Blackburn Aircraft

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Blackburn Aircraft Ltd
legal form Corporation
founding 1914 (as Blackburn Airplane)
resolution 1964
Seat Brough , UK
Branch Aviation industry

Blackburn Aircraft Ltd. was a British aircraft manufacturer . The company, which was founded in 1914, became part of the Hawker Siddeley Group in 1964 .

history

First years

Blackburn Ripon

The company was founded in 1914 shortly before the outbreak of the First World War by Robert Blackburn as "Blackburn Airplane" (later "Blackburn Airplane & Motor Company"). During the war it produced over 100 biplanes for the British Air Force and British Naval Aviators. Among other things, the Blackburn Kangaroo , a twin-engine bomber, mainly used for hunting German submarines in the North Sea , was successful .

After the end of the war, the company acquired a former ball bearing factory and manufactured fittings and other spare parts for the aircraft industry there. With this second mainstay as a supplier company, Blackburn survived the years in which orders for new aircraft were falling sharply.

Blackburn manufactured automobiles between 1919 and 1925 . A four-cylinder engine from Coventry-Simplex with a displacement of 3160 cc propelled the vehicles.

After Robert Blackburn had designed the first seaplane in 1914, the focus of production in the post-war years and during the Second World War was on naval aircraft such as torpedo fighters, anti-submarine aircraft, flying boats and carrier-based machines. Therefore, the main production in the period from 1928 to 1932 was relocated to the factory acquired in 1916 in Brough , a location near a body of water. The problem, however, was the transport of over 1000 employees from the previous headquarters in Leeds, who had to be transported daily by rail to Brough.

In 1936 Blackburn took over the engine manufacturer Cirrus-Hermes and produced the aircraft engines Blackburn Cirrus Minor , Blackburn Cirrus Major and Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier .

In 1939 the company was renamed Blackburn Aircraft Ltd. renamed.

World War II and post-war period

Blackburn Beverley
Blackburn Buccaneer

During the Second World War, Blackburn not only manufactured its own aircraft at its plants in Brough , Leeds, Dumbarton and Sherburn-in-Elmet, but also repaired damaged US military machines stationed in England.

A Blackburn Skua was the first British aircraft to shoot down an enemy machine at the beginning of World War II.

After the end of the war, Blackburn suffered a slump in sales due to a lack of orders. At times, orders from outside the company such as the production of bread baking molds were accepted.

In 1949 there was a merger with General Aircraft Limited to form Blackburn and General Aircraft . With the Blackburn Beverley , a heavy transport aircraft, there was a new upswing.

In cooperation with Turbomeca , the Artouste , Cumulus , Marbore , Palas , Turmo and Palouste turbine drives were built under license in the 1950s . To this end, a corresponding contract had been concluded with Turbomeca from 1950.

At the end of the 1950s, the Blackburn B-103 Buccaneer was the company's last aircraft.

In 1964, the company, which at times had more than 5,000 employees, became part of the state-controlled restructuring of the British arms industry in the Hawker-Siddeley Group .

Blackburn aircraft types

literature

  • Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  • George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 1: A – F. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 . (English)

Web links

Commons : Blackburn Aircraft  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  2. ^ A b Georgano: The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile.
  3. ^ Flightglobal: Blackburn - Turbomeca