The Navy Jet the Air Force Was Forced to Buy

Blackburn Buccaneer is a British low-level strike jet built to kill Soviet Sverdlov-class cruisers and outfly enemy radar. This Cold War documentary dives into how Blackburn Aircraft and later Hawker Siddeley turned the secret “BNA” project into the Buccaneer S.1 and S.2, powered by the Rolls-Royce Gyron Junior and Spey engines, flying from Royal Navy carriers HMS Victorious, HMS Eagle, HMS Hermes and HMS Ark Royal out of RNAS Lossiemouth. We follow 801 NAS, 800 NAS and 809 NAS at sea, then RAF 12 Squadron, 15 Squadron, 16 Squadron, 208 Squadron, 216 Squadron and 237 OCU over Europe, Red Flag in Nevada and finally the Gulf War. From the rotating bomb bay and area-ruled fuselage to Martel and Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles, ALQ-101 ECM pods and Pave Spike laser-guided bombs, we compare the Buccaneer to rivals like TSR2, the F-111, Phantom, Sea Vixen, Harrier and Tornado. We track its role in the Beira Patrol, the bombing of Torrey Canyon, South African Air Force 24 Squadron strikes off the Cape and in Angola, through to “Grandma’s Finest Hour” over Kuwait in 1991. Featuring places like Goose Bay, Bruntingthorpe and RAF Scampton, and later preservation by Mike Beachyhead in South Africa, this video tells the full rise-and-fall story of one of Britain’s most underrated combat aircraft.