The Loening M-8-1: Gave you clipped wings.

From an order of 5000 of these two-seat fighters at the WWI to just a bunch of them after the armistice. The usual case.

Gourdou-Leseurre GL-22: Blessed Decorator.

The Estonian Air Force really knew how to prepare a banquet: just put one of their GL-22s diving at you. Hope someone took care of the usual engine oil leaks.

NAA F-100A “Hun”: Breakin’ the Hangar Barrier.

Scott Crossfield’s F-100A parked neatly after his “Hun” first landing. During the flight Crossfield experienced a engine fire and had to shut down the engine and performed a flawless dead stick landing. After that demonstration of professionalism, Crossfield maybe thought he could do even more for his professional pride.  As a show-off he tried to park neatly the “Hun” in the ramp just aided by inertia….. the “Hun” brakes betrayed him.

(NASA Photo)

Bell XP-77: The american wooden midget.

Conceived when it was thought strategic materials shortages could be insight (they weren’t) and with a concept already proved wrong in other countries, the XP-77 had very few possibilities. On top of that add subcontractor problems; engine overheating/lack of performance; dubious stability and you get the picture.

One of the prototypes near a B-29 as a graphic demonstration of the XP-77 real size. Quite pretty, but Americans do big things better.

Sikorsky S-29-A: Too pioneerin’ for its own good.

Igor’s first American effort. A 16 passengers airliner nothing less. Sadly a tad too big for 1924. Condemned as a airliner, the S-29-A enjoyed a very varied career after it was sold: flying billboard, acting as a flying cigar store(!) and disguised as a Gotha G- bomber (as seen here) to take part  in H.Hughes’ “Hell’s Angels” movie. It paid the ultimate price for its movie stardom: it crashed and was damaged beyond posible repair.

L.V.G. D.10: Walfisch’s Galore.

After they made some licence-built pretty Albatros II the people of  L.V.G. it was time at for a tour de force so…..they jumped into the abyss with their D.10.
It flew horribly, quite unbeliable don’t you think?

Blackburn F.3 (F.7/30): Don’t be too literal.

This is what happens when you follow client specifications too literally. List of “virtues”: a steam-cooled Goshawk without surface condensers (used a big honeycomb matrix steam/water radiator under the fuselage); the high centre of gravity, wheel spats that were eliminated to help in landing gear alterations and developed cracks in the fuselage during taxi trials.
It never achieved a flight and ended as an instructional airframe.

Silvanskii IS: The Definition of BRAVERY.

You must have to be brave to be a dilettante “fighter designer” in Stalin’s Soviet Union.  Not bad looking but when the time came to test flight the IS the wheel bays turned to too shallow to accept the wheels. So Silvanskii shortened the legs…and the prop touched the ground when the tail was up so he cut the prop, etc, etc.  In the end the IS made only one flight in early 1939 and its pilot landed very, very shaken. Silvanskii was banned for designing anything else….happy fellow, at least he came alive of the experience.

Beechcraft Model 34 “Twin-Quad”: A Beached Whale.

Another post-WW2 hopeful turned into economical disaster due to the availability of cheaper surplus military transports. Its neat twin-quad engine configuration was lovely though.
By the way, would you trust an aircraft that its designers thought it needs a reinforced belly in case of a possible wheels-up landing?