Blackburn Roc

Developed by Blackburn Aircraft Ltd., the Blackburn B-25 Roc was originally built with floaters. The first prototype crashed but changes made the other three able to fly. The first flight took place on December 23, 1938 but the Roc's life was short because its design was soon considered obsolete.

 

The Roc was developed from the Skua dive bomber and used the same concept of the Boulton Paul Defiant tower and thus all its four 7.7mm Browning machine guns were located in the tower. The low firepower (compared to the Hawker Hurricane) was compensated by the ability to shoot almost in all directions. In practice, the weight of the tower made the plane very slow and even before the start of production, the Air Ministry decided that it would be better used as a training aircraft. Despite Blackburn having designed the Roc, who produced the 136 aircraft was the Boulton Paul and Roc, despite being different and require a different assembly line, used the same tower as the Defiant.

 

Designed to be used on aircraft carriers, the Roc ended up serving in the Fleet Air Arm aerodromes between February 1940 and August 1941. During the Allied campaign in Norway, a small contingent of Blackburn Rocs served on the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal with the squadrons 800 and 803. Roc also served missions over the English Channel during the evacuation of Dunkirk.

 

The Roc served as a training aircraft until 1943 when it was decommissioned. But in 1944 four Rocs served on HMS Daedalous and its towers were used for air defense. The only victory of the Roc was confirmed on May 28, 1940 when a Roc accompanied by two Skuas shot down a Junkers Ju 88 that were attacking a train.