page_title: Blackburn Buccaneer
section_title: Fuselage and structure
hierarchical_section_title: Blackburn Buccaneer / Design / Fuselage and structure
caption_attribution_description: Air Brake on a Buccaneer naval strike aircraft taken at Newark Air Museum
context_page_description: The Blackburn Buccaneer is a British carrier-capable attack aircraft designed in the 1950s for the Royal Navy. Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough, it was later officially known as the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer when Blackburn became a part of the Hawker Siddeley Group, but this name is rarely used.
  The Buccaneer was originally designed in response to the Soviet Union's Sverdlov-class cruiser construction programme. Instead of building a new fleet of its own, the Royal Navy could use the Buccaneer to attack these ships by approaching at low altitudes below the ship's radar horizon. The Buccaneer could attack using a nuclear bomb, or conventional weapons. It was later intended to carry short-range anti-shipping missiles to improve its survivability against more modern ship-based anti-aircraft weapons.
  The Buccaneer entered Royal Navy service in 1962. The initial production aircraft suffered a series of accidents due to insufficient engine power, which was quickly addressed in the Buccaneer S.2, equipped with more powerful Rolls-Royce Spey jet engines.
context_section_description: The fuselage of the Buccaneer was designed using the area rule technique, which had the effect of reducing aerodynamic drag while travelling at high subsonic and transonic speeds, and gave rise to the characteristic curvy "Coke bottle" shape of the fuselage. The majority of the airframe and fuselage was machined from solid casting to give great strength to endure the stress of low-level operations. Considerable effort went into ensuring that metal fatigue would not be a limiting factor of the Buccaneer's operational life, even under the formidable conditions imposed of continuous low level flight.
  A large air brake was built into the tail cone of the aircraft. The hydraulically operated air brake formed two leaves that could be opened into the airstream to quickly decelerate the aircraft. The style of air brake chosen by Blackburn was highly effective in the dive-attack profile that the Buccaneer was intended to perform, as well as effectively balancing out induced drag from operating the BLC system. It featured a variable incidence tailplane that could be trimmed to suit the particular requirements of low-speed handling, or high-speed flight; the tailplane had to be high mounted due to the positioning and functionality of the Buccaneer's air brake.
  The wing design of the Buccaneer was a compromise between two requirements: a low aspect ratio for good gust response, and high aspect ratio to give good range performance. The small wing was suited to high-speed flight at low altitude; however, a small wing did not generate sufficient lift that was essential for carrier operations.  Therefore, BLC was used upon both the wing and tailplane, having the effect of energising and smoothing the boundary layer airflow, which significantly reduced airflow separation at the back of the wing, and therefore decreased stall speed, and increased effectiveness of trailing edge control surfaces, including flaps and ailerons.
caption: Close-up of the split air brake which made up the aircraft's rear fuselage tail cone.
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