Empire Flying Boat

For more information on the C-Class Flying Boats visit: www.imperial-airways.com they have a history and pictures/posters, etc.

dhfan, that was the Golden Hind, at Harty Ferry on the Swale (not Hamble) in May 1954.
Golden Horn had crashed at Lisbon on 9 January 1943.
The third boat Golden Fleece never carried that name, being impressed as X8274 and sank off Cape Finisterre on 20 June 1941.
Source: “Shorts Aircraft since 1900” by C H Barnes

The last of the Empire boats is a story of so close but so far from preservation.
On retiremant from the Poole-Athens-Cairo BOAC service in 1947 it was flown to Rochester and was owned by F.J. Cork and later Buchan Marine Services. It was moored outside the old Shorts works and kept servicable. The plan was to use her on flying boat cruises. But in October 1953 it was sold to F.C. Bettison and was towed to the Aquilla base at Hamble for overhall. Sadly this ended in a storm in May 1954 when it was sunk at Harty Ferry on the Hamble.
Personally you can keep all your warbirds I want this aircraft above all to be raised 🙁 .

I seem to recall a similar fate happened to the last of the G-class boats. Golden Hind? Sunk off Sheppey in a storm.

Broome wrecks

Among the Dutch/British seaplanes /flying boat wrecks that were destroyed by the Japanese near Broome during the war were also to Empire flying boats. A recent documentary showed that one wing with two engines still attached were still at the bottom.

Cheers

Cees

The last of the Empire boats is a story of so close but so far from preservation.
On retiremant from the Poole-Athens-Cairo BOAC service in 1947 it was flown to Rochester and was owned by F.J. Cork and later Buchan Marine Services. It was moored outside the old Shorts works and kept servicable. The plan was to use her on flying boat cruises. But in October 1953 it was sold to F.C. Bettison and was towed to the Aquilla base at Hamble for overhall. Sadly this ended in a storm in May 1954 when it was sunk at Harty Ferry on the Hamble.
Personally you can keep all your warbirds I want this aircraft above all to be raised 🙁 .

A good book on this is “Corsairville: The Lost Domain of the Flying Boat” by Graham Coster. It’s more of a travel book and collection of reminiscences than a technical book, but it’s very evocative.

Cheers

Alistair

Short S.30 Aotearoa

c/n S.884 G-AFCY was originally ordered by Qantas as Captain Cook for the Sydney-Auckland route, but was transferred to Tasman Empire Airways Ltd to extend the Empire Air Mail Service to New Zealand. G-AFCY first flew on 18 April 1939 and the registration was changed to ZK-AMA before delivery to NZ.

Source: Shorts Aircraft since 1900, by C H Barnes, page 323

There is a photograph of this aircraft on the above-mentioned web site.

I just discovered that my Dad has a video called ‘Wings On The Waitemata’ about the flying boats that operated from the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland. I am just watching it now. It’s pretty good.

One old chap who was an engineer for Teal says that where the container wharf is now must have loads of flying boat parts under the water, because that is where they serviced them, ad anything no longer needed was tossed in the sea. I wonder if it’d be worth someone going for a dive. Maybe the remains of Aotearoa are down there too.

Reminds me of the three surviving Short Singapores the RNZAF operated in Fiji. When they were replaced by Catalinas in about 1943, they simply scuttled the Singapores in the harbour. I’m sure something of them must still exist, but I bet it’s sadly part of the coral reef now.

Back to the video…

Big wings, lots of engines!

Great photos Flood, cheers.

In the interview, which I recorded incidentally, Mr Brown said he’d flown a lot in flying boats, but was surprised at the very short take off the Empire had. You’d think something that big would need a lot of water, but apparently not.

Thanks for that link Flood. That is a great site. I never realised that so many were built.

I also never realised that NZ only had the one, unless we had different models of the Empire that weren’t listed there.

I also did not know that the Sandringham was also ex-Teal.

How I’d love to see one of the big boats active again, whether it was an Empire replica, or a Solent. The Solent at Motat has been restored incredibly. I rememebr the days it was outdoors and was literaly rotting away. Now hanks to the small but determined team of ex-Teal staff have recreated it to a pristine condition inside and out. It is absolutely stunning, right down to the tiniest details. There are a lot of photos of the Solent here, taken a few years ago by Phil Treweek
http://www.kiwiaircraftimages.com/solent.html

What a shame that Aotearoa wasn’t kept by someone until Motat had started, it may well have been as lovely as the Solent. Their Sunderland is now undergoing a restoration too. I hope it will look as good when it’s done.

A few pix…;)

Flood.™

Only the Sunderland varients (Solent and Sandringham) survive of those big four-engined Shorts aircraft. No Empire boats survived the 50s.
This site looks interesting:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/reichelt/c_class.html (although it does only list the C-Class boats but does appear to include your early New Zealand bird…)
The last Empire boat was Golden Hind – G-AFCI – an S.26 which was (I think) stored on the River Swale off Sheppey until dbr and scrapped in 1954.
As for surviving TEAL boats – how about Sandringham 4 N158C on display in the Southampton Hall of Aviation, which was ZK-AMH Auckland from 1947-50.

Flood.™