Who can name...

[MK-84]

     I am going to assume we mean production aircraft, and not including poor manufacturing, or poor sales.

     Off the top of my Head:  (I'm certain worse exist)
For military:
     Blackburn Firebrand
For commercial:
     Caproni Ca-60

[Yeager]

google is not cooperating.....

[Ack-Ack]

    I am going to assume we mean production aircraft, and not including poor manufacturing, or poor sales.

     Off the top of my Head:  (I'm certain worse exist)
For military:
     Blackburn Firebrand
For commercial:
     Caproni Ca-60

I said "constructed", which would include prototypes, test beds and production aircraft.

ack-ack

[Larry]

sure...when did you stop running to N7 long enough to fight anyone?  Nice try, please play again.

ack-ack

Its okay akak I still love you.


http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/4/24/1013733/yakyak.ahf

[kilo2]

Don't tell me this is a terrible question with a answer like wright flyer.

[Ack-Ack]

Don't tell me this is a terrible question with a answer like wright flyer.

Nope, it's not a trick question.


ack-ack

[Masherbrum]

PA-1?

[Avanti]

Bell Airacobra
 
or

Bv-141

[Ack-Ack]

Since no one will figure out before Christmas...

Here is the plane...The Christmas Bullet (a.k.a "Cantilever Aero Bullet" or "Christmas Strutless Biplane").

• The first Bullet's engine was a Liberty Six, a cut-down version of the famous V-12 Liberty. The army were upset that Christmas flew the first Bullet and wrecked their expensive engine without notifying them
• There was no bracing at all between the upper and lower wings, although it was considered worthwhile to brace the tailplane.

Doctor William Christmas believed that struts were unnecessary and that an aeroplane's wings should be free to flap like a bird's. Unfortunately, on the first flight of his 'Bullet' fighter, also known as the Christmas Strutless Biplane and by other names, the wings did exactly that and then came adrift. The pilot was killed instantly. A second Bullet did exactly the same thing a few months later. Christmas claimed all sorts of things, among them that he had 'hundreds' of aeronautical patents and that he was swamped by orders for Bullets from Europe and by million-dollar offers to rebuild Germany's air forces. None of them were true, but he did get the US Army to pay him handsomely for his wing design. Or so he said.

Jim Winchester "The World's Worst Aircraft", 2005

From Wiki...

Design and development
Dr. William W. Christmas (there is some question as to whether he was even a legally licensed doctor), who had no experience in aircraft design or aeronautical work, claimed to have built an aircraft of his own design in 1908 that was lost in a crash. After a second aircraft was supposedly built, called the Red Bird, later modified into the Red Bird II, Christmas founded the Christmas Aeroplane Company based in Washington, DC, in 1910. No evidence beyond his own claims has ever been found for the existence of either of these aircraft. By 1912, the company became the Durham Christmas Aeroplane Sales & Exhibition Company and later the Cantilever Aero Company after moving to Copiague, NY, in 1918.

Christmas convinced two brothers, Henry McCorey and Alfred McCorey, to back him. They then paid a visit to the Continental Aircraft Company, of Long Island, where Christmas convinced management that his planned aircraft would be the key element in an audacious plot to kidnap Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Two designs were proposed, a single-seat "scout" and a three-place "fighting machine."

The single-seat "Christmas Bullet" featured an all-wood construction with a veneer-clad fuselage, although despite his claims to the contrary, neither design feature reduced aerodynamic drag, nor was he among the first to use this method of construction; the majority of German World War I-era two-seater aircraft used for bombing and reconnaissance were similarly constructed. The "Bullet" was powered by a prototype Liberty 6 engine. Although the US Army had been persuaded to loan an engine, the proviso was that the prototype engine was to be fitted into an airframe for ground testing only.

The design had a serious flaw in that it lacked any kind of struts or braces for the wings, with Christmas' insisting that they should be flexible. Control of the aircraft was meant to be achieved by applying the technique of wing warping to its tail surfaces.[3] Although the Chief Engineer at Continental, Vincent Burnelli, tried to institute changes, the "Christmas Bullet" was completed with the original design features intact. Construction materials were scrounged from available wood and steel stock and were not "aircraft grade", which was also a concern to Burnelli.

Operational history
On its maiden flight in January 1919, the wings of the "Bullet" peeled from the fuselage and the aircraft crashed, killing the pilot, Cuthbert Mills. The destruction of the prototype Liberty engine was never revealed to the US Army and a second Bullet was built powered by an Hall-Scott L-6 engine. The second prototype was also destroyed on its first flight, again with the loss of the test pilot, Lt. Allington Joyce Jolly. Jolly is buried in the Cropsey Cemetery in Cropsey, Illinois. The project was abandoned before its United States Army Air Service (USAAS) evaluation.

Following the crash of the second Bullet, Christmas continued to campaign for more funding for further projects, seeking out private and government sources, claiming "hundreds" of patents or patent submissions based on his aeronautical research. His far-fetched assertions were proved untrue but he did apparently sell his unusual wing design to the US Army ("or so he claimed").

Specifications (First prototype)
General characteristics

Crew: 1
Length: 26 ft 0 in (6.40 m)
Wingspan: 28 ft 0 in (8.53 m)
Wing area: 170 ft² (15.79 m²)
Empty weight: 1,820 lb (826 kg)
Gross weight: 2,100 lb (953 kg)
Powerplant: 1 × Liberty 6, 185 hp ( kW)
Performance

Maximum speed: 175 (anticipated) mph (282 km/h)
Range: 550 miles (885 km)
Service ceiling: 14,700 ft (4,481 m)

[Plazus]

Dang, beat me to it. I was going to say "Tarrant Tabor", built in 1919.

[Ack-Ack]

Dang, beat me to it. I was going to say "Tarrant Tabor", built in 1919.

In the Tarrant's favor, if the engines had been placed in another location, it could have flown and with its nose overloaded with over 1,000 lbs. of lead ballast, it really didn't help the Tarrant.  

However, the Christmas Bullet was designed by a fraudster with absolutely no idea of aerodynamics as evidence by insisting the Bullet be designed without struts for the wings so the wings could "flap" like a bird.  It also didn't help that Dr. Christmas insisted that the plane be made with readily non-airworthy material.  Dr. Christmas was to aviation what VOSS is to the flight sim community, a fraud and a crook.

ack-ack

[Plazus]

Interesting. Just looking at the Christmas Bullet makes my head spin. It looks like nothing more than a wooden box with a long strip of plywood nailed to it. I can't believe those test pilots were gutsy enough to even sit in one of those.

[Ack-Ack]

Interesting. Just looking at the Christmas Bullet makes my head spin. It looks like nothing more than a wooden box with a long strip of plywood nailed to it. I can't believe those test pilots were gutsy enough to even sit in one of those.

On another message board, the first test pilot was described as brave, the 2nd test pilot as dumb.

ack-ack

[Angus]

I do not if this one was bad, but surely ugly:


Out of WW2, there were surely many flops. "Bad" meaning either endless design flaws or teething problems, or simply bad performance in the cirkumstances faced.
Names like Fairey Battle, Douglas Devastator, even He-177, Me 210, SBC, oh, - it is a contest of many more.
As for wing bracing, I wonder why they didn't just strut the upper one. After all, lower wing aircraft are rarely strutted (upwards), although I belive I have seen a picture of one.
And as for wood and canvas.....I like it.

[fullmetalbullet]

i would say heinkels salamander aswell. i mean im stupid enough to take a flight in a mig that will just fall apart. but OMG who puts the intake behind and above the ejection seat.