page_title: Blackburn Firecrest
section_title: Operational history
hierarchical_section_title: Blackburn Firecrest / Operational history
caption_attribution_description: w:Blackburn Firecrest
context_page_description: The Blackburn B.48 Firecrest, given the SBAC designation YA.1, was a single-engine naval strike fighter built by Blackburn Aircraft for service with the British Fleet Air Arm during World War II. It was a development of the troubled Firebrand, designed to Air Ministry Specification S.28/43, for an improved aircraft more suited to carrier operations. Three prototypes were ordered with the company designation of B-48 and the informal name of "Firecrest", but only two of them actually flew. The development of the aircraft was prolonged by significant design changes and slow deliveries of components, but the determination by the Ministry of Supply in 1946 that the airframe did not meet the requirements for a strike fighter doomed the aircraft. Construction of two of the prototypes was continued to gain flight-test data and the third was allocated to strength testing. The two flying aircraft were sold back to Blackburn in 1950 for disposal and the other aircraft survived until 1952.
context_section_description: Operational experience had found Blackburn's Firecrest strike fighter to be far from suited to carrier operations. In particular, the pilot sat near the wing's trailing edge, looking over a very long and wide nose which gave a particularly poor view for landing. The Firecrest had also been rendered obsolete by the arrival of gas turbine engines, and while Blackburn did draw up proposals for turboprop-powered derivatives of the Firecrest, (as the B-62 (Y.A.6) with the Armstrong Siddeley Python engine), these went unbuilt, with orders instead going to Westland for the Wyvern. The two flying prototypes remained in use until 1949, being sold back to Blackburn in 1950, and were later scrapped.
caption: Firecrest third prototype VF172
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