Blackburn B.32 – Big Daddy Never Made It Off The Drawing Board
Many aircraft designs never made it as far as the production stage. But that does not mean that they did not contribute to furthering the development of the industry. Such was the case of the Blackburn B.32 flying boat.
Until the late 1940s, many air forces around the world still viewed the flying boat as an instrumental part of their force structure. The same applied to the civilian sector where the ‘Big Boat’ was considered the main asset for transportation.
The flying boats ability to take-off with a higher all-up-weight made it a perfect platform for long range operations over the sea lanes. It could also be employed in far off places, even those venues where no air strip was available.
The Royal Air Force [RAF] was the first air service to fully exploit the flying boat range and payload capacity. Although the RAF employed a long list of boats for maritime reconnaissance patrols during World War II, its history is dominated by two main platforms, the invaluable Consolidated’s Catalina and the Short Brother’s Sunderland.
That did not mean that other, promising airplane designs were not pursued. In fact, no less than 55 flying boat blue prints were submitted between June 1938 and December 1944. Those designs, known by many historians as the ‘Unlucky Few’, were filled with promise but due to high costs associated with their development, most were discarded. One of the few that were able to gather enough momentum to gain pre-production funds from a cash-starved British Ministry of Defense [MoD] was the Blackburn B.32.
In July 1938, the MoD, through the Air Ministry, crafted Specification Order R.5/39 intended to develop the successor to the by-then venerable Sunderland. The Order called for a plane with a total serviceable load capacity of 5,000 pounds with a faster proposed speed than that of the Sunderland’s. To achieve this important requirement, the MoD stated that four power plants, generating upwards of 1,000 pounds of thrust should be installed.
By early 1939, the MoD added two additional requirements to the R.5/39. First, it must have a nominal range of at least 1,500 nautical miles while cruising at a minimum speed of 253mph. The other had to do with the fitting of a more robust offensive armament. The first version of the R.5 called for ‘only’ two forward firing heavy machine guns. In the 1939 modification, the Air Ministry asked for a 4 cannon, nose firing mechanism.
Four corporations submitted bids, but the most interesting of them all was that of Blackburn Aircraft. Tagged by the company as Project Project B.32, Blackburn’s proposal called for a revolutionary flying boat aircraft. It would achieve a long sought after balance between aerodynamic performance and in-water interaction.
The design featured many innovating aspects such as a tailplane with a pronounced dihedral which would have increased the clearance between the outer surface of the structure and the wave formation trailing from the main step. This, on paper, would have kept hull depth at a minimum, which would have enabled the aircraft to takeoff in a relative short time. All tip floats, retractable or fixed, where implemented as wingtips. The structure was augmented by slotted flaps.
To achieve the speed profiled on the R.5, the designers chose the Hercules power plant instead of the most popular Griffon engine. The four engines were to be fitted forward to the leading edges of the wing structure in order that the full slipstream effect on list was present at the moment of takeoff. Bombs could be fitted in three different compartments or cells. Cells were located at each center plane while bombs could also be carried on swinging carriers at both ends of the hull.
Armament consisted of a four cannon turret mounted between the two main wing spars. It had a 12-feet diameter cupola, shaped in the form of a sphere rotation in conjunction with the turret. A pillar-mounted cannon was fitted in the tail turret.
Total fuel load was to be 3,190 gallons, giving the aircraft a theoretical maximum operating range of 4,080 miles. The cruising speed was determined to be 262 mph at a 2,000′ operational ceiling. Top serviced ceiling was 30,700”. Climb rate was slated at 1,830′.
The final design was ready for pre-production mock-up trials when fate intervened. In April 1939, the British government decided that it would be a most costly-saving proposition to buy Catalinas than to develop their own advanced version. Quantity triumphed quality.
Still, the B.32 effort was not forgotten as several of its innovating features such as the dihedral pronounced tailplane, had been a stable of many second generation flying boats designs ever since.
An article by Raul Colon: rcolonfrias@yahoo.com>
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