Blackburn Firecrest

The Blackburn B.48 Firecrest, given the SBAC designation YA.1, was a single-engine naval strike fighter built by Blackburn Aircraft for service with the British Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War. It was a development of the troubled Firebrand, designed to Air Ministry Specification S.28/43 for an improved aircraft better suited to carrier operations. It was a low-winged, single-seat, all-metal monoplane with a thin inverted gull wing of laminar-flow section that folded hydraulically in two places for hangar stowage, Fowler flaps, retractable dive brakes and a cockpit moved forward and raised so the pilot could see over the wing leading edge. It was designed around a Bristol Centaurus radial engine, and a conventional Centaurus 57 was finally fitted. Three prototypes were ordered but only two flew, the first on 1 April 1947 from RAF Leconfield. A 1946 strength analysis by the Ministry of Supply found it would need costly redesign to serve as a strike fighter, so no production contract was placed and the surviving aircraft were disposed of in 1950 and 1952.