Buccaneer’s first flight was on April 30, 1958, and officially entered service on July 17, 1962.
In response to the rapid expansion of the Soviet Navy after World War II, the Buccaneer was built to attack these ships by approaching at low altitudes below the ship’s radar horizon. The Buccaneer could attack using a nuclear bomb, or conventional weapons. It was later intended to carry short-range anti-shipping missiles to improve its survivability against more modern ship-based anti-aircraft weapons.
Buccaneer’s first flight was on April 30, 1958, and officially entered service on July 17, 1962. Buccaneer retired on March 31, 1994. Its only foreign operator was South Africa. The South African Air Force started taking delivery of these planes in 1965, despite the fact that a year earlier Britain had imposed an arms embargo on the country.
At the request of the Royal Navy, the Buccaneer was designed with a tandem two-man crew, an internal weapons bay to complement the external hardpoints. A tail section is split vertically to act as a large area airbrake. The fuselage is tubular with a conical nose and tapered empennage. The mid-wing is high-mounted along the sides of the fuselage. Next to that are the circular air intakes and the exhaust nozzles at the rear. The empennage was capped by a “T” style tail assembly atop its vertical fin. The undercarriage is a conventional configuration with one landing gear below the cockpit and the other under the main wings. The Buccaneer is supplied with a refueling probe to extend its operating range.
Essentially, the Buccaneer is a two-seat attack aircraft with a length of 63 ft 5 in (19.33 m), a wingspan of 44 ft (13 m), a height of 16 ft 3 in (4.95 m), empty weight is 30,000 lb (13,608 kg), and gross weight is 62,000 lb (28,123 kg). It is powered by two Rolls-Royce Spey Mk.101 turbofan engines, with 11,000 lbf (49 kN) thrust each. It can reach a top speed of 580 kn (670 mph, 1,070 km/h), or Mach 0.95, a range of 2,000 nmi (2,300 mi, 3,700 km), and a service ceiling of 40,000 ft (12,000 m).
As a dedicated strike platform, the Buccaneer was designed to carry a variety of air-to-ground weapons, including conventional drop bombs, anti-fortification missiles, anti-ship missiles and unguided rocket pods. In addition to conventional weapons Buccaneer can also deploy nuclear weapons. Its intended weapon was a nuclear air-to-surface missile codenamed Green Cheese, but this weapon’s development was cancelled, and in its place was the unguided 2,000-pound (900 kg) Red Beard, which had been developed for the English Electric Canberra. Red Beard had an explosive yield in the 10 to 20 kiloton range; and was mounted on a special bomb bay door.
A total of 211 were produced and used by the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and South African Air Force. Buccaneers saw combat action in the first Gulf War of 1991, and the South African Border War. At least 12 Buccaneers were deployed to the Persian Gulf during the 1991 Gulf War. They were equipped with laser designation equipment that allowed the use of laser-guided bombs for precision strikes.
