Tony Blackman
Anthony Lionel Blackman was a British aviator. He served as chief test pilot for Avro.
Early life
Blackman was the son of the radiologist Sydney Blackman of Kensington Court, who was among the main developers of panoramic radiograph in dentistry. Sydney Blackman, himself the son of Polish immigrants, had been educated at the Grocers' Company School.His parents, Sydney and Lena Goodman, married in 1923 in Hackney. His sister Rita Mason was a dental radiologist, with her father at the Royal Dental Hospital, and she attended theHenrietta Barnett School in Hampstead Garden Suburb. His father helped to found the British Society of Dental and Maxillo-facial Radiology.
Career
Service career
Royal Air Force
From October 1948 Blackman started his national service at RAF Padgate near Warrington. He joined the RAF in December 1948 as a pilot officer, training for 12 weeks at RAF Wellesbourne at the RAF School of Education, becoming a mathematics and physics instructor at No. 1 Initial Training School at RAF Wittering. He then learned to fly starting on January 1950 at RAF Ternhill with 6 FTS on the Percival Prentice, on the No. 38 Pilots Course.His service saw him fly the Vampires and Venoms with Nos 5 and 11 Squadrons, RAF.
Blackman joined the Empire Test Pilots' School as a prelude to working at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment, with B Squadron, until August 1956.
Test Flying career
A contemporary of aviators as John Cunningham, John Farley and Peter Twiss, Blackman was part of a post-war generation of test pilots who combined flight experience with technical and analytical training. A former fighter pilot with a background in mathematics and with a degree in physics from Trinity College, Cambridge, Blackman worked closely with scientists and engineers on problems related to aircraft performance and design.Blackman tested all three of Britain's nuclear bombers — the Handley Page Victor, the Vickers Valiant and the Avro Vulcan. He also played a significant role in the development of the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, a maritime patrol aircraft.
Avro
Blackman joined Avro as a test pilot, becoming chief test pilot, and flying with Avro from 1956 to 1973. He tested 105 of the Vulcans that were built.Although the original bomber, the Vulcan B1, had been in service since 1956, Blackman delivered the first of the B2s, considered a massive upgrade to the aircraft, to an operational squadron at RAF Waddington on 1 July 1960.
Avro won a contract to build the Mach 3 Avro 730, and he was to be the test pilot; the project was cancelled in 1957. He was offered to become a Concorde test pilot. He did fly Concorde once, taking the place of Jock Cochrane at RAF Fairford. He was the test pilot for the Hawker Siddeley HS 748 and the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod.
Smiths Industries
Blackman later worked for Smiths Industries.Personal life and death
Blackman married Margaret in late 1956. They had two children.He was made an OBE in the 1974 Birthday Honours. When he was deputy chief test pilot of Hawker Siddeley in Cheshire, he was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air in the 1970 New Year Honours.
Blackman wrote a series of books about the aircrafts he had tested, including Vulcan Boys: From the Cold War to the Falklands: ''True Tales of the Delta V-Bomber, in addition to a series of aviation novels featuring an insurance investigator called Peter Talbot.
Blackman's books are regarded as aviation classics. His autobiography, Test Pilot. My Extraordinary Life in Flight'' is considered an authoritative work and essential reading for anyone aspiring to develop a knowledge of test flying.
Blackman died on 13 August 2024, at the age of 96.