-7 began development in 1953. The Soviets tested the nasty-looking jet for six years and a test pilot died three years into the evaluation period. The engine was terrible, and its range suffered. 

It was not going to be a good dogfighter. The wings were too thin, hindering maneuverability and making it difficult to land the bird. It was definitely dangerous to fly, as pilots even had trouble seeing out of the cockpit.

Since it would never be a good fighter, the Soviets thought they could make it into a small bomber. However, the airplane had problems flying at high altitudes, and the range limitations made it ineffective for strike missions. 

Despite these problems, the Su-7 was used by some air forces until the 1990s.

Yakovlev Yak-38  

The Yak-38 was supposed to be the Soviet version of the British Hawker Harrier vertical takeoff and landing fighter. The first Yak-38 rolled off the production line in 1969.

 This warbird needed to be pilot-friendly.

The lift turbofans had problems. The turbofans were supposed to be integrated seamlessly into the rear thrust engine, but the design and engineering of this power plant were faulty. 

If the lift turbofans did not work as designed, the airplane would dart out of control into a death spin. 

The jump jet had difficulty in Afghanistan during take-off and landing when it threw large amounts of dust into the engines.

 Therefore, it was ineffective during that conflict. Like the Su-7, it also had poor range and lacked the engine power to be a good dogfighter. 

The Yak-38 had only four hard points for weapons, so it needed modern firepower to be an effective fighter.

MiG-9

The Mig-9 was horrible-looking. 

This was the first production fighter jet the Soviets ever built, and it showed. It certainly was not going to win any awards for looks. The jet resembled a toy you would find under a Christmas tree in the late 1940s. 

This airplane was going to be ineffective. It was simply born under a bad sign.

The Soviets didn’t even use a swept-wing design. It looked like they had just taken a World War Two fighter and placed a jet engine on it. They didn’t know where to locate the guns, which became a major design flaw. 

When the cannons were fired, gas from the guns bled into the engines, causing stalls. This thing was a disaster.

F-102 Delta Dagger

We have been picking on the Soviet Union for having some awful fighters, but the United States was not immune from producing some stinkers during the Cold War. The F-102 Delta Dagger was undoubtedly a dud. 

The F-102 was introduced in 1956. It had a new delta-wing design and was meant to fly at supersonic speeds with a long-range and high altitude. The fuselage had problems, and the airframe had significant drag. 

So, the F-102 barely made it above MACH 1.  

The United States decided to make 1,000 Delta Daggers even though there were obvious design problems, along with a distinctive lack of speed and maneuverability.

 The F-102 was also a flying coffin. At least 259 were involved in accidents, and 70 pilots died during the mishaps. 

The active-duty Air Force assigned the airplane to the Air National Guard, and it flew in reserve duty throughout the Vietnam War.

The Vought F7U Cutlass

The F7U Cutlass simply looked weird. Based on that design, believing this warbird could be air-worthy was difficult. It had swept wings, but there was no tail. It was developed after World War Two, and there were some interesting innovations such as an afterburning engine and new flight and fire control systems. Unfortunately, the power plant lacked the thrust you would need for dogfighting. 

Pilots called it the “Gutless Cutlass.” This Navy airplane never caught on because carrier landings and takeoffs would be tricky with the problematic engine. 

The F7U spent long periods in maintenance at the repair shop, so it had the reputation of being unreliable. 

Numerous accidents occurred, including a crash at an air show. By 1959, the Cutlass was unceremoniously retired.  

About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood

Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare, plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.