Blackburn Aircraft
2 types · 0 airframes
Pre-1950 Narrative
Narrative coming soon.
Aircraft Types
Blackburn Ripon
The Blackburn T.5 Ripon was a two-seat carrier torpedo bomber and reconnaissance biplane built by Blackburn Aircraft to Air Ministry Specification 21/23. First flown on 17 April 1926 and powered in British service by the Napier Lion, it equipped Fleet Air Arm carriers from 1929 until the Baffin began replacing it in 1934; British orders came to 92 aircraft across the II, IIA and IIC marks. Finland bought one pattern aircraft and built 25 more under licence, flying them in the Winter and Continuation Wars until 1944. One Finnish-built Ripon survives in a Finnish museum.
Blackburn Skua
The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a two-seat carrier fighter and dive bomber built by Blackburn Aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm. Ordered before its prototype flew, it entered service in November 1938 as the Navy's first monoplane and its first dive bomber. On 10 April 1940 its squadrons sank the German cruiser Königsberg at Bergen, the first major warship sunk by air attack. Outclassed as a fighter, it left front-line service in 1941 and ended the war as a trainer and target tug; 192 were built, and no intact example survives.