I Am Not The Blackburn Firebrand

Long derided as a scandalous pilot-killer, the true story of the Blackburn Firebrand is very different argues naval aviation historian Matthew Willis.

I am tired. Another day on Twitter, another bruising at the hands of the mob. ‘Abomination!’ they say. ‘A lemon.’ ‘A disaster’. ‘Should have been turned into catfood tins.’

OK, so those aren’t comments about me directly, although I’ve honestly had worse, and given the state of my mental health, it’s hard to conclude that they are unfair. (Not that I’d make a very good cat food tin, which is now added to the list of things to beat myself up over.)

No, they are talking about the Blackburn Firebrand. The early postwar naval strike-fighter from oop north (or ‘the hellpits of Yorkshire’ as one Twitterer had it) that equipped a mere two Fleet Air Arm squadrons from 1947 to 1953. A rubbish aircraft from a rubbish company, they say. Pathetic. Worthless. Would be better for everyone if it never existed.

We are still talking about the Firebrand, apparently. So why does it feel like a personal attack?

Partly this is my own messed-up brain and is nobody’s fault but my own. Sorry, therapist, nobody’s fault. Partly it is because This Is Not My First Rodeo and yet every time I get chucked off the same horse as if I didn’t have considerable experience, the crowd apparently wondering who this clueless noob is despite my having performed these antics many times already. Yes, I have spent more time than anyone should consider reasonable ‘well-actuallying’ about the Firebrand only for nobody to take the slightest bit of notice. After a while, it starts to get to you.

It’s true, I have somewhat tied myself professionally to the Blackburn Aircraft And Motor Company, not least in this parish. My first book was a monograph about the loathed Skua, a more recent one about the derided Shark, I’ve written in-depth features about the Baffin and Ripon, and other books about types that were manufactured in quantity by Blackburn, such as the Fairey Swordfish and Barracuda. My apologia for Blackburn – yes, they made more than one good aircraft, the Buccaneer really shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise – can be read here somewhere. I don’t see it as my role to defend these aircraft, exactly. But I do see it as my role to research them assiduously and then tell the truth about them. And in most cases that happens to involve defending them from the vast majority of assertions in print and online, because the truth is that Blackburn aircraft were a lot better than you think. Yes, even the Skua. Yes, even the Firebrand. Yes, even the Roc. Well, OK, probably not the Roc, but there are exceptions to everything.

Once I started researching these machines – properly researching them, including sifting through archives, interviewing veterans and reading everything I could get my hands on, published and unpublished, the true picture was unquestionably different to READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE HERE ON OUR SHINY NEW SITE