Blackburn Buccaneer

The Blackburn Buccaneer was a British low level strike aircraft serving with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft it was later known as the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer when Blackburn became a part of the Hawker Siddeley group.

The first Buccaneer model, the S.1, was powered by a pair of de Havilland Gyron Junior turbojets producing 7,100 pounds of thrust. [2] This mark was somewhat underpowered, and as a consequence could not take off fully laden with both fuel and armament. A temporary solution to this problem was the "buddy" system; aircraft took off with a full load of weaponry and minimal fuel and would sortie with a Supermarine Scimitar that would deliver the full load of fuel by aerial refuelling. This was not an ideal solution however, as the loss of an engine during take-off could have been catastrophic, and the Gyron Junior gave a poor range due to high fuel consumption. The long term solution was the S.2, fitted with the Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan, providing 40% more thrust with a greatly reduced fuel consumption. The engine nacelles had to be enlarged to accommodate the Spey, and the wing required minor aerodynamic modifications as a result. The S.2 Buccaneer had completely replaced the S.1 by November 1966.

With the introduction of the Martel air-to-surface missile, some Mark 2 aircraft were converted to carry it, and became S.2D. The remaining aircraft became S.2C. Sixteen aircraft were built (and fifteen delivered) for the South African Air Force as the S.50, S.2 aircraft with the addition of Bristol Siddeley BS.605 rocket engines to provide additional thrust for the "hot and high" African airfields.

When the Fleet Air Arm's Buccaneer operations ended in 1978, 62 of the 84 Mk 2 aircraft were transferred to the Royal Air Force (RAF) as S.2A. These joined 26 aircraft that had been built by Blackburn's successor, Hawker Siddeley for the RAF as the S.2B. These aircraft were not navalised and, like the S.2A, had RAF-type communications and avionics equipment.