The Worst Aircraft of WW2

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by JtD

I just realized that the Curtiss Seamew is classified as "bad but useful" - what was it useful at? Does anyone know? I've read a lot about the bad qualities, but nothing about the "useful" ones.

Light catapult-launched recon planes aren't exactly high performance aircraft. As long as the engine didn't fail, you didn't try to perform aerobatics in it, the windows didn't fog up and the radio didn't fail, the Seamew could still perform its missions of artillery spotting, short range recon, light liaison/transport and crew training.

Obviously, the SOC and the OS2U were much better planes, and the Japanese float planes were even better than those, but SO3C was just barely "good enough." Certainly, in many cases it was better than no airplane at all.