Blackburn Buccaneer

The Blackburn Buccaneer is a British carrier-capable attack aircraft designed in the 1950s for the Royal Navy to deal with the Soviet Sverdlov class cruisers by flying fast and very low, under their radar horizon, with conventional or nuclear weapons. Blackburn designed it and built the early aircraft at Brough, and once Blackburn joined the Hawker Siddeley Group it was officially the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer, although that name is rarely used. It first flew in April 1958 and entered Royal Navy service in July 1962. The underpowered S.1 gave way to the S.2 with Rolls-Royce Spey engines, which made the first non-stop unrefuelled Atlantic crossing by a Fleet Air Arm aircraft. After the TSR-2 and the F-111K were cancelled the RAF bought it, and it entered RAF service in October 1969. South Africa was the only export customer, and the last RAF Buccaneers retired in March 1994 in favour of the Panavia Tornado.