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Blackburn Dart

1922 GOLDEN AGE

History

The Blackburn Dart beat competition from Handlery Page to become the next generation carrier torpedo bomber for the RAF Fleet Aviation (FAA). Right after World War I, the service relied on an aging Sopwith Cuckoo for the role, so a new, state-of-the-art successor was sought in the late 1920s.

This resulted in a 3/20 specification, including a single-seat naval fighter configured as a biplane capable of carrying a torpedo under the belly and providing good low-speed, low-altitude handling.

By this time, Blackburn had privately built one such aircraft, known internally as the T.1 Swift. Engineers opted for a bi-wing, equal-spread bi-wing structure using parallel struts and built-in folding capabilities. A typical two-wheel trailing undercarriage is used for ground travel.

The sole pilot sat under the stern and upper wing elements in the open-air cockpit, with the engine directly in front of him - driving a twin-blade propeller unit. The empennage is conventional (single rudder, low level).

The Swift prototype, which first flew in September 1920, was soon found to have inherent balance and directional stability issues, leading engineers to add a few degrees of swept back to the main aircraft and make some modifications to the tail Revise. Visibility outside the cockpit was also poor, but this proved to be a common shortcoming of many biplanes of the era - not remedied until the move to monoplanes over the next decade.

Like all 3/20-size aircraft prototypes, the Swift was powered by a Napier "Lion" IIB 12-cylinder 450-horsepower engine.

Under this guise, Swift was accepted by the FAA for further evaluation, which resulted in the designation of "Dart". In October 1921, a prototype with that name and final configuration (the first of three contracts) flew for the first time in October 1921 - proving that the design was largely sound.

Ordered from the series under the designation "Dart T. 2", the work continued from 1922 to 1928, with a total of about 149 people involved.

The FAA commissioned the dart in 1923 and operated the type for marine use on the decks of the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers HMS Courageous, HMS Eagle and HMS Furious. During the second half of the 1920s, at least 3 dart planes were converted into seaplane-equipped forms for use as seaplanes and advanced trainers. In 1926, darts were used to record the first successful night deck landing (6 May 1926 on HMS Furious).

The series also formed the RAF's first torpedo bomber squadron in 1929.

The Dart T.2 has a crew of 1, has a total length of 35.4 feet, a wingspan of 45.5 feet, and a height of 12.10 feet. The kerb weight reaches 4,000 pounds and the MTOW is 6,400 pounds.

The Napier engine combined with the biplane fuselage has a top speed of 107 mph, a range of up to 355 nautical miles, and a maximum altitude of 12,700 feet. The climb rate is 600 feet per minute.

Armament consists of a .303 Vickers machine gun mounted on a fixed forward firing bracket above the nose and fired synchronously by rotating propeller blades. For versions including the rear observer/gunner cockpit, the .303 Lewis machine gun is mounted on a trainable mount.

The standard war load is an 18-inch (457 mm) aerial torpedo or 2 x 520-pound bombs.

There is one export form that retains the "Swift" name, and eight others are built to different standards. Seven export versions of the Swift Mk. II were built, and the U.S. Navy (USN) tested a "Swift F" variant named "BST-1". Japanese and Spanish navies also handled Swift Mk II versions.

The other dart operator was the Greek Navy, which took an inventory of 16 (designated "Velos T.3") in 1925, 12 of which were locally licensed. These main differences are their two-seat layouts to reduce pilot workload.

The Velos T. 3A is a six biplane built by Blackburn to test and demonstration standards.

While serving in the UK, the Dart was eventually replaced by the Blackburn Rippon and Blackburn Baffin aircraft of the early 1930s - both of which are detailed elsewhere on this site.