Blackburn Firecrest

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Blackburn B-48 Firecrest

Firecrest protoype VF172
Type	Strike fighter
Manufacturer	Blackburn Aircraft
Designed by	G. E. Petty
Maiden flight	1947-04-01
Primary user	Fleet Air Arm
Produced	1947
Number built	3

The Blackburn B-48 Firecrest or YA.1 was a single-engined naval strike fighter built by Blackburn Aircraft. It was a development of the troublesome B-35 Firebrand. It was designed to Air Minsitry Specification S.28/43, for an improved Firebrand more suited to carrier operations.

1 Design
2 Specifications
3 References
4 Related content

[edit] Design

Operational experience had found that Blackburn's Firebrand strike fighter to be far from suited to carrier operations. Particularly, the pilot sat behind the wing trailing edge, looking over a very long and wide nose, which gave a particularly poor view for landing. The Firecrest had a redesigned, inverted gull wing and moved the pilot forwards and raised his position so that he was now looking over the leading edge, and down the nose, rather than along it. Four Fowler flaps were fitted to give good low-speed handling for landing and the wing had retractable dive brakes on both surfaces. The wing folded in two places to allow storage in carrier hangars. In other respects, the Firecrest was a conventional monoplane design with a tailwheel undercarriage and particularly clean lines.

Despite a promising performance, the Firecrest project was abandoned in 1948 as existing types would fill its role satisfactorily until the new generation of turbine-powered aircraft entered service.

[edit] Specifications

General characteristics

Crew: One pilot
Length: 39.37 ft (12.0 m)
Wingspan: 44.94 ft (13.7 m)
Height: 14.57 ft (4.44m)
Wing area: 361 ft² (33.58 m²)
Empty weight: 10,522 lb (4,773 kg)
Loaded weight: 15,183 lb (6,887 kg)
Powerplant: 1× Bristol Centaurus 59 18-cylinder radial engine, 2,473 hp (1,844 kW)

Performance

Maximum speed: 382 mph (332 knots, 615 km/h)
Cruise speed: 298 mph (260 knots, 480 km/h) at 10,000 ft (3,050 m)
Stall speed: 75 mph (65 knots, 121 km/h)
Range: 1,440 mi (1,250 nm, 2,315 km) with torpedo and drop tanks
Service ceiling: 33,500 ft (10,210 m)
Rate of climb: 2,106 ft/min (10.7 m/s)

Armament

Guns: 4× 20 mm Hispano Mk.II cannon, two in each wing
Bombs:
- 1× 1,850 lb (840 kg) torpedo, or
- 2× 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs, one under each wing, in place of torpedo