The Firebrand and other rubbish from Blackburn

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pbehn said:
How many of the shoddy designs were a result of having to satisfy an impossible client spec?
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IDK, you may need to research that on your own. But was the Firebrand so bad because of the customer spec?

Under Spec. N.11/40 the FAA asked Blackburn for a 400 mph, single-seat carrier-capable fighter powered by a Napier Sabre. It's not Blackburn's fault that the engine presented availability and reliability issues, but can Blackburn really blame the client for the Firebrand's abysmal view forward and terrible low speed handing/stability issues and carrier landing/takeoff characteristics?
 
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Blackburn had been in the aviation business for a couple of decades before the Skua; Brewster's first aircraft was the SBA scout/dive bomber, which seems to have been a serviceable design. The SB2A was a poor design, badly constructed. A major problem with Brewster was consistently poor build quality. Why the build quality was so poor is debatable, but it may be related to a corporate president who hired two high-level salesmen who then served 2 years for illegal arm sales (somewhat indicative of more than a bit of moral rot at the top), consistently poor labor-management relations (whose fault? Not important. The problem existed and wasn't solved), and "financial misdeeds," whatever they may have been (maybe not paying suppliers?)

Brewster [i[may[/i] have simply grown much faster than the abilities of its management, but a number of other manufacturers managed that level of growth much better, possibly because most had a longer history thereby better established policies and procedures (also some, like North American Aviation and Vought, were part of larger industrial combines. North American was part of GM; Vought was part of United Aircraft. This provided a source of managerial expertise and oversight that was not available to Brewster). Bell probably grew faster than Brewster, but didn't demonstrate the sort of management failures* that doomed Brewster. Regardless of why, Brewster was a badly run company. Blackburn produced some poor designs, but, overall, seems to have been reasonably well-managed.


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* Poor labor-management relations are, at the heart, management failures.
 
Was the forward view worse than a Corsair or Seafire?
 

The Roc was terrible mostly because of the customer spec (Blackburn could have done a better job, but how much better requires access to the Blackburn - FAA correspondence which I don't have). I think a serviceable, CW-21 class, fighter could have been built around the same engine as the Skua (but note that the Perseus-based fighter would be obsolete quickly, having very little growth potential. It would, though, make a good base for an advanced trainer).

Some of the Firebrand's problems were the Sabre (part of the government spec), but its handling issues were all Blackburn. Cockpit visibility on the ground and during approach was a problem on practically all single-engined fighters with liquid-cooled engines except the Saab 21, so how much better Blackburn could have done is difficult to judge.
 
pbehn said:
Was the forward view worse than a Corsair or Seafire?
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IDK, I suggest you look it up.

Beyond its aft placed cockpit, the Corsair seems to be an ideal carrier fighter. It had a very reliable engine and stable, predictable landing characteristics. The FAA's usual final turn before hooking on in the Corsair may not be possible with the Firebrand due to its directional instability at low speed. But IDK, the Centaurus-powered models here seem to be landing well enough, start at 1:39.



As for the Seafire, IDK if view forward was the cause of its terrible prang rate - this may be more a case of undercarriage and low speed handling issues. For example, from what I've read on the Armoured Carriers website the Seafire had a propensity to lift at the final moment of touch down. But the Seafire was never intended for carrier service - the Firebrand was from the onset. It wasn't supposed to be a make-due fighter like the Seafire.
 
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Admiral Beez said:
As for the Seafire, IDK if view forward was the cause of its terrible prang rate - this may be more a case of undercarriage issues
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If you look at the landing accident rates in the British Pacific Fleet which used Corsair, Hellcat and Seafire fighters. The accident rates are all statistically about the same. In fact the Seafire had the best landings to accident rate by a small margin.

This can be qualified by the fact that the Seafire was used as a fleet protection and escort fighter more often than the other two which did more ground attack. Ground pounders often picked up damage from AA. Further qualifications are that the Seafire flew more combat air patrols and thus flew more sorties.

You can make the figures say what you want but the Seafire MkIII in late 44 to August 45 was not the fragile butterfly the internet would have you believe. Parsifal was the man with the knowledge on the Seafire in the Pacific and his contributions are sadly missed.
 

It would seem that the Sabre must have demanded considerable maintenance. That is a definite issue on a carrier. There is also the complication of having to support an additional type of engine and one that has little in common with the other FAA aircraft.
 
Good points. I suppose the onboard maintenance personnel would be used to working on sleeve valve engines, but it's one thing to pull off a cylinder to adjust something on a Bristol vs. an inline, liquid-cooled Sabre.


That said, the FAA wanted the Firebrand and its Sabre, writing the spec for both.
 

Lots of small moving parts.
 
pbehn said:
Was the forward view worse than a Corsair or Seafire?
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I can only speak to directly over the nose (ie: sighting view) but in this respect:
- Seafire 3.5 degrees​
- Corsair ( F4U-1 / Mk.I ) less than 3.0 degrees, I can't be more precise because I don't know the Corsair's flying attitude/angle​
- Firebrand 2.5 degrees​

EDIT: forgot Firebrand info
 
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Admiral Beez said:
AIUI, one of the advantages of sleeve valves is the lack of moving parts vs. poppet valve engines.
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That was what was advertised, reality was a bit different.

Yes there was a lack of moving parts in the cylinder heads or leading up to the cylinder heads, however the number of parts per cylinder inside the crankcase was a lot more than the poppet valve engine. The Sleeve valve engine had fewer parts in total but was not quite as simple as the advertising claimed.
It was also claimed (in the beginning) that the sleeve valve engines would be smaller in diameter or narrower. Unfortunately reality intruded and on the air cooled engines the need for large amounts of cooling fins meant the heads weren't much shorter.
And again the comparisons were being made against Bristol poppet valve engines which used 4 valves per cylinder. American Radials had about 1/2 the number of parts per cylinder becasue they were two valve per cylinder engines.
 

The Blackburn Beverley was a very useful design for the times, although it was originally a General Aircraft design. My very first job and an apprentice at Blackburn's was making Beverley spares, mainly flaps and I flew in them a few times in the Middle East when I was in the RAF in the 60s.
 

Roy Chadwick of Avro's also died in the crash of an Avro Tudor in 1947, he was the designer of almost all of Avro's aircraft from the Manchester, through the Lancaster, York, Lincoln and Shackleton to the initial design of the Vulcan.
 

That doesn't really apply to the Sabre, since its sleeve drives were really no more involved than a camshaft drive.
 
The Hawker Typhoon didn't seem to have visibility issues up front -- at least it didn't seem to be worse than the F4U...
 
Zipper730 said:
The Hawker Typhoon didn't seem to have visibility issues up front -- at least it didn't seem to be worse than the F4U...
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The view could be forgiven and forgotten if the Firebrand was stable at low speed. I only mention the view forward as test pilot Captain Brown made a point of it.

Wikipedia also says "and the aircraft had a tendency to drop a wing at the stall while landing".

 
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