According to Ernest Hemmingway, a man has only one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely plane he loses it to, there his heart will ever be. Evidently this is not just true for fighters but for attack planes–even those that started off in your nation’s Navy then get thrust onto your Air Force to fly nuclear maritime strike missions.On this episode, retired RAF Group Captain John “JS” Sullivan explains the Blackburn Buccaneer, a carrier-capable RN aircraft that served the RAF as a nuclear strike platform. JS answers our usual ‘aircraft series’ questions for a host who knew absolutely nothing about the aircraft going into the interview. JS does a superb job of making us all fall in love with the Buccaneer (…two c’s, one n, two e’s…).Listener questions addressed on this episode include logging military flight time, whether an F-14 Tomcat will ever show up on the civilian airshow circuit, and what aircraft would be cool if it were adapted to the carrier role.Episode artwork by Janek Krause adapted from original photography by Andrew Brooks. Bumper music by Jaime Lopez / announcements by Clint Bell.
