Blackburn Botha

The Blackburn B.26 Botha was a British four-seat reconnaissance and torpedo bomber. It was built by Blackburn Aircraft at their factory at Dumbarton, Scotland, as a competitor to the Bristol Beaufort, and entered service with the RAF in 1939. It was underpowered and was quickly withdrawn from operations.

Development and design
In September 1935, the British Air Ministry issued specification M.15/35, for a three-seat twin-engined reconnaissance/torpedo bomber. Two submissions to met this requirement were accepted, from Blackburn for the Botha and the Type 152 (later known as the Beaufort) from Bristol. Both were intended to use the 850 hp (634 kW) Bristol Perseus engine. The Air Ministry later revised the Specification to M.10/36, which required a crew of four. The weight increase meant that both designs required more power. The 1,130 hp (840 kW) Taurus was provided for the Beaufort, but the Botha received only the Perseus X of 880 hp (660 kW).

The Air Ministry ordered 442 Bothas in 1936, while also placing orders for the Beaufort. The first flight took place on 28 December 1938.

Operational history
Service testing of the Botha showed that the aircraft had several major problems. It was considered to have poor lateral stability, while the view to the side or rearward was virtually non-existent owing to the location of the aircraft's engines, with the poor view making the aircraft "useless as a GR [General Reconnaissance] aircraft". Finally, the Botha was also underpowered. Although the Botha successfully passed torpedo and mine-dropping trials, the aircraft's poor performance resulted in the decision in April 1940 to only issue the Botha to four General Reconnaissance squadrons equipped with the Avro Anson, rather than the torpedo bomber squadrons previously planned.

The Botha entered squadron service with No. 608 Squadron RAF in June 1940, the only squadron that would use the Botha operationally, with operational use on convoy escort duties starting in August that year. Typical bombload on these patrols was three 100 lb anti-submarine bombs and two 250 lb GP bombs.

In service, the Botha proved to be severely underpowered and unstable and there were a number of fatal crashes in 1940. Both airframe and engine were subject to further development work, but it was decided to withdraw the type from front-line service. At this point, the Air Staff made the ill-advised decision to transfer the surviving aircraft to training units, which inevitably resulted in further casualties.

Some Bothas were converted to target tugs and re-designated TT Mk.I.

The type was finally retired in September 1944. In total, 580 aircraft were built.

Variants

 * Botha Mk I : Four-seat reconnaissance, torpedo bomber aircraft.
 * Botha TT Mk I : Target tug aircraft.

Operators

 * 🇵🇱 Poland
 * Polish Air Force
 * No. 301 Polish Bomber Squadron
 * No. 304 Polish Bomber Squadron


 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
 * Royal Air Force
 * No. 3 School of General Reconnaissance
 * No. 24 Squadron RAF
 * No. 502 Squadron RAF
 * No. 608 Squadron RAF