Just like the cars, the Brit designed some of the most beautiful and strange aircraft of the 20th century. Always quirky and unconventional. Love from france 🇫🇷
You still got that Concorde feeling? That was proof France can cooperate. Like Airbus and Toulouse. Wow! Did you know Citroen was born in the Netherlands? Taliking about cars, and avistion, France has a great history, too.
Designs that follow political directives, or more recently, marketing principles, fail. Blackburn were 'in the club' of British aircraft manufacturers, and never produced a good (or even decent) aircraft UNTIL the Buccaneer. It proves that status kills everything good.
We had Buccs launch from Akrotiri to go "somewhere". When they came back, one of them have a trailing wire. When we in ATC informed him, he said not to worry it's only a telephone wire.
I believe you are referring to the 2 Buccaneers that flew very low over Beirut which shocked the locals. The message was we can bomb you before you even known we have visited.
I was at that Red Flag in the late seventies. I was there from Langley AFB, Virginia with our F-15s. They were in a hangar next to us. I went over had a look and had nice chat with one of the guys. I asked if I could take a picture and an officer said ok but not to get the ECM pod in the frame. Good memories. Long live the RAF and USAF.
When the Fleet Air Arm handed over our Buccs to the RAF we had them repainted in sludge green/brown camouflage. What we also did was repaint the bomb bay and add suitable decals. It doesn't say much for the RAF maintainers that they missed a very obvious "addition". The RAF having taken over RNAS Fulmar (I think) and renamed it as RAF Lossiemouth decided it would be a great idea to have an air display which included this wonderous low flying bomber with its rotating bomb bay. So the RAF pilot screams in low from the sea approach down the main runway, banks the aircraft to display the bomb bay in action. Bomb bay open in full view of the gathered RAF dignitaries and what do they see in the open bomb bay. Day glo orange decals spelling out FLY NAVY.
@@mickb474 Crabs". From "crabfat" - it is a derogatory term - the grease that was used on Navy gun breeches was called "crabfat" as it resembled the blue colour of the ointment used to treat sailors for 'crabs' - the RAF uniform was a similar shade of blue hence the link
First one I ever saw was at less than 100 feet flying over Loch Ness. I always wanted to join up, and that flight gave me a nudge in the right direction.
That is STILL one mean-looking bird. I remember in the '70s, standing at the headland near Donaghadee, Northern Ireland when two RN Buccaneers flew right by us, low level out over the sea and they acknowledged me waving at them by waggling their wings. Free air display!
The aircraft to pull on the leg of the mighty Tomcat... F14 gun alignment is few degrees upward, so when they actually found and got behind Buccaneer rubbing its belly on desert floor and kicking up dust, Tomcat just couldn't aim down enough to get a kill without hitting the deck themselves... must have been really frustrating 😅 Buccaneer being like:" you see me down ear? Too bad you can touch me down ear mate? 😘"
WOW 😲, WHAT AN AMAZING AIRCRAFT!!! The Buckaneer and the A-10 Warthog are pretty similar, very amazing 🤩 💞 🤩 aircraft. In my opinion, two of the toughest and most capable planes ever built for war conditions!!! Thanks 👍.
Not a 'classic beauty', but the Buccaneer has been a favourite of mine for .... about as long as I have been alive (and I was born a year or two after the design phase), just a stunning aircraft.
Four Bucc's carrying out a coodinated low level, high speed airfield attack from four different directions was a sight to see. I was only ever on the receiving end during exercises and once at an airshow, but by the time you reacted they were back in the mess with a G&T.
Blackburn had produced it's fair share of duds. But this, it's swansong, was a genuine masterpiece. Initially underpowered with those wheezing Gyron juniors, it came into it's own with the Spey engines. Hypnotised by the dazzling TSR2, The RAF had deliberately ignored it's potential, but came to love the Buccaneer.
I was on the Hermes in late 70’s i was on Gannets, the other aircraft were Buccaneers and Sea Vixens, if you were below decks you knew when a Buccaneer had landed by the thump it made!
I remember those distinctive inlets from probably the very first airshow I ever went to, in the Netherlands. Pictured with my very first primitive camera. Until now I didn't really know what it was.
What these gentlemen forgot was that the South-African Airforce operated the Buccaneer during the Bush War between 1966 -1989. The Buccaneer SAW heavy combat with the South-Africans and did a superb job. Most notably during the battle of Cassinga where it was tasked with destroying a Cuban armored column.
My father spent time at Waterkloof, 1968/69, instructing the SAAF on the Bucc, my father worked for Ferranti. Best time of my life, I went to PBHS. We eventually went back to Scotland due to UN sanctions.
@kiereluurs1243 my grandad worked on them , un official low level training was the attache a pole on the arrester hook with a wheel and switch.. the idea was to fly low enough to just turn the buzzer on. At 20 feet you were virtually impossible to shoot down At 10 feet no AA gun..air AA missle could lock on or get lower the barrels low enough. And a 5 feet the the people at nelis stated it wast a fair competition. The gave them a crate of Burbon just for showing off..sorry doing what there good at. In his log book he noted that out 14 CAB pilots only 4 came up and said " teach us how to fly that low..
Only countries to fly the Bucc were Britian and South Africa. Great plane. Knew some of the pilots and navs who flew her. Many missions into Angola and even one against the Russian supplied radars in Mozambique.
When I used ski up north in Scotland, if I'm not mistaken, when you were on the ski lift these use to fly below you. You literally sat looking down on them, you could see into the cockpit from above as they banked side to side squeezing along the valley.
I once saw a video of the U.S war games where these knocked the spots of the Yanks. In one scene the Americans had to hit the deck the Buccs were so low, lots of appreciative expletives followed. My favourite meaty (due to its carrier role) piece of UK flight engineering. Pity none are flying these days😢 . The last of the pilot's rides, replaced by the computer generation.
As a kid at Fraserburgh academy in the late 60s early 70s you could see them doing bombing runs off the coast from the top storey classrooms. Didn’t learn much when that was happening
With the loss of Bruntingthorpe as an active airfield, the Buccaneers have had their wings clipped and there are no more runway demos. I wonder if organisation can return one to the air or is it just too much money and we will have to have memories and films,
Not the aircraft the RAF wanted, but it was amazing over 22,000 lbs of thrust and was still sup-sonic. The USN A-5 Vigilante made Mach 2 on similar class engines, though with afterburners fitted.
To say, at Red Flag, 'they had never seen airplanes flying at 100 feet in the late 70's", was very incorrect. The F-111 routinely flew at 1 to 200 feet, and more so, at night. We would start out each Red Flag that way but then the exercise planners would raise the hard deck to 500 or 1000 feet to give them something for the F-15's to track, which was an emasculation of our capabilities. Then when the Buccaneers came in it was tough to do the same as they were guests. When the Aussies brought the F-111C models with Pave Tack to the party in 2006, the same courtesy had to be given, but I'm sure there was the same feeling of "it's not fair".
Loved that plane from kid seeing at Farnborough air show. another big mistake by the ministry. The same as the Harrier, could have been developed further, No we bought American C++++. Politics what that smell
If the RAF weren't so infatuated with the TSR.2, they could have gotten the Buccaneer by 1964-1965 with a truly modern low-altitude interdiction airplane for attacks just behind the Iron Curtain in case of war. And it would have tided them over until the early 1980's, when the Tornado started to enter service.
"The last of the all British built..." Thats very depressing to hear. Why must it be the "last" or the "last British built"? Isnt that conceding something will never be again?
Yes. The chances of a British military aircraft flying with a British engine and British developed elecktrickery is unfortunatley, vanishingly small. Has been since the mid-1960s.
I wish the UK could provide these to the Ukrainian Air Force. Even 62 years after being introduced, they would still provide devastating effects against the Russian invaders. A truly remarkable and beautiful aircraft.
They were in service in 1991 - They could not reach the Falklands even with air to air Refueling. I think the problem was due to the engines would run out of oil if they were run for that long.
One of many reasons the Argentine invaded was that the RAF had been given the Fleet Air Arm's job of protecting the fleet anywhere it went, then prevented from having the planes and ships needed to do that. The Argentine leaders read this in the papers, and drew their idiot plans against us. 700 plus dead, laid at Callaghan and Thatcher's feet.
There was never a need for the Tornado. The combination of Buccaneer, Jaguar and Harrier could have covered all bases until the 2020s. That would have freed up cash to develop an air superiority fighter to fly both for the RAF and RN and had it in service two decades before the Typhoon entered service. The Tornado was always a Euro integration political aircraft and was too fragile and short ranged for the UK. The Buccaneer and a development of it was the perfect fit but politics dictated otherwise.
Why are we having a programme about the Buccaneer which was a Navy aircraft from the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, why are we being lectured by the RAF, it didn't get the aircraft until the Navy stopped using it and suddenly the RAF are all experts, it is very clumsy and to be honest its infuriating to have to listened from the RAF creaming off the illustrious history of the Royal Navy's Buccaneers life, really infuriating, 😡😡😡‼️
1:53 "It was very effective" This guy is full of it. To call such a complicated and specific maneuver "very effective" without it ever being tested in genuine wartime conditions is indicative of this man's bias.
Thats why they put hundreds of hours into training, at the same time hoping that their services would not be required, i might also add that his description of this manoeuvre was "too be kind to the pilot " too short and vague.
They knew the manoeuvre worked after testing it. The Americans used the same technique. It wasn't just just with buckets of instant sunshine, including laser guided bombs.
Realistic tests and long practise proves the effectiveness of techniques. Rather like learning to become a brain surgeon, or an Olympic sportsman. Being willing to change and learn from new experience when it comes along is the next step.
Without RUclips I never would have seen all these British aircraft...it took me 60years to get to today!
What all these classic British aircraft had in common :
They all looked damn good !
Just like the cars, the Brit designed some of the most beautiful and strange aircraft of the 20th century. Always quirky and unconventional. Love from france 🇫🇷
You still got that Concorde feeling? That was proof France can cooperate. Like Airbus and Toulouse. Wow!
Did you know Citroen was born in the Netherlands? Taliking about cars, and avistion, France has a great history, too.
I also thought French designs were quirky
Quirky and unconventional? Go home France, you're drunk.
And Canada .
Designs that follow political directives, or more recently, marketing principles, fail.
Blackburn were 'in the club' of British aircraft manufacturers, and never produced a good (or even decent) aircraft UNTIL the Buccaneer. It proves that status kills everything good.
Awesome mate!.. I fell in love with the Buccaneer when HMS Eagle visited NZ in the early 70's 👍✈️.. cheers from down under 🇳🇿
We had Buccs launch from Akrotiri to go "somewhere". When they came back, one of them have a trailing wire. When we in ATC informed him, he said not to worry it's only a telephone wire.
I believe you are referring to the 2 Buccaneers that flew very low over Beirut which shocked the locals. The message was we can bomb you before you even known we have visited.
😂🤟💯🇬🇧
Absolutely Beautiful. Very emotional story. Amazing
I was at that Red Flag in the late seventies. I was there from Langley AFB, Virginia with our F-15s. They were in a hangar next to us. I went over had a look and had nice chat with one of the guys. I asked if I could take a picture and an officer said ok but not to get the ECM pod in the frame. Good memories. Long live the RAF and USAF.
When the Fleet Air Arm handed over our Buccs to the RAF we had them repainted in sludge green/brown camouflage. What we also did was repaint the bomb bay and add suitable decals. It doesn't say much for the RAF maintainers that they missed a very obvious "addition". The RAF having taken over RNAS Fulmar (I think) and renamed it as RAF Lossiemouth decided it would be a great idea to have an air display which included this wonderous low flying bomber with its rotating bomb bay. So the RAF pilot screams in low from the sea approach down the main runway, banks the aircraft to display the bomb bay in action. Bomb bay open in full view of the gathered RAF dignitaries and what do they see in the open bomb bay. Day glo orange decals spelling out FLY NAVY.
Classic story. I should've had a shot of rum to go with it. But I still raised my beer in salute.
😂😂😂
The joke all over the RAF a few years later was (spoofing the adverts for joining the services) 'Fly Navy, Sail RAF, Walk Sideways'.
@@stevetheduck1425 👍🏻😁 i remember them being called “crabfats” but i don’t know the origin of that word 🤔
@@mickb474 Crabs". From "crabfat" - it is a derogatory term - the grease that was used on Navy gun breeches was called "crabfat" as it resembled the blue colour of the ointment used to treat sailors for 'crabs' - the RAF uniform was a similar shade of blue hence the link
Looks and sounds to be a wonder of a killer aircraft
Nice to hear Harry Enfield getting some voiceover work.
Smashing video. Thank you!
First one I ever saw was at less than 100 feet flying over Loch Ness. I always wanted to join up, and that flight gave me a nudge in the right direction.
That is STILL one mean-looking bird. I remember in the '70s, standing at the headland near Donaghadee, Northern Ireland when two RN Buccaneers flew right by us, low level out over the sea and they acknowledged me waving at them by waggling their wings. Free air display!
The aircraft to pull on the leg of the mighty Tomcat... F14 gun alignment is few degrees upward, so when they actually found and got behind Buccaneer rubbing its belly on desert floor and kicking up dust, Tomcat just couldn't aim down enough to get a kill without hitting the deck themselves... must have been really frustrating 😅 Buccaneer being like:" you see me down ear? Too bad you can touch me down ear mate? 😘"
Saw a video of a Red Flag Exercise in the US , with the Bucks flying at ground level kicking up the dust with the yanks unable to get a lock on
Great aircraft made back in the day when Britain had an aircraft industry
Great use of area rule on the airframe envelope. A proper, optimised transonic aeroplane.
Very Very Nice Jet
WOW 😲, WHAT AN AMAZING AIRCRAFT!!! The Buckaneer and the A-10 Warthog are pretty similar, very amazing 🤩 💞 🤩 aircraft. In my opinion, two of the toughest and most capable planes ever built for war conditions!!! Thanks 👍.
Not a 'classic beauty', but the Buccaneer has been a favourite of mine for .... about as long as I have been alive (and I was born a year or two after the design phase), just a stunning aircraft.
Four Bucc's carrying out a coodinated low level, high speed airfield attack from four different directions was a sight to see. I was only ever on the receiving end during exercises and once at an airshow, but by the time you reacted they were back in the mess with a G&T.
Rear airbrakes just awesome 😮
Pity you dont mention the sterling service of the Bucc in the SAAF
Blackburn had produced it's fair share of duds. But this, it's swansong, was a genuine masterpiece. Initially underpowered with those wheezing Gyron juniors, it came into it's own with the Spey engines. Hypnotised by the dazzling TSR2, The RAF had deliberately ignored it's potential, but came to love the Buccaneer.
Probably the best low level attack jet built to date.
They constantly confounded American fighters in exercises.
Yes, that was a great example, the Americans were shocked. THAT low?!
The top two contenders... Blackburn Buccaneer and SAAB Viggen...
The low-level Vulcan bombers were a shock, but the two Buccs that were hiding underneath it blew minds.
Fantastic arie and carried a punch as saaf proved in Angola. There is one on display at the war museum in Johannesburg.
I was on the Hermes in late 70’s i was on Gannets, the other aircraft were Buccaneers and Sea Vixens, if you were below decks you knew when a Buccaneer had landed by the thump it made!
Can one Love an aircraft? YES.
Yes.. aeroplanes have personalities they arre more than just a piece of metal👍✈️
70s Red Fleg kicking us dust 🇺🇲🇬🇧💯🤟 we're talking Aggressor Squadron/Clint Eastwood Firefox guys chasing her in TomCats 🇺🇲🇬🇧💯
I remember those distinctive inlets from probably the very first airshow I ever went to, in the Netherlands.
Pictured with my very first primitive camera.
Until now I didn't really know what it was.
One of the best low-level Intruders ever built. Imagine what they could do with modern engines and a modern electronic sweet.
suite!! And built of composites. The way war is now low level is again the way forward!
What these gentlemen forgot was that the South-African Airforce operated the Buccaneer during the Bush War between 1966 -1989. The Buccaneer SAW heavy combat with the South-Africans and did a superb job. Most notably during the battle of Cassinga where it was tasked with destroying a Cuban armored column.
My father spent time at Waterkloof, 1968/69, instructing the SAAF on the Bucc, my father worked for Ferranti. Best time of my life, I went to PBHS. We eventually went back to Scotland due to UN sanctions.
woooooo apartheid
@@williamhendrix3253 and your point is ?
@williamhendrix3253 If you havent been in South-Africa during apartheid then I suggest you keep your gob shut.
@@Bruce-1956the only point he has is the one on top of his head.
The buccaneer.. the only aircraft you had to raise the undercarriage to decend to its crusing altitude
🥱Funny, but old.
Cruising.
@kiereluurs1243 my grandad worked on them , un official low level training was the attache a pole on the arrester hook with a wheel and switch.. the idea was to fly low enough to just turn the buzzer on.
At 20 feet you were virtually impossible to shoot down
At 10 feet no AA gun..air AA missle could lock on or get lower the barrels low enough.
And a 5 feet the the people at nelis stated it wast a fair competition.
The gave them a crate of Burbon just for showing off..sorry doing what there good at.
In his log book he noted that out 14 CAB pilots only 4 came up and said " teach us how to fly that low..
That wins the internet this week😂😂
"Loverly to this day.. 🏴🇬🇧💪
Only countries to fly the Bucc were Britian and South Africa. Great plane. Knew some of the pilots and navs who flew her. Many missions into Angola and even one against the Russian supplied radars in Mozambique.
When I used ski up north in Scotland, if I'm not mistaken, when you were on the ski lift these use to fly below you. You literally sat looking down on them, you could see into the cockpit from above as they banked side to side squeezing along the valley.
I know the sno-cat company in Scotland folded, but are there still any ski sites there?
.... how does that old joke go .... "Where are your Buccaneers ?" ... "inside me buccan 'elmet !" .... (thank you 'Stanley' ).
I once saw a video of the U.S war games where these knocked the spots of the Yanks. In one scene the Americans had to hit the deck the Buccs were so low, lots of appreciative expletives followed. My favourite meaty (due to its carrier role) piece of UK flight engineering. Pity none are flying these days😢 . The last of the pilot's rides, replaced by the computer generation.
Wonderful planr
Blackburns Boiler plate Bomber,, built like a Tank
As a kid at Fraserburgh academy in the late 60s early 70s you could see them doing bombing runs off the coast from the top storey classrooms. Didn’t learn much when that was happening
And Britain threw all of it's skill and talent away😢
With the loss of Bruntingthorpe as an active airfield, the Buccaneers have had their wings clipped and there are no more runway demos. I wonder if organisation can return one to the air or is it just too much money and we will have to have memories and films,
Down to 100 feet "or so"....the joke was they had to climb to get room to put the wheels down
Lol. That's a good one
Love these old classics, but why is all the old content getting shown again?
Not the aircraft the RAF wanted, but it was amazing over 22,000 lbs of thrust and was still sup-sonic. The USN A-5 Vigilante made Mach 2 on similar class engines, though with afterburners fitted.
6:31 Still looks Buck Rodgers 👽
Beast
To say, at Red Flag, 'they had never seen airplanes flying at 100 feet in the late 70's", was very incorrect. The F-111 routinely flew at 1 to 200 feet, and more so, at night. We would start out each Red Flag that way but then the exercise planners would raise the hard deck to 500 or 1000 feet to give them something for the F-15's to track, which was an emasculation of our capabilities. Then when the Buccaneers came in it was tough to do the same as they were guests. When the Aussies brought the F-111C models with Pave Tack to the party in 2006, the same courtesy had to be given, but I'm sure there was the same feeling of "it's not fair".
1-200 feet, so enough room for a Bucc underneath?
Only kidding, the Aardvark is a great plane. What role did you have on them?
Loved that plane from kid seeing at Farnborough air show. another big mistake by the ministry. The same as the Harrier, could have been developed further, No we bought American C++++. Politics what that smell
If the RAF weren't so infatuated with the TSR.2, they could have gotten the Buccaneer by 1964-1965 with a truly modern low-altitude interdiction airplane for attacks just behind the Iron Curtain in case of war. And it would have tided them over until the early 1980's, when the Tornado started to enter service.
Pity there was no-one from the Fleet Air Arm to talk about its original service at sea. The Royal Advertising Force strikes again!
What is a pity? Something in between piety and pitty? You're a poet?
@@voornaam3191😪
The Fleet Air Arm don't sit around in hotels all dady waiting for someone with a camera to turn up.
Interesting aircraft. why is that backside so fat?
How many of these did the Royal Navy lose over the side? MOD will never reveal! The WAFU's revenge?
The FAA did lose a couple of airframes
Extreme low level nuke deployment...
Lob and Ross with a Balute 😅🤟🤠
"The last of the all British built..." Thats very depressing to hear. Why must it be the "last" or the "last British built"? Isnt that conceding something will never be again?
Yes. The chances of a British military aircraft flying with a British engine and British developed elecktrickery is unfortunatley, vanishingly small. Has been since the mid-1960s.
the last to date....one can always hope for another someday...
Nice but crash too often
All planes that crash at all, crash too often.
Under 100’ “from time to time”…
Only beaten by the harrier gr7 .only because I served with them.😂
I wish the UK could provide these to the Ukrainian Air Force. Even 62 years after being introduced, they would still provide devastating effects against the Russian invaders. A truly remarkable and beautiful aircraft.
Too bad the UK didn't give the Iraqis Buccaneers to devastate the American and British invaders.
If these were still in service in 1982, we could have bombed the Argies night and day.
They were in service in 1991 - They could not reach the Falklands even with air to air Refueling. I think the problem was due to the engines would run out of oil if they were run for that long.
One of many reasons the Argentine invaded was that the RAF had been given the Fleet Air Arm's job of protecting the fleet anywhere it went, then prevented from having the planes and ships needed to do that.
The Argentine leaders read this in the papers, and drew their idiot plans against us.
700 plus dead, laid at Callaghan and Thatcher's feet.
There was never a need for the Tornado. The combination of Buccaneer, Jaguar and Harrier could have covered all bases until the 2020s. That would have freed up cash to develop an air superiority fighter to fly both for the RAF and RN and had it in service two decades before the Typhoon entered service. The Tornado was always a Euro integration political aircraft and was too fragile and short ranged for the UK. The Buccaneer and a development of it was the perfect fit but politics dictated otherwise.
I would of loved to see an updated buccaneer..new engine's and avionics and she would of had many more years left
Why are we having a programme about the Buccaneer which was a Navy aircraft from the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, why are we being lectured by the RAF, it didn't get the aircraft until the Navy stopped using it and suddenly the RAF are all experts, it is very clumsy and to be honest its infuriating to have to listened from the RAF creaming off the illustrious history of the Royal Navy's Buccaneers life, really infuriating, 😡😡😡‼️
Pity you are so behind the times regarding Brunty.
This documentary was filmed nearly 20 years ago.
All one needs to say is; TSR2.
зато сейчас у англичан, ничего нет. ничего.😅😅😅😅😅
Neither will Putin soon enough.
1:53 "It was very effective"
This guy is full of it. To call such a complicated and specific maneuver "very effective" without it ever being tested in genuine wartime conditions is indicative of this man's bias.
Ever heard of
Buccaneers served in the First Gulf War because the RAF Tornadoes could NOT illuminate targets with a laser designator for the Paveway Guided Bombs.
Thats why they put hundreds of hours into training, at the same time hoping that their services would not be required, i might also add that his description of this manoeuvre was "too be kind to the pilot " too short and vague.
They knew the manoeuvre worked after testing it. The Americans used the same technique. It wasn't just just with buckets of instant sunshine, including laser guided bombs.
Realistic tests and long practise proves the effectiveness of techniques. Rather like learning to become a brain surgeon, or an Olympic sportsman. Being willing to change and learn from new experience when it comes along is the next step.