The 6 Most Lethal Aircraft in History

World War I began a little more than a decade after the Wright Brothers' first successful test flight at Kitty Hawk. Aircraft technology advanced at a rapid pace during the war, as engineers worked to build a durable and maneuverable plane, Air Force historian and author Walter Boyne tells PM. Improvements came so fast that no single aircraft could maintain dominance for very long. But for about eight months in late 1915, the German Fokker Eindecker ruled the skies over Europe, so much so that historians call this period the Fokker Scourge. "[The plane] was new and terrifying and caused all kinds of indignation in parliament," Boyne says.

The Eindecker's designer, Anthony Fokker, was Dutch. His technological leap was to synchronize the gears of the propeller and machine gun. Previously, most fighter planes possessed machine guns mounted to the side, so the guns didn't take out their own propeller or hull while firing. But the Fokker could fire right through its propellers, Boyne says, which shocked French and British pilots, who weren't accustomed to another plane attacking them head-on. Fokkers also instilled a psychological terror in ground troops--besides snipers, poison gas and artillery, they now had to worry about death from above.

Eventually, the British and French caught up to the Eindecker's monoplane design, and its reign ended in 1916. But, Boyne says, the Fokker aircraft changed the way military airplanes and their pilots were viewed. "It initiated the lethal aircraft," Boyne says.

At the outset of World War II, Japan naval aviation outpaced that of the United States, according to Jon Parshall, co-author of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. The Japanese Imperial Navy could deploy devastating dive bomber and torpedo bomber attacks, destroying hopelessly overmatched Allied carriers within minutes, Parshall says. But the true class of the fleet was the Zero fighter, manufactured by Mitsubishi. Despite its reputation for early-war dominance that endures today, he says, the Zero might even be underrated. "You have to give it props, if nothing else, for the shock value that it induced in the Allies," Parshall says.

Put simply, the Zero could fly circles around anything the British or Americans could manufacture early on. Japanese manufacturers sacrificed everything--speed, self-sealing gas tanks and armor--to make the most maneuverable aircraft they possibly could. As a result, Parshall says, the Zero "was really good at dishing it out, but couldn't take a hit." That trade-off was acceptable during the early part of the war, he says, because it fit the offensive-oriented Japanese strategy: Japan had expert pilots who used the Zero's advantages to devastating effect. Allied pilots had to learn fast to avoid Zeroes in dogfights.

Unfortunately for the Japanese, Parshall says, the attrition of war eventually kills even the best pilots. Tactics also changed. Allied pilots learned to fight Zeros above 22,000 ft, where the Japanese plane's maneuverability waned and the superior horsepower of American planes took over. Americans not only created better planes as World War II progressed, they created more of them. Parshall says Japan didn't have the manufacturing capability to keep up. Because workers hand-built many of the Zero parts, assembly line mass production was impossible.

Parshall says that Japan continued to fly Zeroes until 1945, when they had become long outdated. Other World War II fighters deserve mention for their prowess, including British Spitfires and Hurricanes, German Fw-190s and Bf-109s, and American P-51s and P-38s. But in its heyday, Parshall says, nothing could touch the Zero.

World War I and early World War II fighters were fearsome in their day, Boyne says, but compared to what was to come, "all that stuff was just penny ante." The dawn of major destruction from the skies came with the wave of World War II-era bombers, including the German Ju-87s and Ju-88s; Britain's Avro Lancasters which ran nighttime bombing raids over Germany; and the American B-17s and B-24s that ran missions during the day. But none was a match for the B-29, America's first long-range bomber.

Boeing's B-29 entered World War II late. The aircraft began combat service in 1944 as part of Operation Matterhorn, in which B-29s bombed the Japanese mainland from forward bases in China. Each Superfortress could carry six tons of bombs, and scores of them flew together on missions to firebomb Japanese cities. In fact, the death toll from the B-29s' firebombing of cities like Tokyo and Yokohama far outstripped the deaths caused by the aircraft's delivery of atomic bombs to Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and to Nagasaki three days later. The planes had killed hundreds of thousands by the end of 1945.

B-29s went on to serve in the Korean War before being replaced by newer bombers; they were ultimately discontinued in 1960. But Boyne says the plane's ability to cover long distances--and to carry nuclear weapons--paved the way

for those future Cold War bombers.

Little more than a decade into the service life of the C-130 Hercules, Lockheed Martin's massive cargo plane, the U.S. Air Force made it into a warrior. During the Vietnam War, the Air Force needed major gunships to support troops on the ground, so it fitted C-130s with machine guns. The first squadron of these new AC-130 Spectres took flight in 1968.

In 1971, Pat Carpenter flew in AC-130s on nightly missions in Vietnam, where he served as gunner and anti-aircraft artillery spotter. He's now president of the Spectre Association, an organization of AC-130 veterans. In some ways, he says, it was an easy deployment--their airbase in Thailand was away from the fighting, and after flying night missions, the crew could go to the bar downtown. But that doesn't mean flying a Spectre was a picnic, Carpenter says. Despite unloading a barrage of 20 mm and 40 mm rounds every night, he says the massive firepower never made him feel safe during missions. "We didn't think about it that way," he says, "because most of the time they were shooting at us."

During the course of the Vietnam War, AC-130s were credited with destroying around 10,000 trucks. Carpenter says that after the aircraft's deployment, one of its main assignments was to find and destroy supplies flowing along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. During his year of service in 1971, his crew frequently flew two attacking missions per night, usually escorted by F-4 Phantoms. But, he says, the most gratifying missions were rescues, when the AC-130 could bring down a rain of cannon fire all around a group of stranded pilots or infantry. Once, he says, his plane--down one engine--flew above stranded soldiers until dawn, when helicopters could arrive. "As long as they could hear us," he says, "we were their comfort blanket."

The U.S. Air Force has upgraded AC-130s with bigger weapons and better sensors, and they are now used to support conventional and special operations forces units operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, making these lethal aircraft one of the longest-serving planes still in the skies.

The A-10 is no glamour ride. When the design of this single-seat attack aircraft first appeared, the Air Force wasn't excited about bringing it into the arsenal, Boyne says--leaders preferred high-flying air support, not low-flying attack planes exposed to heavy enemy fire. And the Thunderbolt II's less-than-gorgeous appearance earned it the nickname "Warthog." But the A-10 is a hardy flier, armed to the teeth, and beloved among troops on the ground who benefit from the airplane's lethality. Designed initially for the purpose of destroying Soviet tanks and other ground-level armaments, A-10s carry a 30 mm Gatling gun in their noses that fires almost 4000 rounds per minute, as well as Maverick air-to-surface missiles or rockets on their wings. A-10s can attack at under 1000 ft, requiring redundant wing gas, self-sealing gas tanks and one-in.-thick titanium around the cockpit.

Warthogs found plenty of targets during the first Gulf War. According to Global Security, A-10s destroyed tanks, artillery pieces and trucks at a rate of about 1000 each during Operation Desert Storm. They also destroyed many other targets, such as radars, bunkers and Scud missile launchers. The aircraft flew attack missions in Kosovo in the 1990s, and they serve in the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars, where their ability to fly low has allowed them to support ground troops.

The U.S. continues to count on the Warthog for close air support, and will for some time--the aircraft is currently slated for retirement in 2028, according to Air Force Magazine. But the planes' heavy-duty use has left A-10s the worse for wear--one-third of the Air Force's A-10s are currently grounded because of cracks found in their wings.

American aviation has enjoyed nearly total air superiority during recent conflicts, opening the door for low-flying aircraft such as helicopters to operate. In the world of attack helicopters, the AH-64 Apache stands out as a true killer. Boyne ranks the Apache, which was introduced in the 1980s and entered combat during the 1989 invasion of Panama, as the deadliest helicopter in the U.S. arsenal.

Jonathan Bernstein, author of the book AH-64 Apache Units of Operations Enduring Freedom & Iraqi Freedom, says the Apache's first major test in battle came in the Gulf War. As part of Task Force Normandy, he says, Apaches fired the first salvos of Desert Storm. Throughout the war, he says, they wiped out Iraqi tanks and infrastructure with such fury that "Iraqi soldiers on the ground were surrendering to Apaches." In Iraq and Afghanistan, Bernstein says, AH-64s moved from what the Army calls "deep attack," working behind enemy lines, to "close combat attack"--supporting troops on the ground. And, he says, Apaches have proven lethal at this task, too. Boeing told Bernstein that the helicopters accounted for 71 percent of all enemies killed in action in 2007 in Iraq.

Apaches are armed with 30 mm M230 machine guns; Bernstein says that you could fire "a 10-round burst in a 10-meter square and have every inch of that square covered." AH-64s can also carry up to three different kinds of rockets at once, including Hellfires.

Some experts, Boyne included, worry that the Army is overusing their Apaches, which have now been in service for nearly a quarter-century. But Bernstein says that the choppers have already received two serious upgrades, and they're scheduled for a third by 2011. The last upgrade, or "block two," provided full moving maps on the displays. "I love block-two birds," he says. "They're such an incredible machine." And last year, Apaches were equipped with MTADS, a new night vision and targeting system. More new designs may be coming down the pipe, he says, because the Army wants a faster chopper than the AH-64. But in all likelihood, Apaches will stay in service for another two decades.