Favorite Single-engine aircraft of the war?

[Veldmaarschalk]

My favourites are

1. Fokker G-1 Jachtkruiser (heavy fighter)

2. Fiat G-55 Centauro

3. Polikarpov I-16

 

[Federkiel]

@Veldmarschaalk
Indeed, the Centauro really is a beauty!



Since the thread was opened to twin engined FTRs as well, i post my favourite 'twinner':

Doesn't she look like a deadly predator?

 

[Neomann]

Dornier Do-335 Pfeil(Arrow)

General characteristics
Crew: 1, pilot
Length: 45 ft 5 in (13.85 m)
Wingspan: 45 ft 1 in (13.8 m)
Height: 15 ft (4.55 m)
Wing area: 592 ft² (55 m²)
Empty weight: 11,484 lb (5,210 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 19,500 lb (8,590 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Daimler-Benz DB 603A 12-cylinder inverted engines, 1,287 kW, 1,726 hp (1,750 PS) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 474 mph (765 km/h)
Combat radius: 721 mi (1,160 km (half load))
Service ceiling: 37,400 ft (11,400 m)
Armament
1 × 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 103 cannon (as forward engine-mounted Motorkanone)
2 × 20 mm MG 151 cannons
Up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) bombload
[edit]

 

[babsalos]

Always been a big F4U Corsair fan.

http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/vought_f4u_corsair.html

 

[Danielefc]

The Stuka. Not including the G-Series... "Ugly" variant indeed.

 

[Cliff60]

for looks its the spitfire. The spit was crap as a fighter as it couldnt turn fast enough and was a pig on landing and taking off. My dad was a pilot during the battle of briton. He loved the spit till he went up against the 109. He wanted his hurricane back as he said it was far better in a dog fight. But for fighting power mosqito. it was the only plane capable of taking on the ME262

 

[boerenlater]

The Messerschmit ME 163 Komet

 

[cfp]

for looks its the spitfire. The spit was crap as a fighter as it couldnt turn fast enough and was a pig on landing and taking off. My dad was a pilot during the battle of briton. He loved the spit till he went up against the 109. He wanted his hurricane back as he said it was far better in a dog fight. But for fighting power mosqito. it was the only plane capable of taking on the ME262

Not knocking your dad, but I don't think many other pilots and/or historians would agree with you that the Spit was a "crap fighter" and worse than the hurricane. Especially not the later variants..

Veld: The I-16 looks so stubby. Like it's too short to fly. The 'Brewster' makes me feel the same way. Plus, they're so easy to shoot down in IL-2

 

[dethtongue]

P-47. This was an aircraft that was all business.

 

[Wunderlicht]

Single Engine plane of the war... easy

 

[scroggin]

for looks its the spitfire. The spit was crap as a fighter as it couldnt turn fast enough and was a pig on landing and taking off. My dad was a pilot during the battle of briton. He loved the spit till he went up against the 109. He wanted his hurricane back as he said it was far better in a dog fight. But for fighting power mosqito. it was the only plane capable of taking on the ME262

The hurricane was actually very sucessful in the battle of britain. Its tighter turning circle meant it was very good in a dogfight and gorings orders that the me109s had to fly close escort on the bombers meant that the hurricane could catch up and force them to either get involved in a dogfight or dive away and desert the bombers.
The disadvantages of the hurricane were ;it was significantly slower, it had a slower rate of climb , its performance at high altitude was poorer and it couldnt dive as fast as the me109.
When the me109s werent tied to bombers they could take advantage of the hurricanes weaknesses simply by coming in high diving in fast shooting them up and getting out quick. If a hurricane was theatening a 109 he could get away by going into a dive or just opening his throttle.
The spitfire on the other hand was more still slightly more manoverable than the 109 but it also had better performance at high altitude and its speed was almost as good during the battle of britain. Some of the later marks were better.
For me its got to be the Spit

 

[pacja]

Macchi C202 Folgore:

I've seen one exposed in the Smithsonian museum and I found it wonderful (the strange thing is that, despite being italian myself, I knew the foreign planes better than the italian ones!).

 

[KLorberau]

My favorite (being part German) is the ME262 ..........but since it is a two jet engine beast.................I will go for the FW190. Numerous variations.........lots of armour......lots of firepower............just a damn fine machine.........

Being mostly American (hahaha...my dad flew in the USAAF Fifteen Air Force on B-17's)........my favorite Allied single engine would be the P47 "Jug". Ugly looking thing....but could take a lot of punishment...and did a fine job until the excellent P51 arrived on the scene.

KLorberau

 

[Red Phil]

I think my favourite for sheer increduality for somebody to design something like it, has to go to the Luftwaffe BV-141;

But for production models, I think the Spitfire, Typhoon, Stuka and Nakajima B5N might take pride of places for asthetics and performance.

True story when I was a kid I built an airfix model of the Luftwaffe BV -141, Recon plane. My mum saw it a few days later thought it was broken (Missing the other engine and wing) and threw it away!!

Oh Spitfire as my fav with the Ilyushin Il-2 second.

 

[XHR]

Mine is the Junkers Ju 87 G-2 "Kanonenvogel". Rudel's variant of the ol' Stuka, so to speak. Pretty impressive tank killer

 

[Natvander]

I definitely don't have a single favourite (a sucker for the Spits and the Typhoon/Tempest), but one of them would have to be the CAC Boomerang. Not pretty and very underpowered, but proved itself in combat. It also had one of the shortest design-to-production timeframes in WW2 history.

I'm also a bit of a P-40 fan.

 

[Niewitch]

la-5 or la-7

 

[Zaki]

I just feel like I need to cast my vote for my country's own fighter: IK-3

There's a picture:

There were only 12 of them, of which mere 6 were operational at the beginning of the German attack. Yet they managed to claim 11 victories over Belgrade.

Yugoslav air force also had some Me-109 and German pilots, to avoid mistakes, focused their attacks on these six IK-3. In the first wave there were more than 150 German fighters over Belgrade. All that only makes IK-3's achievements even bigger. But anyway, there's no need to prove that it was good aircraft; it's simply my favorite.

 

[unmerged(161878)]

Hawker Hurricane

Hawker Typhoon

 

[unmerged(141369)]

Mine is the Junkers Ju 87 G-2 "Kanonenvogel". Rudel's variant of the ol' Stuka, so to speak. Pretty impressive tank killer

Seconded for being the precursor of my favorite modern-day plane, the A-10, and for sinking the Marat, which is comparable to a baby hamster beating up Mike Tyson.