Blackburn Buccaneer
The Banana Jet
“Built to attack ships at wave height, faster than they could track it.”
Blackburn · military
The Buccaneer was designed for one job: flying under a fleet's radar at high speed and 100 feet to hit it before anyone could react. It was heavy, strong and remarkably fast on the deck, and it served the Royal Navy, the RAF and South Africa for over 30 years. Its last act was designating targets with laser for the RAF in the 1991 Gulf War. One airworthy example remains in South Africa.
The Buccaneer's rotating bomb bay door carried the weapons on its inside face, so the bay stayed streamlined even when it opened at low level.
A long, fat fuselage with a pinched waist behind the wing, a big T-tail with a bullet fairing, and the tail cone split into airbrakes. The nickname Banana Jet is about the curved profile.
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Banana Jet from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
