WesWorld

Since there are a lot of WW fighter designs in use I wonder which fighter do you consider the best and why?

Best for what role and for whom?

What I mean is... I'm not going to buy the same aircraft for Bulgaria that I'm going to buy for Chile. The requirements are different, and so what might be the "best fighter" in Bulgaria's opinion may not be a very good fighter at all in Chile's opinion.

I think that the Argentine I-02 or one of RA's Centauro prototypes is probably the best at the moment.

Well a fighters primary role is to shoot down other aircraft...

As for the other questions I will leave that up to those that are commenting under "Why?"

Any fighter plane a focussed Manzo gets his hands on.

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Originally posted by Brockpaine
I think that the Argentine I-02 or one of RA's Centauro prototypes is probably the best at the moment.

I'd think the Hurricanes would be up there as well.

The Centauro is a beast, but not around yet. It's currently undergoing a redesign to make it a bit safer for it's pilots at high speeds. I prefer the look of the new Centauro as well.

As a pure fighter, I would take the Aguila II. With all the weight in the fuselague, it should have a wicked roll rate and is pretty light with good speed.

Depends on the pilots and the situation. Canada's odditys have the definate ability to catch most conventional pilots unawares.

must not mention canadian foo fighters...must not mention canadian foo fighters...

I could say, wait until Talons 38 to find out!

Seriously I think the He-100, Curtiss P-42 and Sp-35 Viper at the moment are the fastest and meanest fighters in the world but limited to shoot and scoot and climb and dive tactics. If you want a dogfighter the Aguila isn't bad, the I-100 Barron is still formidable, Spitfire would probably top the dogfighters.

I'd like to think the I-02 is good but hasn't yet flown so on paper it looks good but who knows. The I-01 was a compartive failure being technically behind the latest European times (as expected for a SA nation).
Centauro is a beast but also deadly in its current form and probably not very servicable in frontline service.

Twin engined fighters are tricky, probably the F-10 Cutlass as the best (but its freaking huge and can tote a load of bombs too!) with the Fw-187 as the most widespread type. The Gloster Gunner too would be very good.

The Aguila III is just a bit too small and cramped to be useful. Not much space for that armament or much fuel. The two stage supercharger might be a bit doubtful.

South Africa's F-6 is a proven design and probably the best fighter in service at the moment. The F-17/SP-35 from Atlantis looks pretty good as well.

The CR.35/36 from Italy are just a bit too small and cramped to be really useful. Good performance over short range but very limited ability for growth. Started as a nice design to get into monoplanes but has been pushed as far as it'll go. The Macchi C.200 and Reggiane 2001 fighter-bombers are just a little bit too slow compared to the new generation of aircraft - still fairly useful though, just need more power. The C.202 is good in the vertical and has a very good roll rate but the highish wing loading limits turn performance at altitude.

The Cutlass is indeed freaking huge! The He-100 is definately up there IMO. Hopefully the I-02 does better than the I-01 which despite being behind the times still looked good on paper and looked just plain good! The I-02 simply looks like it means serious business!

Funny, I never really thought of the I-01 being behind the times... I always thought it was on par with an early mark Spitfire or better, maybe up to the MkV standard... and the only plane which can compare in terms of looks is the Spitfire.

The I-01 LOOKS like a plane that is full of awesome.

I'do love all the WW fighters And I'lll try to make a Peruvian plane I'll post soon. But I'm your guys do it always better

The I-01 is a bit behind the Spitfire I, being slower with a higher wingloading. It suffers a bit from the relative lack of power as well. It's a useful step forwards from the I-100 and gets in some experience with metal bashing. The I-01-II with more power does better, but performance at altitude is still a bit poor - that seems to be fairly common though.

I still haven't made my mind up about the I-02. Rate of climb is a bit poor. Probably needs another 100-200hp.

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Originally posted by Red Admiral
South Africa's F-6 is a proven design and probably the best fighter in service at the moment.

An interesting statement. Why do you think so?

We should define best in what sense? Pure fighter? Interceptor? Long range fighter?

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Twin engined fighters are tricky, probably the F-10 Cutlass as the best (but its freaking huge and can tote a load of bombs too!) with the Fw-187 as the most widespread type. The Gloster Gunner too would be very good.

If talking about pure fighters, I would say the Fw-187 is better. The Cutlass might be the better multi-role plane but being huge is not good for fighters.

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The Aguila III is just a bit too small and cramped to be useful. Not much space for that armament or much fuel. The two stage supercharger might be a bit doubtful.

The III is actually bigger than the II, and should be a pretty decent multi-role fighter, but I do consider the II the better pure fighter, even if underpowered compared to other fighters.

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The CR.35/36 from Italy are just a bit too small and cramped to be really useful. Good performance over short range but very limited ability for growth. Started as a nice design to get into monoplanes but has been pushed as far as it'll go. The Macchi C.200 and Reggiane 2001 fighter-bombers are just a little bit too slow compared to the new generation of aircraft - still fairly useful though, just need more power. The C.202 is good in the vertical and has a very good roll rate but the highish wing loading limits turn performance at altitude.

If we are talking about dogfighting ability, range and crampness become irrelevant, as such I would put the CR.35 and the Aguila II as the best fighters currently available.

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An interesting statement. Why do you think so?

The original -B would still be a reasonable aircraft but the -D and -E with greater power seem to offer performance on par with other new fighters. Maneuverability is difficult to figure, but there don't seem to have been any problems in combat. The extensive glazing on the canopy gives a nice wide field of view as well. The armament with 15mm mgs is good and the range is a bit longer than most others (probably around a 400km radius which isn't that great compared to some later WWII aircraft). The F-6 has proven itself in combat, unlike most of the other aircraft here. The airframe is probably being a pushed a bit now for much further development, it'll be interesting to see what design JFM comes up with as a follow on.

Italy's CR.35 offers better performance, but is small, cramped, with short range, little armament, little armour and no self sealing tanks. The CR.36 rectifies some of the problems but overloads the airframe a bit. Fiat's new Centauro is a lot more capable, but is a lot heavier.

I put the poor altitude performance of the I-01-II and the still not perfect climb of the I-02 down to planebuilder rather than any technical issue.

Still I'm being fair and sticking to the planebuilder specs rather than trying to fudge it and put it down IC to technological backwardness (well not backward but perhaps not as advanced).

Really I'm relegating I-01 to multi-purpose fighter (in OTL the I-01-II would be pretty good still) and the I-02 becomes the new interceptor, then the I-02-II...

I'd forgotten the F-6 series, certainly has faults perhaps like all fighters but generally as a combat-proven type it has the practical edge over the newer untried He-100, Centauro type fighters coming out now.

I´m not sure if the F-6s fuselage has reached an end for development. From her stats she´s pretty much a Spitfire and she is build with similar technologie. Given the long life and many variants of the Spitfire I can see one or two more for the F-6 too.

Finding a sucessor is difficult. During last Talons the new F-8 series was introduced. A radial engine fighter with a completely different fuselage she probably is more like an interceptor than a dogfighter but actually, I have not yet decided which way to go. The pics and current stats are based on the japanese Ki-44 series but as always that doesn´t mean it has to be like a Ki-44 in future. I merely use pictures here...

I have one other plane that might come as a sucessor later on. It´s also radial engined and truely lacks the slender lines of a He 112 or Spitfire....

Hey don't forget theres a war on in South America right now so the "battle proven" label may be expanded to include a few more fighters.