File:Blackburn Roc (50096578168).jpg
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Model of a Blackburn Roc floatplane at the RAF Museum, Cosford, Shropshire, 8 July 2020. A serious contender for the worst aircraft ever to serve with the Fleet Air Arm. The whole concept was seriously flawed, combining the role of fleet fighter and dive bomber, which had two very different requirements. A dive bomber had to be a very sturdy aircraft, the extra weight not helping a high performing fighter. But even in the latter role, concentrating all the aircraft’s (rather puny) armament of four light machine guns in a rear turret (again adding weight) with no forward facing guns was the antithesis of what a fighter should be. The result was a very slow, cumbersome aircraft which wasn’t fast enough to catch enemy bombers let alone fighters. All the Roc could do was wait to be attacked. The flawed nature of the design was evident as soon as the first prototype flew in 1938 and the First Sea Lord wanted to cancel the project. Unfortunately, as Blackburn had a full order book and as new fighters were needed urgently, considerable effort had been made to switch production from Blackburn to Boulton Paul (which was producing the similarly armed Defiant ‘fighter’) and to cancel the programme would have been very disruptive. The outcome was predictable. The CO of the first FAA squadron to re-equip with the Roc pronounced that they were a ‘constant hindrance’ and requested they be replaced by Blackburn Skuas (Rocs without a turret), which says a lot when Skuas were poor fighters themselves. Nonetheless, in 1940 one Roc somehow managed to shoot down a Junkers Ju88 attacking a convoy off Belgium, an incredible, barely believable achievement. But quite quickly it was realised that the Rocs were not remotely combat-capable (and death traps to their gunners who just could not escape their turrets in a hurry) and they were re-assigned to air-sea-rescue duties and target towing. Perhaps the Roc’s most appropriate duties were performed by a few sent to Bermuda where they undertook anti-aircraft duties from the ground! Interestingly, the wheeled Roc’s were not the worst of the type. A prototype Roc floatplane was built in 1939 but the floats resulted in terrible handling (the Roc’s handling had never been more than adequate anyway) and a decrease in the already lamentable performance. Plans for a Roc floatplane squadron were immediately abandoned. |
| Date | |
| Source | Blackburn Roc |
| Author | Hugh Llewelyn from Keynsham, UK |
| Camera location |  | View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap |  |
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by hugh llewelyn at https://flickr.com/photos/58433307@N08/50096578168. It was reviewed on 11 July 2020 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0. |
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| current | 23:39, 11 July 2020 | | 6,000 × 4,000 (15.14 MB) | Tm (talk | contribs) | Transferred from Flickr via #flickr2commons |
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