Let's have some fun

[fasteagle12]

Coleco's Adam computer....lasted about a year. Touted as the poor man's home computer. I pity the suckers that bought that....wait...I have one in my attic....

[sadchevy]

cars : AMC Pacer

movies : George Clooney in Solaris

[Old Blind Dog]

candy bar:

Milkalilapause (pronounced milk-a-lie-la-paws)

It was decent chocolate, but, cripes! Who the heck came up with that name? Sounds like a cross between milk of magnesia and menopause!

I lived in a test market area--this was about 20 years ago-- and true to form, if I like a thing it tends not to succeed. However, I think it might have done considerably better if they'd put a bit more thought into the name! :lol:

cheers

Old Blind Dog

Edited December 30, 2010 by Old Blind Dog

[Lucien Harpress]

I bought two (not one, TWO!) books, both entitled "World's Worst Aircraft".

I'll leave it at that.

[Bill Ficner]

I have to go with the Bell Airacuda, for a lot of reasons:

Built as a bomber-destroyer, it was too big and slow to do the job.

Pusher-props made it a death-trap for the gunners, and made it very difficult to run the engines on the ground, even taxiing.

A single 4-cyl APU provided power to all the electrical systems, including the engines.

But I always liked the way it looked, a true creature of its time. It just screams '30s aviation.

I have the Valom kits, and plan on building one soon.

[ross blackford]

:D, Aircraft; the CAC Ca-15. Just a little too late to have been successful but who knows, had it not suffered the delays it did it may just have been able to be developed into a formidable fighter. Had the design team been able to get Griffon engines much sooner this may have been a great fighter.

Cars; the Holden Sunbird with its 4 cylinder engine. This was a Holden six of the time with 2 cylinders removed. Holden called it the Starfire 4. Most of the motoring public called it the Misfire 4 or Backfire 4. It wasn't a bad car, in fact it was a great handler let down by the engine. I have seen a number of them with the 4 cylinder replaced by Holden's regular 6 cylinder engine. Today, 30 odd years later they are doing well on ebay, many parents buy them as a safe first car for their teenage tyros to get their licences and experience on.

Trains; the tilt train that was tested here in NSW over 10 years ago. It was fine in its home country of Sweden but because its concept was too far ahead of our rail system here it was tested, failed and returned to Sweden. any curved platforms that were encountered by a train travelling around a left hand bend had to be shaved and on the route where it was tested if it encountered a train coming the other way around a left hand bend (for the other train) it had to wait until that train had passed, especially if the tracks went through a narrow cutting where there was the possibility that the two trains could have touched or even collided. Passengers and cabin crew also reported an unnerving feeling of leaning the 'wrong' way through corners. This could have been adapted to by the individual but it was just another reason for sending the train back to Sweden.

:D,

Ross.

[F106A]

XP-67 Moonbat

Good article in Air & Space Mag on the web.

http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flig...7-Moonbat.html#

And, a build here on ARC! (I'm pretty sure this is OOP.)

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Fea1...7_Wanta/00.shtm

Mark

Edited December 30, 2010 by F106A

[Bonehammer73]

Fiat X-19

Pffft, bet you call it "Eks-nineteen" as well... :unsure:

Airplanes: PWS-6 Zubr and Ta-154 Moskito, for becoming unstuck even long after takeoff.

Cars: Alfa Romeo Arna, combining the best of two worlds: Italian reliability, Japanese design.

Biology: muscles - because cutting off the blood supply right when you need it most is called intelligent design. Aaall-right.

Fashion: This dress.

[RescueDiver]

Planes for me have to be - P-47. Phantoms, Avro Vulcan, the MKIXc Spit., and of course the Cessna 172 Skyhawk.....a dream to fly.

Cars - not really a car fan......but I suppose BUMBLEBEE would work VERY nicely.......along with Megan Fox...

as for other stuff......brazillian waxes and the thong bikini........just sayin.......

Edited December 31, 2010 by RescueDiver

[fulcrum1]

Planes for me have to be - P-47. Phantoms, Avro Vulcan, the MKIXc Spit., and of course the Cessna 172 Skyhawk.....a dream to fly.

Cars - not really a car fan......but I suppose BUMBLEBEE would work VERY nicely.......along with Megan Fox...

as for other stuff......brazillian waxes and the thong bikini........just sayin.......

How are these flops?

Edited December 31, 2010 by fulcrum1

[VADM Fangschleister]

Two television series:

Briscoe County Jr

and

Terminator, The Sarah Conner Chronicles. All characters were superb actors and played their parts flawlessly.

However, when it comes to TV series, the ones I really like and will even make the extra effort to move my schedule to see, always get canceled.

[RescueDiver]

How are these flops?

You are absolutley right........I am exaughsted from work and definately got the meaning backwards..............

So lets try this again shall we............

Planes - not so sure......I love all aircraft but if I were to pick one I suppose it would be the Airocobra. The military deemed it a failure for the most part, but boy did the Russians love E'm.

Cars - my 1989 Toyata tercel........what a piece of garbage

The MN Vikings........no matter how bad they play......I am there the next day wearing my purple and gold!!

Edited December 31, 2010 by RescueDiver

[F106A]

Planes for me have to be - P-47. Phantoms, Avro Vulcan, the MKIXc Spit., and of course the Cessna 172 Skyhawk.....a dream to fly.

Cars - not really a car fan......but I suppose BUMBLEBEE would work VERY nicely.......along with Megan Fox...

as for other stuff......brazillian waxes and the thong bikini........just sayin.......

I think you got the whole concept backwards there bro'. <_<

[splatcat]

For Aircraft I'll add my vote for the F-20 with all of the others. IThe performance of an F-16 at half the price. I just think of the F-5s that keep beating our best planes in wargames and I wonder what a truly advanced version could do. I'll always believe the Air Force dropped the ball on that one. Then there's the YF-23. Its amazing to me that no proved the YF-22 was a better airplane. At least untl the final contract was awarded.

For Cars I'll throw in my vote for all of those electric cars I saw back in the '80s. Toaday we all wish we took then seriously back then.

For ships I have to deal with the fact that I don't own a sailboat. yet...

[GreyGhost]

Pffft, bet you call it "Eks-nineteen" as well...

Airplanes: PWS-6 Zubr and Ta-154 Moskito, for becoming unstuck even long after takeoff.

Cars: Alfa Romeo Arna, combining the best of two worlds: Italian reliability, Japanese design.

Biology: muscles - because cutting off the blood supply right when you need it most is called intelligent design. Aaall-right.

Fashion: This dress.

It's "Eks One Nine" right ? :huh:

Gregg

[C-130CrewChief]

movies : George Clooney in Solaris

Such a good movie! The original was even better though.

Curt

[Jay Chladek]

Aircraft flops that I love:

TSR-2 (cancelled before it hit production)

Avro Arrow (ditto)

F-20 Tigershark

P-63 Kingcobra (Russians loved them even if the USAAF didn't want them)

B-32 Dominator (looks cool for a four engined bomber)

[Bonehammer73]

It's "Eks One Nine" right ?

Yep (written X1/9). Can't see why it would be considered a flop, given it was in production for nearly 17 years... unless the OP had to deal with one of those exported in the States, which got their engines tweaked to comply with the pollution laws. It happened to the Jaguar XK, so why not to the "poor man's Ferrari"...?

[Julien (UK)]

Grumman XF-10 jaguar

Test pilot Corwin "Corky" Meyer, the only pilot to fly the Jaguar, [4]described it as entertaining to fly "because there was so much wrong with it."[5] Examples of the "wrongness" encountered by Meyer during the test flight program included:

Jamming of the wing sweep mechanism as hydraulic fluid congealed into a gelatinous state from poor maintenance, resulting in a substance with "a consistency of Jell-O". Intriguingly, despite this failure, the aerodynamicist's assertion that the wing would unsweep itself in case of a mechanical failure proved entirely correct, to Meyer's relief.

Regular in-flight failures of the equally experimental Westinghouse XJ-40 turbojet. The reason for its unreliability within the Jaguar was traced ultimately to an extraordinary case of sloppy manufacture, where an engine electronics box access panel had a screw nearly 5 in (127 mm) long mangling the interior of the delicate circuits within, in sharp contrast with the other three panel screws which were barely .4 in (10 mm) long.

The "aerodynamically balanced" canard-actuated pendulum elevator, whose ineffectiveness and poor contribution to stability was already apparent in free flight development models. The instability was dismissed as a "model effect", but unfortunately this proved to be a fallacious judgement. Initial fixes consisted of a set of triangular horizontal fins on the rear fuselage, but ultimately Grumman admitted defeat and retro-actively fitted the horizontal surfaces from the earlier F9F Cougar swept-wing fighter. By this time, the program was nearing its end, and it was at this stage unlikely that the U.S. Navy would adopt the Jaguar.

During a flight the canopy went ajar, and could not be closed, nor could it be ejected either. At the same time, the less than trustwothy engine begun losing power at an alarming rate, but, due to the problems with the canopy, Corky Meyer could not eject. Fortunately he managed to land safely. It was just after this flight that the aforementioned grossly oversized screw was detected.

However did pave the way for the F-14 wing so maybe not a complete failure!

It did also look good!

Julien

[Felinoid]

Aircraft-the Yakovlev Yak-38. Doesn't stop me from making kits of both the regular and trainer versions ( IMHO the Yak-38U is flat-out the ugliest a/c ever flown).

Still waiting for the Hobby Boss 1/48 kit, though, got $80 stashed and taped behind my nightstand drawer....ooopppssss............

Edited January 2, 2011 by Felinoid

[R Tate]

Well, the A-12 could work.

[William G]

Yep (written X1/9). Can't see why it would be considered a flop, given it was in production for nearly 17 years... unless the OP had to deal with one of those exported in the States, which got their engines tweaked to comply with the pollution laws. It happened to the Jaguar XK, so why not to the "poor man's Ferrari"...?

Yeah you are right I should correct it to X1/9

After being on sale from 74 to what 87 here in the US it did have a good run. However, it stopped being a Fiat in 1982.

My friend had a '79 and I had a '79 TR-7 that I was swapping the drive train and electrics from a totaled TR-8.

Until it was sold for scrap when I was helping with Desert Shield and away from MacDill AFB.

Oh Well...

William G

[Kevan Vogler]

From an aircraft standpoint, one of my favorite flops is actually on the civil side of things.

The Brooklands/Edgley Optica:

web photo

It's been mostly a flop due to a series of unfortunate events including destruction of production facilities, changes of ownership, bankruptcies....

However, I have heard that there is some plane to get it back into production.

I just really wish there was a model of it out there.

[MarkW]

Any of the USN ZR series dirigibles of the 1920s-30s. Zepplins as a rule weren't bad, if you were German and had some sense how to operate them. These terrible ideas got a lot of sailors killed and made Billy Mitchell a hero. Heck, also got two airfields named from the crash of the Akron. Hard to find another aircraft failure with greater than 70% loss rate!