Blackburn Nautilus
| Nautilus | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Role | spotter/interceptor |
| National origin | United Kingdom |
| Manufacturer | Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co. Ltd |
| Designer | F.A Bumpas |
| First flight | May 1929 |
| Number built | 1 |
The Blackburn 2F.1 Nautilus was a British single-engine two-seat biplane spotter/fighter built in 1929. Only one was completed.
The company designation, 2F.1, meant that the Nautilus was Blackburn's first two-seat fighter, though it was really intended as a carrier-based fleet spotter with interception capability. It was designed to Air Ministry Specification O.22/26. Though issued in June 1926, this specification did not reach a decision on the final engine to be used until October 1927; prototype contracts were only placed in January 1928, and the four chosen manufacturers did not produce prototypes for trial until 1929. These were the eventual winners, the navalised Hawker Hart first prototype later produced as the Hawker Osprey plus the Fairey Fleetwing, the Short Gurnard and the Blackburn Nautilus. All these were powered by the V-12 water-cooled Rolls-Royce F.XIIMS - later known as the Kestrel IIMS - which produced 525 hp (391 kW) and had a small cross-sectional area.
The slim power unit encouraged the design of slender, well-streamlined fuselages, and the nose of the Nautilus was longer and more pointed than even that of the Ripon III, which used a larger area W-12 Napier Lion engine. The wooden propeller was two-bladed with a diameter of 11 ft (3.35 m). Like most of Blackburn's aircraft of the time, the fuselage was built up around four steel longerons; it was duralumin-covered from the nose to just aft of the rear observer/gunner's cockpit, the rest fabric-covered. The pilot's cockpit was immediately in front of the observer's, under an upper trailing edge cutout. A braced, rather rectangular tailplane was carried at the top of the fuselage. There was fixed fin surface both above and below the fuselage and the rudder with its horn balance had an upper fin and extended down to the lower part. Both the tailplane incidence and (more unusually) the alignment of the upper part of the fin could be adjusted in flight via trimming wheels. The robust undercarriage was a broad, split-axle type with mainwheels fitted with disc brakes. As a seaplane, it could be fitted either with a two-float arrangement or with a single central float, the latter intended to give a better field of view to the observer.
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