Wartime demand makes British aircraft subcontracting essential

Did the Royal Navy contract one company to design an aircraft and another to build it?

Rarely before WWII, but wartime demand forced that approach when Blackburn took over large-scale Swordfish production from Fairey.

An audience member contrasts American practice, where one company might design an aircraft and another build it, with British procurement. Such subcontracting was unusual in Britain before the Second World War. Wartime volume changed the calculation because Fairey could handle moderate runs but struggled when Swordfish demand rose into the thousands. Production therefore shifted to Blackburn, whose factories proved better suited to rapid mass manufacture. The case separates design ownership from industrial capacity and explains why most Swordfish were not built by Fairey.