Blackburn Shark

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Blackburn Shark
Blackburn-shark-torpedo-bomber-04.png
Type: Biplane, torpedo bomber
Design country:

United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom

Manufacturer:

Blackburn Aircraft

First flight:

May 1934

Commissioning:

December 1934

Production time:

1934-1939

Number of pieces:

269

The Blackburn Shark was a carrier-based reconnaissance and bombing aircraft and a further development of the torpedo aircraft supplied by the Blackburn Aircraft company for British aircraft carriers since 1923 . The deployment time for the carrier squadrons was very short, as the Fairey Swordfish proved to be more reliable. The Blackburn Shark was only used in four reconnaissance and torpedo bomber squadrons from 1934 to 1937. Some machines were also used as board aircraft from 1936 to 1937, and Shark s were used in nine training units from 1939 to 1943 .

Evolution of the Shark

The firm Blackburn Aircraft supplied the Royal Air Force since 1923 with torpedo aircraft. All seven Fleet Torpedo (Bomber) Flights (swarm) with the numbers 460 to 466 formed from 1923 to 1931 had received Blackburn machines as original equipment. For the first five flights the Blackburn Dart powered by a 450 hp Napier Lion IIB and then the Blackburn Ripon powered by a 570 hp Napier Lion X, XI or XIA . When squadrons were formed from the Flights in 1933, the new torpedo squadrons 810 ( HMS Courageous ) were still equipped with darts , 811 ( HMS Furious ) and 812 ( HMS Glorious ) with Ripon , some of which the 810 squadron received in 1933 . In 1934/1935 the three squadrons were equipped with the transition model Blackburn Baffin , powered by a 565 HP Bristol Pegasus I.M3 radial engine. The Baffin was an adaptation of the Ripon to a radial engine, whereby the Armstrong-Siddeley Tiger was also tested, and had small improvements. Many machines were created by converting existing Ripons . The production took place according to the specification 4/33 .

Gloster TSR 38

The Ministry of Aviation wrote out again a torpedo bomber on page 15/33 , which was also supposed to take over the tasks of the previous carrier-supported reconnaissance aircraft, whose most modern operational machine was the Fairey Seal . Three manufacturers applied for the TSR (torpedo, spotter and reconnaissance aircraft) - a tender with machines that they had already designed.
Gloster 's TSR 38 , powered by a Rolls-Royce Goshawk VIII , was extensively tested in 1933/34, but was not followed up.
Fairey had already developed a TSR I independently , which made its maiden flight on March 21, 1933, but was lost on September 11. Further developed to the TSR II , it was finally ordered at the end of 1934 and from 1936 onwards it became the standard aircraft of the British carrier squadrons as the Fairey Swordfish .

Blackburn and his chief designer Major FA Bumbus had also independently carried out a fundamental modernization of their torpedo bombers with the prototype Blackburn B-6 , which took off on its maiden flight in May 1934. It was a further development of the Blackburn B-3 for the tender M.1 / 30 , which was not considered with a production order. The new prototype was bought and in August 1934 the first production order 12/34 was placed for 16 machines, which were called Blackburn Shark .

The Shark differed from its predecessors by having wings with different wingspan, which had strong cutouts in the fuselage area. This gave the crew a better view and made it easier to fold the wings and also saved space on the girders. The hull was made of metal and watertight, which was a major advantage in emergency landings. The armament with a Vickers machine gun rigidly forward and a movable Lewis machine gun for the observer corresponded to the standard. The split landing gear allowed the use of torpedoes under the fuselage. For a corresponding bomb load instead of the torpedo, suspensions were available under the wings. The fixed struts between the wings reduced the effort required to get the machines ready for use, as tension was largely dispensed with. The 700 hp 14-cylinder twin -radial engine Tiger IV from Armstrong-Siddeley was chosen as the drive , although this engine had already been eliminated from the previous Blackburn Baffin .
The prototype K4295 also served as a prototype for the Mk. II with some reinforcements and an improved engine and then from April 1935 for use as a floatplane.

The Navy Air Force , then still part of the Royal Air Force , received three versions:

T.9 Shark Mk.I
equipped with a 700 PS (522 kW) Armstrong-Siddeley Tiger IV, of which 16 machines were built.
T.9A Shark Mk.II
equipped with a 760 PS (567 kW) Tiger VIc, of which 126 machines were built. Somewhat reinforced in some areas, also completed as a floatplane.
T.9B Shark Mk.III
equipped with a 745 PS (555 kW) Bristol Perseus XIII, of which 97 machines were built; They had a sliding glass roof over the cockpit and a three-bladed controllable pitch propeller, and two machines went to Canada as model aircraft. Only used in training relays.

In response to tender G.4 / 31, Blackburn offered a variant of the Shark with a rigid and slightly modified structure as the Blackburn B-7 . Vickers won this tender with the Type 253 biplane, but eventually delivered the Wellesley .

production

The Blackburn Shark was built by Blackburn in Brough, the Mk. III z. T in Dumbarton, built in series.

Approval of the Blackburn Shark by the RAF:

version 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 total
prototype 1         1
Mk.I   3 13     16
Mk.II     1 105 20th 126
Mk.III         95 95
total 1 3 14th 105 115 238

Used by the British Fleet Air Force

As the first carrier-supported unit, the Reconnaissance Squadron 820 upgraded to the new Blackburn Shark Mk.I in December 1934 , replacing the Fairey Seal and Fairey III F that had previously been used . The conversion was not very satisfactory because the engine of the new machine proved to be fragile. When the Courageous relocated to the Mediterranean in August 1935 because of the Abyssinia crisis , the machines and some of the staff stayed behind. A new A-Flight of the squadron was formed, equipped with six older Blackburn Baffins , and boarded the carrier. In March 1936, the exploratory squadron 821 was converted by Fairey Seal to the Blackburn Shark Mk.II , which had now been delivered , so that the Courageous who had returned home temporarily used both Shark types side by side. From December 1936, the Mk.II also joined the 820 squadron , which, at 35 months, became the Shark's squadron with the longest use , but was not sufficiently operational in the most important phase of the service on the type.
From November 1936 there was a third season with the exploratory squadron 822 with the Blackburn Shark Mk.II , which should be used by the Furious .

As the last airborne squadron, the Torpedo Squadron 810 replaced their Blackburn Baffin temporarily with Blackburn Shark Mk.II in April 1937 . The carrier Courageous had three squadrons of this type, but all three were converted to the Fairey Swordfish from September 1937 . This marked the end of the Blackburn Shark as a fighter aircraft for the British Navy Air Force, as Squadron 822 on the Furious had already carried out the same conversion a month earlier.

As a floatplane, the Blackburn Shark Mk.II first came into service in March 1936 for Catapult Flight 444 for the 1st Battle Squadron. Flight's 701 of the heavy ships of the Mediterranean Fleet and 705 of the Battlecruiser Squadron also had Shark float planes, all of which were replaced by July 1938. The battle cruiser HMS Repulse and the battleship HMS Warspite certainly had Shark aircraft at times .

The Shark could not prevail as a replacement for the predecessor in the exploration and especially the torpedo squadrons (the previous Blackburn domain), but served in training squadrons until October 1943. At the outbreak of World War II, 165 Blackburn Shark were in the service of the FAA at various schools (750th, 753rd, 755th, 757th, 758th, 767th, 774th seasons, and later 780th and 785th seasons) '. In order to be able to carry out the training undisturbed, the Observer School (750Sq.) Was relocated to Piarco on Trinidad in the fall of 1940 . The FAA's last machine was retired in July 1944.

Assignments to other nations

Blackburn Shark were delivered to two nations :

Canadian Shark Mk.III
Portugal
In 1935/36 Portugal received six Blackburn Shark Mk.II float planes powered by Tiger IVc engines that could use petrol with a lower knock resistance; three of the machines served as torpedo carriers, three with an additional tank under the hull as long-range reconnaissance aircraft.
Canada
Canada received seven production Mk. IIs for initial tests ; then two machines of the Blackburn Shark Mk.III series came as sample machines for a license building (?); 19 were built by Boeing Aircraft of Canada in Vancouver with Bristol Pegasus engines; They served as reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft on the Canadian west coast and were mostly used on floats because of the difficult construction of airfields there, some machines came to the east coast as target tug planes.

Technical specifications

Parameter Shark Mk.II RCAF Mk.III FP Mk.III land B.7
crew to 3 2-3
length 11.71 m 10.74 m 10.78 m
span 14.02 m 14.02 m
lower wing 10.97 m
height 3.89 m 4.34 m 3.71 m
Wing area 41.2 m² 45.43 m²
Empty mass 1832 kg 2041 kg 1787 kg 1905 kg
Takeoff mass 3651 kg 4816 kg 3148 kg 3521
Top speed 241 km / h 238 km / h 253 km / h 240 km / h
Range 1006 km 1176 km 1334 km
Service ceiling 4875 m 4816 m 5791 m
drive an Armstrong-Siddeley Tiger VIc ; 760 hp a Bristol Pegasus IX ; 840 hp an Armstrong-Siddeley Tiger IV ; 700 hp
Armament a rigid / a movable machine gun
Bomb load 907 kg

See also

literature

  • Peter Lewis: The British Bomber since 1914 , Putnam London, 3rd edition 1980, ISBN 0-370-30265-6
  • Kenneth Munson: Bomber 1919–1939 , Orell Füssli; Zurich, 1971
  • Ray Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm , Air-Britain Tonbridge, 1984, ISBN 0-85130-120-7

Web links

Commons : Blackburn Shark  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm , p 469
  2. Sturtivant, pp. 197, 203, 207
  3. ^ Lewis: The British Bomber since 1914, p. 220
  4. Lewis, pp. 224ff.
  5. ^ Lewis, p. 228.
  6. Lewis, pp. 230f.
  7. ^ Lewis, p. 227.
  8. Lewis, pp. 209, 207ff.
  9. a b Lewis, pp. 227f.
  10. Halley, James J .: The K File. The Royal Air Force of the 1930s, Tunbridge Wells, 1995, p. 312 ff.
  11. Sturtivant, pp. 243, 246
  12. Sturtivant, pp. 250, 252
  13. Sturtivant, pp. 253ff.
  14. Sturtivant, p. 197.
  15. Sturtivant, pp. 468, 25f., 33f.
  16. Sturtivant, pp. 82-138
  17. ^ Munson: Bomber 1919-1939, p. 122