How the Taurus engine shaped the Albacore's reputation

The Taurus ultimately offered more performance than the Swordfish's Pegasus, but its early modifications brought faults at precisely the moment crews expected a dependable successor. Those expectations mattered because the Swordfish benefited from a long evolutionary line of increasingly reliable Fleet Air Arm torpedo aircraft. Crews therefore experienced the Albacore's early trouble as a break with established practice rather than as an ordinary stage in engine development. Against the Swordfish's unusually mature record, the Taurus's teething troubles became a defining part of the Albacore story despite the aircraft's respectable service.