Picture of the day

[Dark Alley Dan]

Yeah, or the Blackburn Firebrand. It started off looking not too hideous, which is something of a miracle for a Blackburn product...

...but by the time it got to the Navy, it had a "Hugh Jass" on it.

Doubtless due to the change to a bigger engine with a lot more torque and the need to manage it, but jeez, that's an ungainly solution.

 

[HuskyDude]

Yeah, or the Blackburn Firebrand.

Shutter.....when I hear the word "BlackBurn" I think of this monstrosity.

The Blackburn R-1 was a 1920s British single-engine fleet spotter.

Another concept to fight the torque problem was having co-axial mounted propellers.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Blackburn seldom produced an airplane that wasn't in some horrible way disfigured. It's like they let Supermarine make beautiful things, and instead found a niche building homely flying objects.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Bristol produced the Blenheim and Bolingbroke in numbers, but until this morning I had no idea they'd made a ground attack variant - the Bisley (an apt name for a British thing with plenty of guns):

A four-gun nose and an improved turret. A nice light snack for German fighters, but effective when paired with fighter escort.

 

[sail32]

Blackburn, like all British aircraft manufactures had to design aircraft and Built to Air Ministry specifications.

The Blackburn B-24 Skua was built to Built to Air Ministry specification O.27/34,

Skua; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Skua

Air Ministry specification O.27/34, ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Air_Ministry_specifications#1930-1939

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Point taken, and fair enough. However, Blackburn seems to have elected to offer the Air Ministry the unhappiest-looking designs they could muster. It's like they mistook creases in the blueprints for structural members.

Air Ministry Specification F.7/30 called for a fighter "capable of at least 250 mph and armed with four machine guns".

Gloster offered them the Gladiator:

Bristol threw the 123 in the ring:

...and the innovative 133:

Hawker sent the P.V.3:

Somone at Westland fell asleep in the wind tunnel and had a fevered dream that gave the world the F.7/30:

Over at Supermarine, R.J. Mitchell was getting closer to the Spitfire with the stuka-esque 224:

And what did the practiced aesthetes over at Blackburn deliver into the world, plucked screaming from the womb?

This sad little mutant was the Blackburn F.3.

It might be overstating it, and perhaps cruelly, to say Blackburn never made an airplane that wasn't in some way a nasty-to-behold-misshapen-potato object, but I think I can say they were pretty consistently unpleasant looking things. They sold, the RAF and RN bought plenty, so they must have worked reasonably well or been somehow better than the competition, but they weren't pretty.

Palate cleanser: One Spitfire in the world operates in a polished metal finish. This is it.

She is currently on a round-the-world tour, quite the accomplishment for a lady designed as short range interceptor. As I type this, FlightTracker says G-IRTY is in Bangkok. Details here: https://www.silverspitfire.com/

This is one of humanity's most beautiful things, and shining her up really brings that out.

 

[points]

Damn! The Spit misses western Canada.

 

[Big Uke]

It has already flown through Kelowna B.C.

 

[johnny rotten]

The "innovative 133" with fuselage number R-10 caught my eye
If you removed the enclosed cockpit, it would look very Italian

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Yeah, I can see that. Kinda "Italianate" lines, like an early Macchi product. Not bad considering the competition, huh?

Retractable gear, stressed skin wings, an enclosed cockpit. Tubby, like a lot of girls from her era, but you can see the engineers coming to some conclusions about what was coming...

Lost in a non-fatal accident and scrapped. Shame, that. I find her charming.

 

[Sharps '74]

I take it that the pilot's head would be higher if he was sitting on a parachute ..... ?

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

One hopes. Flying by braille is not an effective method.

 

[donor]

Something I found out just yesterday.

First allied bomber to drop bombs on Berlin was Farman 223 "Jules Verne" on the night of 7 June 1940.

Not very successful bomber so it served in transport role for both Free French and Vichy forces.

I honestly thought AW Whitley bombers were the first there.

 

[7ECA]

That canopy design is somewhat reminiscent of the (much later) FW-190.

 

[Ganderite]

Those are FM-2 Wildcats.Made by eastern Aircraft Company,not by Grumman with 1350Hp engine,taller vertical stabiliser and more ammo for less guns.I think most of surviving Wildcats are FM-2 version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Grumman_F4F_Wildcats

Starting Wildcat with the cartridge starter.

 

[sail32]

The aircraft in post #18309 a Bristol Type 133, has landing gear that operates similarly to the Seversky P-35 landing gear.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/seversky_p-35.php

The Seversky P-35 was used by Sweden.

https://www.jetphotos.com/aircraft/Seversky+P-35A

 

[fat tony]

Caption says:

A United States soldier advances cautiously at left with a sub-machine gun to cover any attempt of the German tank crew from escaping their fiery prison inside their tank following a duel with U.S. and British anti-tank units in Medjez al Bab area, Tunisia, on January 12, 1943.

From: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/09/world-war-ii-the-north-african-campaign/100140/

 

[fat tony]

Yeah, or the Blackburn Firebrand. It started off looking not too hideous, which is something of a miracle for a Blackburn product...

...but by the time it got to the Navy, it had a "Hugh Jass" on it.

Doubtless due to the change to a bigger engine with a lot more torque and the need to manage it, but jeez, that's an ungainly solution.

The brits had to tell their Seafire pilots to kick back and relax on the raids on Balikpapan because they were too delicate for the rough sea state carrier operations. I guess the Admiralty was having none of that resulting in the Sea Fury and Firebrand. As you said the engine generated so much torque it needed a big tail to deal with it. It is carrying that torpedo like it was a toothpick - a beast!

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Seafires were kinda like supermodels - beautiful, great at what they do, but high maintenance and a little fragile for the kind of stresses they operate under.

A later Griffon-powered Seafire. Pretty bird.

 

[HuskyDude]

Seafire F XVII SX336

 

[Sharps '74]

Geez, what didn't fold on this poor Spit? Oh - I know, the prop .....