The Insanely Low Ultra Fast Nuclear Strike Aircraft 

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We are currently restoring Buccaneer xv350 at the east midlands aeropark

In a wargames in the US (1980s), the Brits were tasked with attacking a US 'base' with simulated SAMs. The US saw one blip on their radar and chuckled that the Brits would do this. It was a Vulcan bomber. What the US team didn't realise that ether side of the Vulcan, under the wings, was a Buccaneer. The US painted the 'one' target and at the last moment, the two Buccaneers detached, and to much astonishment from the US team, proceeded to simulate a devistating bombing run. The chuckles swiched to the Brits at that point!

You totally ignored it's phenomenal low level performance. Far from the specified 200' of the RN's proposal, the Blackburn (note, NOT HS) Buccaneer was capable of 50' or less at high Mach number. Even today a new tranche of Buccaneer airframes fitted with modern engines, weapons systems and avionics would still give any air defence system a good kick in the bollocks.

The only aircraft that descends to cruising altitude after takeoff🗿

My father was stationed at RAF Laarbruch in the early 1970s with Buccaneers. My school bus would go past the end of the runway every day, the road was about quarter of a mile away and we'd see the planes come down the runway lift-off, tuck away the landing gear and and buzz our bus at about 50ft which I can tell you is very low. But one day one pilot decided he'd give us an even closer look of his underbelly. I reckon he was somewhere between 20 and 30 feet you've never seen a school bus full of kids hit the deck so quickly in all you life. Amazing aircraft true fast ultra-low level aircraft and hewn from granite.

The Bucc is a true classic. The aircraft delivered its missions in all conditions and its pilots loved it. Very stable platform for surface attack

The stories of their low level capabilities are legendary. On exercises having to pull up to 20’ to reduce the dust clouds they were kicking up that gave away their positions and such.

It was not just the Buccs that were so good but the complete and utter madness of the pilots.I served in the RN in the 70's and have seen these aircraft in action many times. Low passes past a ship where on the bridge wing of a Leander class frigate I was looking DOWN into the cockpit, low passes over the bows of said frigate where the aircraft had to pull UP to clear the forecastle. The piolots were certifiable, but the aircraft could do it, the veritable brick shithouse.......

I've been to a lot of UK airshows, but the most impressive thing I ever saw was a single Buccaneer at Woodford. The pilot threw that thing around around like a Spitfire, and the low and fast passes, wow!!

Its important to understand that the split-tail assembly wasn't just an air brake, it is a thrust-foil and works like modern cowling thrust reversers that don't actually reverse the thrust but produce a low pressure area generating immense drag behind the aircraft. So it deflects the existing engine thrust AND creates drag while being external to the engines themselves and greatly reducing complexity of housing and fuselage.

NA39 required a total bombload of 8000lb, not 4000; the 4000lb was for just internal stores. The 400nm unrefuelled range was also just at low-level; the aircraft had to be able to do 800 nm at high altitude. And rather than just being a tanker, the requirement asked for an aircraft that could both donate and receive fuel. I also love the clip of the officers assessing the NA39 bids while aboard a submarine. What you mean to say is that the small wings would have required a high landing speed if it hadn't had the blown surfaces to compensate. The small wing was necessary to provide stability at high speed in a turbulent low-level environment. The aircraft shown at 5:16 to illustrate the double pylons is a Supermarine Scimitar, not a Bucc. 'The 800-first Sqn' is another horrible americanism. In the RN it is known as 'Eight-Oh-One Sqn' or formally 'Number Eight-Oh-One Sqn'. The S1s with the original engines could take off from carriers. The Spey engines with 40% more power allowed take-off with max fuel and a full load-out. The bridge being (repeatedly) dropped does not appear to relate to the narrative on nukes; otherwise the camera would not have survived. And the aircraft shown flying past at low level (was this from some movie or other) is a Hawker Hunter, not a Bucc. The South African aircraft still had folding wings and the BS605 engines weren't rocket assisted; they were bolt on rocket motors. It would have been worth clarifying for the US audience that the 'FAA clearance' required to cross the Atlantic came from the Fleet Air Arm, who owned the jets. The US Federal Aviation Authority were not involved. The Buccaneers in the Gulf were not 'guided by the Tornados' laser-guided ordnance'. That is utterly meaningless. The 2 AN12s were destroyed by Buccs using their own Pave Spike pods; there was no 'dive bombing' on that occasion. There seems to be a problem with the timeline in the script, possibly due to the layout of the source wikipedia entry, but the Buccs had all transferred to the RAF long before Gulf War 1. I think the last of the old full size carriers was retired more than 10 years previously. The last sqn of Buccs shown at 12:29 are F-4s. The biggest issue I have with is though is the title. The Bucc was not 'ultra fast' by any stretch of the imagination; it was firmly subsonic. And then you don't mention anything about how 'insanely low' they could fly. The examples of 480kts at 50 feet in RED FLAG and in the Gulf War need telling, and in Beruit they were flying at 50 feet and less down the city streets, being fired on sometimes from above! Sometimes it's good to quit the wiki page and get some wider gen.

It's just amazing that the Blackburn Aircraft Company produced so many duff aircraft down the decades, but came up with an absolute winner with the Buccanneer! It's been one of my all-time favourite UK Cold War aircraft for years. I never knew they flew in Gulf 1, more power to them and their pilots.

Was in Goose Bay, Labrador in the Summer of '79. Sitting on a bluff above a river, I heard them coming. We knew they were training locally from the newspapers. Below, I saw something moving fast. I saw it, then it was gone. Then movement behind. Another, then it was gone. They were still there, but invisible due to their upper body camouflage. It was so weird. I could see/sense fast movement below me, but only glimpsed them for a fraction of a second. Wow!!

The Buccaneer was one of the most underrated aircraft in the history of aviation, its high-speed, low-level capabilities unmatched for decades. No wonder it was sent to the desert.

Flown with a couple of the Buccaneer pilots who were in Gulf War I (now senior airline captains), some of the training stories and how low they REALLY flew is somewhat eyebrow raising!

I grew up on the Clee Hill in Shropshire, atop which is a RADAR station. The RAF and the USAAF which were in the UK at the time, used to practice flying under the RADAR. We saw Tornadoes, Harriers, Gnats, Hawks, A10's, F4's, the occasional Canberra, but my favourite was always the Buccaneers. I now live near the Brecon beacons and for the past month we've had a Spitfire flying over and someone nearby has a Fieseler Storch.

Love the fact that in the gulf war they had the tornados and low flying them was proving to be a bit tricky so they just said let’s dust off those Bucks and get them out there. They may be old but they did what they did well.

The buccaneer was a masterpiece of British engineering, we can turn out some fantastic stuff when we’re given the chance (and the funding)

Dark you seem to have a genuine love for these old warbirds, always providing sympathetic review history of each type. It’s much appreciated.

Far and away Blackburn's best looking and best performing aircraft. 😎👍

In the 1970's my old Dad took me to Donna Nook on the Lincolnshire Coast to watch Buccaneers target practicing on low level runs. It's one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen.

In many ways the spiritual successor to the Mosquito. At low level, in thick air, it was faster than a fighter.

Buccaneers were the first aircraft to self-designate and hit a target in combat, previously one aircraft would laser designate whilst accompanying aircraft would drop LGB's on the target.

I love the bucs. My grandfather flew one in the SAAF and it was deadly precise

A few 'Buccs' were also used in the various Balkan wars in the 1990, operated by the RAF from East Anglia and Cyprus. These planes did not form a single designated squadron but were used in groups of 2 or 4 to "cement" ops which used Harriers and Tornadoes in very challenging terrain. This sometimes meant pathfinding with plotted approaches for the partner aircraft via computers on board some specialized Tornadoes. 'Buccs' could be seen tucked away at aerodromes such as RAF Marham and Wittering. The other main work they did in Yugoslavia was fast ground attack and toss bombing in seemingly inaccessible places. The rotating weapons bay was a stroke of genius and some very skilled pilots used the strange air brakes for advanced manouvering which they practised in Welsh valleys and the Peak District like the Dam Buster Lancasters years before.

They were never "shot down" in red flag exercises. Even F15s could not get them and there was even a special prize offered for the pilot if they did. The story of this is funny.

Just a quick word about Royal Navy/Fleet Air Arm Squadron numbers. We don't call them the 801st, we just call them by the numbers, so eight oh one, or whatever.

I was a Helicopter Engineer in the Royal Navy in 87 on HMS Illustrious on exercise. We were at action stations and a mate and myself were on the flight deck and could see would looked like a smoke trail far off on the horizon at about 10 miles but didn’t think anything of it. We continued to look in that direction but couldn’t see anything, then moments later two Blackburn Buccaneers came over the back of the flight deck. They scared the crap out of us as the heat of the jet wash hit us and you could smell the burnt aviation fuel. They couldn’t have been more than 30ft above the deck. Both aircraft had been flying below the flight deck on their attack approach. I used to think these aircraft were old fashioned and outdated but wow have I changed my mind. I never saw a Sea Harrier do anything like that. I have a great respect for the pilots who flew them and the aircraft.

3:15 "Blackburn was not known for building warplanes"... What the fuck? Blackburn was ONLY known for building warplanes!

A nice feature to mention in a video would be that air was vented through tubes along the flaps so landing speed could be reduced while landing on a Carrier. A pretty damn unique feature at the Time..

I remember as a child watching Buccaneers from Lossimouth flying up Loch Linnie quite often kicking up water they were so low before climbing slightly to head up the Great Glen or turning to make a bombing run on the BA. Growing up in Fort William in the 70's was so good for aircraft spotting saw all types from NATO countries

Notice how the Russian SU25 looks like the result of a one night stand between the Buccaneer & the Jaguar after a night on Vodka?

The first aircraft to feature terrain following radar and the ability to fly at maximum speed under power lines while totally under control.

Unless you've had one fly over you at zero feet at close to .85 mach , there are no words

In the (hot!) summer of 1976 I was walking with my father across the North York Moors. Buccaneers were simulating attacks on the early earning radars near there, and RAF Phantoms and Lightnings were trying to catch them. No chance! Now, one Lightning managed to intercept a U2 at 87,000' during an exercise (a surprise to the USAF!) and the Phantom was legendary and held several speed records too. But at moortop height the Buccaneer could sustain speeds only just below the speed of sound and was still able to turn sharply, so it could always evade the theoretically-faster aircraft. The later Jaguar aircraft (a carrier-based version was designed for the French navy but not purchased) had a pretty similar philosophy, but was capable of modest supersonic speeds at equally low altitudes. I think that the only aircraft likely to catch a Buccaneer would have been the F14 and the F3 fighter version of the Tornado, both of which were swing-wing aircraft. The Boundary Layer Control of the Buccaneer allowed it to enjoy some of the same advantages as a swing-wing; lower landing speeds and less high-speed drag, but was probably much easier to maintain, especially on board a carrier. I don't think the Soviet Navy ever had anything that stood a chance, not even in their considerable fleet of shore-based aircraft. (The F3 was designed mainly to deal with big supersonic aircraft like the Tu22M and Tu160, hence demonstration where one kept pace with Concorde at full tilt for more than twenty minutes. Comparisons to "air superiority" fighters always ignore the fact that the F3's purpose was to not only stop the biggest and fastest targets which could sustain supersonic speeds for a long time, but to do so _before_ those targets had released stand-off weapons.)

The 1950s-60s were a golden age for military aviation. So many interesting planes. Modern aviation seems to lack something. Too much computer junk maybe, I don't know.

Rowland White's Phoenix Squadron is an excellent book on the Honduras mission.

That is an incredible as well as beautiful plane. Thank you for this presentation.

do I remember right? the altimeter was actually graduated in inches for the first 10 feet?

Buccaneer SOP "Lift Off, raise gear, descend to operating altitude."

Fascinating. Thank you again, Dark guy.

I worked on 3 buccs during my time at Farnborough. Never before or since have I mat with an aircraft so ever engineered. Made to rake all the punishment for life at sea, and then some. It was the Spey powered S-2s we had there. I remember one time when one returned from a sortie, and half way down the runway, a tyre burst on the main gear. I was about 8oo yards away, and it went with such force that it felt like a shove in the chest even that far away. I could share a few stories about the planes I worked with from that era. I could share some stories from that time, some risky, some funny some tragic, several run of the mill events, but all are interesting. However, some things I'm bound to silence over I don't want to take any risks for entertainment.

Not only a wonderful air frame but great bit of war kit. Verry user friendly. Imagine it with Gen 5 stealth kt now...Backed up by Tornado F5 Cnc plains

Very informative,,love this aircraft,

No links to Red Flag in the U.S.A. successes, with mentions of the Vulcan?

Excellent stuff bro

The only aircraft to gain altitude for landing

Fascinating Story. Strangely beautiful aircraft.

1991 war was great to watch. Me introducing it to my dad, " Dad, get up - it's started " said from our new build house in a valley in the Northern Ireland countryside. Safe as houses.

9:25, there is an excellent book detailing this 'raid', also ask the colonial chappies about the Buccaneers on Red Flag. Several interesting interviews and videos of them playing out there.

pre Falklands 2 of these passed 30ft over my Father and I's head on a local golf course going full chat as the Western Isles were a realistic training environment for the Falklands- pretty impressive

Great aircraft!

RR Spey engine refit 60s ,a MONSTER of an engine for low level GRUNT.🤠🤘🚀

Brilliant aircraft pilots loved its stability and manouverability

Honestly gotta love the buccaneer.

Great seeing this video of a lovely aircraft - thank you. I remember watching SAAF Buccaneers in air displays in Cape Town in the 1960s. With rc and engine capabilities reaching levels that they have now, I might even try to build a flying model Buccaneer.

Was once at a picnic bench above Betws-y-Coed, in Wales. Heard a low whistle and looked DOWN on a Buccaneer twisting through the valley. Moments later, it, or another, flew close over our heads, from behind. BIG moments for us.

I grew up in the Spey Valley and the Cairngorms. Wasn't a proper day out unless you found yourself on a hill looking down at a Bucc going by lol

What a tough old bird!! 💙

A great aircraft indeed 🇬🇧👍

Fantastic aircraft!!!

Thanks, Dark Skies.

Looks like a pretty tough bird. Nothing fancy. Nice plane. We need to get back to simpler times

Always loved the story of 617sq training for the dams raid,while flying at 50ft they got a shock as another lanc passed UNDERNEATH 😅

0:18 two legendary low level jets in one frame

The cat shot must have been terrifying with that nose up attitude on the ramp.

Many venerable platforms were used in the first gulf war. I recall seeing a number of F4 Phantoms parked on Lakenheath air base at the time pending possible demand for designator platforms.

The mid-roll ad for the watches made from a melted down spitfire, broke my heart. How the hell could you do that to a fucking Spitfire?!?!?!

Remember I did the model when was young. Weird tail... from 🇫🇷 we should admire ( lots do) the incredible diversity of what came out from "rosbifs" brains.. from end of ww2 to end of 60's we should make a list of everything they produced. The more symbolics to me are electric lighning and supeb delta bombers fogot name + harriers. FR and UK are very different I think we shared the Jaguar we should have done more together. Hopefully we share... missiles and is a big success. UK first ever to help 🇫🇷 gave lots of its blood ww1 and ww2 always first !!! . je n'oublie pas ❤ " concorde" was the best ever name for a plane ...

Still so fast on the deck. Pure power

I read that the Buck with a 4000 lb. load was super hard to intercept at sea level for the F16. Almost impossible. That's impressive!

In the RN you knew when the Buccs were coming from a spray on the horizon. They were so low that the air pressure was picking up spray and throwing it over the wings, then lifting up to go over the flight deck of a Leander. On one occasion even looked down on a Shackleton from Bristol's bridge wing. Once the Buccs transferred to RAF, they never flew as low.

My parents and I where on holiday in Scotland in the late 70’s when a Buccaneer flew at low(f**k all) feet over Loch Ness. I always wanted to join up and after watching that display, that was it. I was able to work on this wonderful aircraft on all its bases in the 1980’s and always love watching videos of this incredible aircraft. Oh, the way to crest a hill that you see in Top Gun ‘Maverick’ was pioneered by the Brits on Red Flag in the 1970’s. Watch the Nationwide episode on why the RAF should fly so low in the UK.if you can find it.

"Blackburn were not known for building warplanes" apart from all the planes they made that served in the first and second world wars. Research is a thing, you know.

Buccaneers, a great aircraft. 😊👍

The Bucc is my favourite aeroplane of all time

never heard of this plane before, it has some impressive and innovative features

8:58 Love this channel and love the Buccaneer but FAA stands for Fleet Air Arm not Federal Aviation Administration (sorry if anyone else has pointed this out) 👍

One of my favourite military aircraft 🇬🇧

The LEGEND

5:15 I think he's trying to see if we're paying attention.

Thanks for mining that rich vein of British Cold War aircraft. The book "The Buccaneer Boys" is worth a read or listen as it covers much of the motivations and attitudes of the British and South African aircrew, their training and operations.

Chad buccaneer

The Bucaneers were actually laser designating for the tornadoes, then dropping their own bombs.

The Royal Navy really could have used HMS Ark Royal with her Buccs and Phantoms (and Gannet AEW!) during the Falklands War.

I seem to recall reading that the Buccaneer was the first choice for the raid on Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, with its refuelling capability allowing it to be extended, and its laser designator/LGB combo being perfect for taking out airfield defences. It was quickly realized, however, that its oil tank was too small to last for the extreme length of such a flight. Can’t imagine being the crew in one of those runs had it been possible to fit a secondary oil reservoir! At least you could stand up and stretch a bit in a Vulcan. If everyone cooperated.

Blackburn Buccaneer State Two...full name.

Lol at that controlled bridge demo and the frame rate increase 😂😂😂❤

Those are some pricey watches. Obviously not intended for someone like me on a fixed budget but they do look great.

Didn't they use them in the red flag exercises in USA, where they operated so low that they were uncatchable

Probably one of the most beautiful military jets ever made. The totally black one flown in South Africa by a civilian owner until relatively recently was gorgeous. Carrying on the tradition of Buccaneer pilots being quite mad to the end. The only old AND bold pilots were those guys.

Lower Faster better - The Mighty Buc - Uk Made UK ftw!

I remember the Bucaneers bombing the Torrey canyon off the sevenstones, isles of scilly

Remember seeing a Buccaneer demo lob-bombing at Farnborough Airshow in the early sixties - came over at probably 50 feet then went near vertical and released a dummy bomb at the top of a climb before rolling out - really impressive but not sure where the ‘bomb’ landed - hopefully not on the car park!

16,000 lbs. Now that IS a bomb truck !

It was not until the invention and but slow integration of the look down shoot down radar that changed many things about air combat. Buccaneers capability of low hard and stable made it a very capable aircraft but if you ask me it was the British pilots training, tactics dedication and capability that got the most out of her........those guy's had balls.

When he said low level he did mean bloody low level! Those Buccaneers flew between the wave tops they were so low. I'm sure if the airframes had been up to it. They would still be flying in combat today, with the necessary upgrades.

Talk about knap of the earth ... Close enough to spit on !!!

💪👌👍 Good Stormtrooper