Blackburn Kangaroo

Maybe I’m sentimental, but I think it’s nice that someone at Blackburn wanted to take a Kangaroo to Australia. Clearly they weren’t the only ones to think along those lines. Sopwith sent a Wallaby, G-EAKS, which ended up as G-AUDU. Sadly the powers that be at Parnall didn’t make it a trimvirate of marsupials that were dispatched ‘down under’. Its Possums (J6984/5) got no nearer to the Antipodes than Martlesham Heath. But maybe they flew over Earls Court en route!

Crivens, don’t know how it managed to take off from Roundhay Park (which I can see from my lounge window), must’ve been bigger in those days!

Here is a very nice 18 x 23cm Original pen & ink dwg. of the Kangaroo, done by J.M. Bruce, 1-8-48. Bruce, a long-time curator of the RAF Museum, was also considered to be the World’s leading authority on early British aircraft, having written the definitive reference volumes on the subject. I was fortunate to be able to add approx 50 of his dated, original late 1940’s pen & inks of early British aircraft to our collection. Each page had two holes punched for his art notebook. Fortunately, the holes and dwgs were offset, so the holes could easily be matted out, and still leave the subject dwg in balance.

One was also entered in the first Kings Cup air race in 1922 – whether it actually did compete or not I don’t know, but what an impressive sight that would have made.

Blackburn bought back nearly all of the ex-military Kangaroos, at the end of the First World War, for conversion to early airliners. One, G-EAOW, set off to fly to Australia. As a competitor for the Australian Government prize for the first flight there from England, it reached Crete in 1919 before being abandoned there.

[QUOTE=pagen01;1810825]I assume you’ve Googled it to see what the aircraft looks like:eek:

Yes: That is why I posted it to the forum! I think that the early passengers were every bit as brave as the early pioneering aircrew!

I assume you’ve Googled it to see what the aircraft looks like:eek:

It might not have been a great military machine but it made an important contribution to the early days of British commercial aviation.
Great to see that a prop has survived and is being proudly displayed.