Blackburn Beauty

摘要

As I walk out across Old Warden's historic turf to the shining silver biplane awaiting me on the greensward, it suddenly occurs to me that even the most casual observer might think the B2 looks a little different - even if they don't quite know why. Although an open cockpit biplane of 1930s vintage is not an unusual sight at this airfield -home to the famous Shuttleworth Collection - two anomalies are immediately apparent: the metal fuselage and side-by-side seats. Designed by East Yorkshire-based The Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Company, the B2 took some of its features from another of the Brough firm's products, the DH Gipsy Ⅲ-powered Bluebird Ⅳ. It retained the basic layout, side-by-side seating and fabric-covered wings of the earlier machine but instead of the Bluebird's 'rag and tube' fuselage, the B2's is a semi-monocoque structure. The prototype was powered by a 120hp (90kW) Gipsy Ⅲ and made its maiden flight from Brough on December 10,1931. Owned initially by company chairman Robert Blackburn as a replacement for his personal Bluebird Ⅳ, it made its public debut at the SBAC show at Hendon the following year. Blackburn eventually made just 42 airframes, and the test aircraft, G-AEBJ, was the 37th production aircraft and the only one that still exists. With Blackburn eventually becoming part of Hawker Siddeley Aviation, then British Aerospace and eventually BAE Systems, it is now operated as part of BAE's Heritage Flight. It lives mostly at Old Warden, which is where I met BAE Systems Heritage Flight pilot Peter Kosogorin and the B2.