What Problems Dogged the Blackburn Firebrand?
- Thread starter Zipper730
- Start date
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Yeah, me too. Seemed like a pretty straight forward design.
Admiral Beez
Major
Nothing wrong with Blackburn's carrier aircraft. They were often innovative and on the cutting edge, though sometimes failed by their engines.
- Interwar. Baffin and Shark. As good as any competing TSRs with the IJN, USN or whatever was serving in the French Navy on Bearn.
- WW2. Skua. First monoplane carrier-based divebomber (two years before the Aichi D3A and Douglas SBD) and first divebomber with folding wings until the Curtiss SB2C arrives four years later.
- Postwar. Buccaneer. One of the best low altitude strike aircraft of all time, serving 32 years.
The biggest failure, other than arriving late was that it wasn't the Sea Fury. Hawker's was, with the Bearcat the very best single engine piston carrier fighter of all time. Firebrand didn't compare, though the Sea Fury never fielded a torpedo.
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Shortround6
Major General
The Shark may not have been a bad airplane but being powered by the AS Tiger did nothing for it's reputation.
Admiral Beez
Major
True. I like the Shark though. I think it's the only Blackburn aircraft ever to serve on an escort carrier, if only in a deck handling capacity.
A History of H.M.S. PUNCHER
- Thread starter
- #7
The Firebrand was regarded as being a cow, and the climb-rate figures didn't seem very good. Did it have issues with wing-loading or stall-speed?
What caused it to run late? If I recall it had a different engine to start out with, and climb-rate seemed poor.
Shortround6
Major General
The Wiki account may not be too far off.
from it
Four 20mm cannon with 200rpg (240 more rounds total than a Typhoon or Tempest) if the aux fuel tank internal) was full it held 240 IMP gallons. 86 Imp gallons more than a Typhoon.
Now get the wings to fold, catapult launch it, do arrested landings and get the stalling speed down to what would work on many British carriers in 1940/41.
Then change the engine, widen the wing 18in in the center to carry the torpedo and any other changes.
Not an easy goal to meet.
from it
Four 20mm cannon with 200rpg (240 more rounds total than a Typhoon or Tempest) if the aux fuel tank internal) was full it held 240 IMP gallons. 86 Imp gallons more than a Typhoon.
Now get the wings to fold, catapult launch it, do arrested landings and get the stalling speed down to what would work on many British carriers in 1940/41.
Then change the engine, widen the wing 18in in the center to carry the torpedo and any other changes.
Not an easy goal to meet.
Kevin J
Banned
It's our answer to the Brewster Buccaneer.
More from Brown ...
The trials went off without mishap. The Firefly looked like a useful machine, but the cumbersome Firebrand was one of those machines which make test pilots shake their heads in disgust. Here as a machine supposedly designed from scratch specially for deck landings. Yet, with all the experience of landing the long-nosed Spitfires and hurricanes which we now had, she had been given an even longer nose. The for'ard view was nothing short of terrible, and the angular view for deck landing not much better.
The trials went off without mishap. The Firefly looked like a useful machine, but the cumbersome Firebrand was one of those machines which make test pilots shake their heads in disgust. Here as a machine supposedly designed from scratch specially for deck landings. Yet, with all the experience of landing the long-nosed Spitfires and hurricanes which we now had, she had been given an even longer nose. The for'ard view was nothing short of terrible, and the angular view for deck landing not much better.
Shortround6
Major General
Once they hung the big radial on the nose any hope of forward view was greatly reduced.
Note the extended wing roots still held the carb intake and oil cooler.
Admiral Beez
Major
The Air Ministry should have had Capt. Brown write the Specifications and review designs on paper and approve initial prototypes. Much of the rubbish that got made by British industry would have been avoided.
- Thread starter
- #14
Wikipedia isn't always wrong: I've edited a wikipedia article, I know others who've edited articles.
How much fuel was carried without the auxiliary tank filled? Also, did it typically fly with the auxiliary tank filled?
While this probably sounds stupid, I used to have a document that had ammo weight listings, but I've lost it some time ago. How much does 800 rounds of 20mm ammo weigh (including the belt links and everything)? From what you indicated the Typhoon had an ammo capacity of 560 rounds, are you sure? I've seen figures that seem to indicate around 600.
Wait, I thought it was designed to be carrier suitable off the bat?
I was under the impression that torpedoes were added as a requirement because it couldn't hack it as a fighter?
So it had poor handling characteristics, inadequate forward visibility, though it was sturdy.
It took a tremendous amount of time to get operational, which leads one to suspect that there was sabotage or some deliberate effort to slow things down as much as possible. At least it eventually became a decent aircraft.
No, it wasn't, not that it was intended on being one. Remember, the Firebrand was originally built to be a single-seat deck landing fighter to a 1940 specification and was to go into service between 1941 and 1942. The prototype didn't fly for the first time until 1942, so was very late to the party and even then it it was too big, too heavy and unsuitable for carrier use in its initial configuration as powered by the Napier Sabre. The three top images that SR posted show it in its original configuration, but it never entered squadron service aboard a carrier, just appearing on deck during trials.
There were only 9 Firebrand F.Is and 12 TF.IIs powered by the Sabre. The TF.III powered by the Centaurus was supposed to be the definitive carrier torpedo fighter, but again, none of these entered service and were used for training only. The first variant of the Firebrand to enter squadron service was the TF.IV with 813 Sqn in September 1945 but again, it was the Firebrand TF.V that eventually got aboard a carrier, in 1947 (!)
Ah, not really. It still suffered directional control and was by 1947 when it got aboard a carrier deck in squadron service for the first time, obsolescent. It served for a few more years until replaced by the Westland Wyvern.
I do agree in part, in fact you can go back further and examine the FAA's first in-service torpedo dropper the Dart, which was a single-seater. Blackburn was the biggest producer of the Sopwith Cuckoo torpedoplane, the RAF's first carrier based torpedo dropper and the Dart followed it. From that design came the Baffin and Ripon between the wars and oddly enough, Swordfish production was carried out by Blackburn from 1940 as Fairey became busy with the Barracuda and Firefly. Problem with this was that quality control took a back seat and Blackburn built Swordfish suffered a bit in that area.
During WW1 the Blackburn Kangaroo was the first purpose built maritime patrol land plane, although only a small number were produced. One of the worst aircraft Blackburn produced was an early anti-Zeppelin interceptor float plane called the TB. It had twin fuselages with single floats below each fuselage and, powered by rotary radials, had a nasty tendency to set itself on fire! During WW2 designer George Petty couldn't catch a break with aircraft designs, the Botha and the Firebrand, the two types Blackburn hedged its bets on were effectively failures. As for the Roc, no derivative of the Skua was ever going to be any good unless they increased the engine power output, regardless of the turret.
The Firecrest, despite your assessment Admiral wasn't all that bad, in fact, the idea was for a better Firebrand and in this it succeeded, having better visibility over the nose, good manoeuvrability and low speed handling, but, inevitably, it was too late.
As for the Buccaneer; what can I say, it was exceptional.
Say what you want about the airframe and its problems. But remember, Blackburn built to the spec provided by the Admiralty and someone from the Admiralty inspected the mock-up with the inline engine and thought the visibility would be acceptable. And that same process continued through all the mission and specifications changes. Someone failed to kill it.
Sometimes the customer is more messed up than the OEM.
Sometimes the customer is more messed up than the OEM.
That's very true. Blackburn actually produced the mock up relatively quickly and in its initial guise as a fighter powered by the Sabre, the Admiralty didn't reject it for any reason, although, apart from its size, they didn't have any reason to. By the time it had flown for the first time in February '42, by this time a little late to the party, the first Seafires had been ordered and were about to enter service.
That it should have been canned has been pondered, even by the British; in his review of the type, Eric Brown states that in hindsight, work should have ended on it, and as a fighter it effectively did and it was its load carrying capabilities that impressed enough that it was further developed as a torpedo aircraft. Again however the admiralty did not anticipate that it would take another five years before they got it aboard a carrier, but someone should have stepped in and said enough was enough at some stage.
Hindsight is wonderful though - if they had it, the navy would have had Griffon engined Spitfires on its carrier decks by late 1941/early 1942.
Kevin J
Banned
In hindsight, the navy could have had Griffon engined Seafires on its decks in 1943 / 1944 if they had skipped the Merlin engined route and got priority on Griffon deliveries. This would have required further development of the Sea Hurricane to take the place of the Seafire Ib, IIc and LIIc. Except the Sea Hurricane wouldn't have been able to catch the Ju 88. So you would need an interim fast fighter, perhaps the Grumman Skyrocket? Maybe a navalised Westland Whirlwind?
Well, earlier as a Griffon engined Sea Spitfire was offered to the same specification to which the Firebrand was built and it would not have taken Supermarine two years to have one flying from 1940, when the spec was issued.
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