Blackburn Tigershark F1

[andrewj]

The cancellation of many British aircraft projects in the late 1950's , including the SR177 , left the Royal navy with a shortfall in capability. What the navy needed was a supersonic fighter to bridge the gap between it's current aircraft and later promising designs.
The Blackburn company offered the Tigershark , it was to be licence built using 90% of the design of the American Grumman F11 tiger, but modified to suit British needs. A larger radar was to be fitted ,new RR Spey engines with afterburning gave longer range combined with improved performance . Along with provision to carry Firestreak missiles , a strengthened undercarriage,flight refuelling capability and wing boundary layer control adapted from the Buccaneer design. this would allow the Tiger to operate from smaller British carriers.
The finished aircraft had an enhanced capability compared to the Grumman original and was designated the Blackburn Tigershark F1 in RN service.
The model represents one of the original service aircraft with 899 Sqd FAA





Andrew

[chrisonord]

Very nice, all be it a bit too nice to be anything Blackburn made 
Chris

[DogfighterZen]

Very nice work!

[Librarian]

She's a beauty. Always a soft-spot for the Tiger and that new radome gives her a bit more growl . Beauty

[Glenn Gilbertson]

What a beauty - she really looks the business!

[zenrat]

Very nice, all be it a bit too nice to be anything Blackburn made 
Chris

Second that.  Far too attractive. 

Great job.

[NARSES2]

She does look good  and quite different from a standard Tigershark

[king of men]

I don't remember that I've ever seen a Tiger in Royal Navy markings before. Well done.

[nighthunter]

Beautiful, need to get my Irish F11F done

[kitbasher]

Very smart, well done.

Mind you, the F-11 is such a good looking aircraft it'd take some effort to ugly one up!  To my eye they look as what Hawkers may have done through extrapolation of the Hunter as Dassault did (to me) in evolving the Super Mystere via the Etendard into the Super Etendard.  Yes I can see Sidney Came designing the F-11. 

[Weaver]

Oh nice one!  That looks really good.

I have a Royal Navy Tiger on the bench at the moment, which would probably have been finished by now if it wasn't for a paint problem. My backstory and spec are way different though: I have Blackburn building Skyhawks and the Tigers built by Hawker Siddeley, for instance.

[Dizzyfugu]

Sweet. The RN colors suit the Tiger well. 

[TheChronicOne]

Nice work right there! That looks great! 

[sandiego89]

Great idea and very well done.  Did you do anything for the Spey Conversion, or just words?  Hard to tell from the angles.  Not a criticism, just curious. Great job, especially like the radome, probe and paint.   

-Dave

[PR19_Kit]

The Tiger's the sort of aircraft that's just naturally overlooked for some reason, but it was quite significant, and in FAA service it would have been excellent I'm sure, especially with Spey power.