The Blackburn Buccaneer

"Bad Idea Hat" (taoistlumberjack) 10/09/2014 at 09:08 • Filed to: Blackburn Buccaneer

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Last night, there was a post about !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Being who I am, I completely ignored all of the video except for the very quick part where they passed a Blackburn Buccaneer.

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Now, I will happily give British car manufacturers shit for being unreliable and poorly constructed, because there's a nugget of truth there. The British experience with their military aircraft is, with some exceptions, a similar experience. The difference is that I have major admiration for not only the people who flew and serviced those airplanes in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, but also the fact that the designs typically evolved from a mess of committee and budgetary design compromise into aircraft that were not only long lasting, but stood up well to their contemporary aircraft. The best way to explain what the Royal Navy did was that they were flying Phantoms off of WW2 designed fleet carriers at a time when the US was into their Tomcats on Supercarriers era.

Arguably the best Royal Navy aircraft, though, was the Blackburn Buccaneer. Designed as a low-level strike bomber to deliver nukes against Russian fleets, it was a surprisingly stable maritime strike and recon platform. Introduced in 1962, the Banana Jet persisted in RN and RAF roles until 1994 (1978 for the RN) when it was fully replaced by the Panavia Tornado.

So without further ado, here's a documentary on the history of the Blackburn Buccaneer.

ttyymmnn > Bad Idea Hat 10/09/2014 at 09:37

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That's my favorite era of jet aviation. I look forward to watching the vid. Thanks for posting.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Bad Idea Hat 10/09/2014 at 16:03

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The British came up with some very unique jet designs. Even the more conventional jets like the Nimrod are instantly recognizable as British designs.

Bad Idea Hat > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 10/09/2014 at 17:13

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That's another reason why I love the Brits. They had some amazing solutions to the problems they faced. The Vulcan is the most amazing looking bomber ever made, the Vixen is probably tied with the Tomcat for most beautiful fighter, the Sea Hawk had a hell of a long lifespan for basically a converted prop plane, and the Swift was such a miserable disaster that could have been amazing given some time.

For as staid a reputation the British have, their aircraft belie a certain taste for insanity that no other navy really ever had.