Blackburn Roc
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The Blackburn Roc was a British World War II-era Fleet Air Arm fighter aircraft designed by Blackburn Aircraft Ltd. It took its name from the mythical bird of the tales of the Arabian Nights, the Roc. First flying on 23 December 1938, the Roc's service life was brief as the aircraft's design was quickly rendered obsolete. The Roc was a "fighter" development of the Blackburn Skua dive bomber using the same turret fighter concept as the Boulton Paul Defiant in that its sole armament was four 0.303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns in a powered dorsal turret. The reduced firepower (compared to land based fighters such as the Hawker Hurricane was offset by the ability to direct it in any direction. In practice the weight of the turret made the Roc slower than the Skua and so it was ironic that the Roc probably performed best as a dive bomber.
The Roc was designed to be fitted with floats and four float plane prototypes were built. The first crashed but modifications made the remaining three flyable, however the concept was not pursued.
While Blackburn designed the Roc, all 136 production aircraft were built by Boulton Paul. These served alongside Skuas in two land-based squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm between February 1940 and August 1941. During the British campaign in Norway a small contingent of Rocs travelled with 800 and 803 squadrons on board the HMS Ark Royal.
Finally the Roc was relegated to training and target-towing roles until by 1943 it was withdrawn from service.
Specifications (Roc)
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