Blackburn Skua Mk III

[kitbasher]

Blackburn Skua III L2934 'K', 800 Sqn Fleet Air Arm, HMS Ark Royal, April 1940
The first act of the Admiralty following transfer of control of the Fleet Air Arm to the Royal Navy in 1937 was a comprehensive review of aircraft projects.  Many of the types in service were considered to be inadequate or obsolescent, and the same could be said for a number of types due to enter service.  The Fairey Albacore was immediately identified as offering little in advance of the Swordfish it was expected to replace and was therefore cancelled.  While the Blackburn Skua was considered an adequate if unspectacular aircraft, the turret-armed Roc fighter was considered to be a misguided concept, wholly unsuited to contemporary warfare.
Therefore, and with little ceremony, the Roc was cancelled as a fighter project and instead the sea Lords pursued a twin-track policy of pressing for navalised Hawker Hurricanes whilst at the same time seeking development of a single-seat version of the Boulton-Paul P.85 (later to enter service as the 'Dolphin' - essentially a naval equivalent of what would become the Defiant in RAF service, and similar to the P.94) as the standard Fleet fighter.
Wise move though this was, Blackburn had completed (or was in the process of building) Roc airframes, and the Swordfish still needed replacing.  Therefore the pragmatic solution was to modify (or complete where appropriate) the Rocs as Skuas, albeit with as little change to the airframe as possible.
Thus the Skua Mk III came into being.  With the end of Swordfish production in sight and increasing capacity to build more of the Mercury engines becoming available the Mk III was, as originally planned for the Skua and as carried by the prototype, fitted with the more reliable Mercury engine.  Another difference from earlier Skuas was the lack of semi-recessed bomb carriage.  To minimise structural changes an speed production, Mk III's were fitted with a centreline universal stores carrier that could carry bombs, flares, life rafts, an auxiliary (or ferry) fuel tank or – most importantly- a torpedo.  This rendered the Skua III the most flexible version of the type, especially as the 4 wing-mounted .303 machine guns and rear single Lewis gun of earlier Marks were retained, thus allowing Skua IIIs to fulfil limited fighter duties as well as fighter bomber and torpedo bomber roles.  Meanwhile the Fairey design built to Specification S.24/37, eventually to become the Barracuda, was afforded top priority development status with a view to the type replacing the Skua III in 1941.
The Skua III's greatest operational achievements were in the Mediterranean Theatre of operations against the French and Italian fleets at Oran and Taranto.  The type also saw action against German capital ships such as the Bismarck, but invariably suffered significant losses in the process.  Performance – especially speed - was always an issue, especially when operated in concert with the Boulton-Paul Dolphin and Fairey Fulmar, and whist the type was useful against low risk or poorly defended targets, against more capable and determined opposition the Skua III was often found wanting.  But with the Swordfish long relegated to training and other secondary duties there was no real alternative but for the Fleet Air Arm to press for the earliest possible introduction into service of the Barracuda.  The introduction of the Dolphin and Fulmar reduced the need for the Skua in the fighter role; consequently two of the forward firing guns were removed to save weight, but the overall performance gains were essentially negligible.
The Douglas TBD Devastator was briefly considered as a replacement, but the type offered no real performance gain over the Skua III (as would be demonstrated in early operations against the Japanese following Pearl Harbor).  In the event, the Skua was forced to soldier on as the RN's only torpedo bomber until early 1942, when the Barracuda began to enter service. 
(donor kits: Revell Skua; Airfix Blenhem IV, Hurricane II/IV, FW190F-8, Beaver; Matchbox Beaufighter X, Harrier GR1, Phantom FG.1/FGR.2)

This model kind of crept up on me and took me by surprise.  I bought the kit a few years back at Telford at a knock down price and had grand ideas to turn it into a Roc courtesy of a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  What an unrealistic objective, given that I'd overlooked (despite having built one about 30 years ago) the basic fact that the kit was pretty poor and a humungous amount of work would be needed on it!  Therefore it was going to be disposed of at some point, but in a moment of madness at the start of this year I thought I'd whiff it.  The plan was simply to throw the kit together straight from the box and try and finish it in a Dazzle camouflage scheme based on those used by ships in both World Wars – an appropriate thing to do given the Skua's naval role.
As parts were assembled I simply couldn't bring myself to leave the cockpit so bare, nor to use the kit's rather pathetic engine plus nacelle.  Oh, and the wheels would have to go.  But so much was deficient a bit of license was needed.
An instrument panel and some rudimentary bulkheads were fashioned, and a section of drop tank added to represent the fuselage fuel tank (OK I know the Skua had 2 but I thought 'so what', and the bck story kind of sorts that one out!).  The only replacement engine I had was the final trace of a long lost Airfix Blenheim, so the Mercury-engined Mk III was dreamt up.  Then came the small matter of stores, and I wasn't going to hack out the bomb recess, so an Airfix FW190A-8/F-8 stores fairing was merely glued into place as a 'universal carrier'.  Suddenly the idea of a slightly more powerful engine mated to an unwanted fuselage that was not going to be modified led to the idea of something broadly similar to the Douglas Devastator, ie not a dive bomber but a Whiffworld torpedo bomber (torpedo plus one shackle from a Beaufighter) with secondary conventional and dive bombing roles (bombs from a Hurricane).  Finally an arrestor hook (courtesy of an Airfix Beaver float strut), replacement wheels (Matchbox Harrier) and the Mercury exhausts (Matchbox Phantom Sidewinders) were added.
As 'modelling creep' developed, so the 'Razzle Dazzle Skua' idea faded away – I just had to stick with something closer to reality when it came to the paint job!

[GTX]

First class work .

Regards,

Greg

[Patrick H]

Cool, a whiff from an hardly known aircraft. Love the story and a great build. Don't know the kit but from the looks of it, you did a mighty fine job here.

[Maverick]

Very nice build.  Almost looks like a kit of something 'real' which I think is the greatest accolade and I'm sure it'd have the JMNs scratching their collective pointy heads in wonder.

Regards,

Mav

[sotoolslinger]

Very pretty.  The backstory is very realistic and the build is just awesome.

[nev]

Wow that's a beauty!  A really nicely done model.  I confess I don't know enough about the subject in question to have realised it was a whiff, if I had seen it in another context.

[Dork the kit slayer]

 

[kitbasher]

Thanks guys for the positive comments.
For those not familiar with the kit it's the Revell rehash of the Frog Blackburn Skua that first came out in the mid-60s (if not earlier) and subsequently repackaged by Novo, Chemetic, Revell and Eastern Express.  There's lots wrong with it - http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/allies/gb/elliottskua.htm sums it up quite nicely.
You make some very good points about powerplants, Wooksta, and some very poignant comments about Blenheim crews.
With regards to the engine choice, I had the Blenheim nacelle to hand and according to a couple of sources (including Thetford's Aircraft of the RAF Since 1918) it was possible to strangle 905 hp (the same as the Perseus) out of the Mercury XV that powered the Blenheim IV (Wikipedia claims 995 hp at 2750 rpm at 9250 ft maximum power with 100-octane fuel - rather optimistic, I'd say).  So that was a happy modelling coincidence!
I think you're probably spot on to suggest that a Taurus-engined Skua (the Taurus VI reached 1130 hp it seems) would have been quite a potent beast (certainly by early WW2 standards) but from what I recall reading of the Beaufort the Taurus was not without its problems.
I haven't read the Blenheim book you refer to (I think I know which one you mean) but I've had a history of 2 Gp RAF for many years and it describes in tragic detail the losses endured by those brave aircrew in 1939/1940.  I wonder how many lives would have been saved if, for example, Marcel Lobelle had persuaded the RAF to take a twin-Merlin Battle (as he proposed - see 'The Battle File' - much to the chagrin of the Air Ministry, and the subject of a future whiff (now I have a Bilek Battle)), or if the Blenheim had been fitted with more powerful engines.  Thankfully we got the fighters just about right.

[NARSES2]

Thats a really nice build 

[sequoiaranger]

...I would think that regardless of an engine upgrade, the additional weight of a torpedo (usually about 2,000 lbs) would be too heavy for the wings to lift it off a carrier deck. Wing loading is an issue, here, methinks. Perhaps a land-based unit with a long runway might be able to use it, and the cruiser Konigsberg might have sunk by its torpedoes instead of its bombs. I love the look and the paint job, though!

On my list of whiff-to-dos is a Hawker Sea Henley dive-bomber (the Skua deemed unable to carry sufficient bombload for "modern" applications) to go with their Sea Hurricane fighters.

[kitbasher]

As for the Taurus, whilst it's true that it did have problems, these could have been sorted out given time and manpower, but the important element here is Lord Beaverbrook.  When he took over at the Air Ministry, one of the things he did was to concentrate production on several (in his eyes at least) key aircraft programmes, one of these being the Blenheim.  To increase production of the engines, key equipment and personnel were transferred to produce more Mercuries.  As a result, the Taurus was never developed to it's full potential and types using it suffered as a result.

Yes of course the priority programmes were the big influence on matters.  But I wonder whether Bristol were spreading themselves a bit thinly - regardless of the war effort as so many of their products were pre-war in origin - with so many different engines in production or under development.  Maybe a tighter focus on particular powerplants and better concentration of resources on their part could have helped sought the Taurus out?

An alternate to the Sea Gladiator could be a navalised Gloster F9/34?  I've a Magna one done in pre war markings.  Although I called it the Nemo...

.....Now that is a good concept.  Very easy to see 'Nemos' operating alongside Skuas and Swordfish (let's keep assuming the Roc was cancelled) - would love to see your model - any pictures?

[kitbasher]

...I would think that regardless of an engine upgrade, the additional weight of a torpedo (usually about 2,000 lbs) would be too heavy for the wings to lift it off a carrier deck. Wing loading is an issue, here, methinks. Perhaps a land-based unit with a long runway might be able to use it, and the cruiser Konigsberg might have sunk by its torpedoes instead of its bombs. I love the look and the paint job, though!

On my list of whiff-to-dos is a Hawker Sea Henley dive-bomber (the Skua deemed unable to carry sufficient bombload for "modern" applications) to go with their Sea Hurricane fighters.

The Swordfish's torpedo aprarrently weighed in at 1670 lb, don't know about the Beaufighter's but the Beaufort's was supposedly 1605 lbs.
Very keen to see your Henley when it's done.

[Weaver]

Cracking job KB, well done! 

It reminds me of a debate I (and others) had with Tony Williams (he of Flying Guns fame: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/) about all this. What struck me was what you've just said: Bristol spread their sleeve-valve R&D too thinly over too many projects, delaying vital ones for the sake of others that proved to have little value. What I'd have liked them to do was this;

Aquila (9 x small-cpacity cylinders): Dump it. It will never produce enough power for the military, and never be as cheap and reliable as the Mercury for civil use.

Taurus (14 x Aquila cylinders): Dump it. It's development potential will always be limited by it's small size and other things can do the same job.

Perseus (9 x large-capacity cylinders): Develop it early and fully, both to give an interim service engine (1000hp should be possible) and to provide an early development test-bed for sleeve-valve tech. A 1000hp Perseus would immesurably improve the Skua and could also be fitted to the Blenheim making it a bit more viable until replaced.

Hercules (14 x Perseus cylinders): Develop it, but as a full, 18-cyl "twin Perseus" instead of a 14. A Herc-18 would have huge development potential, to the point where you could probably see out the piston era on it, without having to develop the Centaurus at all.

[BlackOps]

Very well done 

[Captain Canada]

Great idea.....the paint looks awesome, and the story seems true !