Forgotten Princess, SR.45

All that money spent, working airplane that was a technical achievement, and they decided to scrap the lot of them

😡

As an aside, Dick Stratton (former flight engineer on the Princess project and referred-to above) died in 2007. See the attached for notes on a splendid character.

http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/293130-dick-stratton.html

He used to claim the world record for the most in-flight engine shutdowns in a single flight – six engines out of ten on the Princess if I remember correctly!

BK,
As alluded to on this thread earlier on, I saw it at Stafford in the RAF Museum store. That was in 2008, and it was outside. One can assume it’s still there, or contact Ewan at the Stafford store and ask him. I don’t remember his surname, but he’s on this forum under his real name but very infrequently. Lovely chap.

Anyone know where the float is now?

Flying with eyes closed…

Doh! Double post…:o

How the hell I missed this thread I will never know, great thread by the way StormBird!

MAGIC STUFF

😮 Crikey!:eek:

They are ripper link’s new forest mate 😀

Thank’s so much for them putting up, was there or is there one with her flying over Farnbrough(what ever spelin I’m stuffed) at one point at preety low Alt :confused: .

I thought I saw someone posting about at some point, or I maybe trippin :rolleyes: .

Never mind thank’s again new forrest mate, she musta made an awesome sound, and pushed lot of air along with her .

Ciao all

Bulla Bulla :dev2:

Oooooo Rooooo

Just found this great five minute film of the Princess launching and flying!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV1eUeo27tc

And another one flying, 1 minute long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGxxknrBVxY

😮 NICE AVATAR:eek:

Matty Mate 😉 .

Oh and your’s is cool low and slow too mate. 😀

Thanks, I’ll get around to finishing it eventually. Still got the Princess to finish first.

Sound’s interesting!

😮 NICE AVATAR:eek:

Matty Mate 😉 .

Oh and your’s is cool low and slow too mate. 😀

That was last September, Paul posted that a year ago! :p

I think Mr Stratton did a talk a few months ago in Luton so he’s still doing the rounds.
I wish I’d remembered at the time, I probably would have gone.

I’m sure that if there was sufficient interest from Forumites, D1ck Stratton would be more than happy to give a talk on his career at Saro. Location probably would be somewhere close to his home at Bicester, Oxfordshire.

Let’s see if there’s any response to this thread and if so, we’ll find a suitable location and prevail on D1ck’s good nature.

the BOAC livery

I’m glad this thread has cropped up again. Can anyone confirm a few things for me:

– When G-ALUN was painted in the BOAC colours were the wings painted white or were they bare metal? I honestly can’t tell from the few photos I have.

– The one colour photo I have of G-ALUN and some film footage in the BOAC colours the gold stripe appears to be bright orange and not very gold at all. Can anyone confirm this for me? I’m not sure I can believe either source for colour accuracy.

thanks.

Hi Paulc That sounds interesting Do you need to be a member,? tickets?. Where will it be held? Southampton Hall of Aviation.?

That was last September, Paul posted that a year ago! :p

I think Mr Stratton did a talk a few months ago in Luton so he’s still doing the rounds.
I wish I’d remembered at the time, I probably would have gone.

If anybody is interested then the South Hampshire Historic Aviation Society is having a lecture by Dick Stratton on Wednesday 6th September. He was the flight engineer on the Princess during its development and having heard him before, it will be a fascinating evening.

Hi Paulc That sounds interesting Do you need to be a member,? tickets?. Where will it be held? Southampton Hall of Aviation.?

Was the cockpit glazing (or even structure) from a Stratocruiser?

Smooth As Silk

To answer the original query on this thread, she was as smooth as silk.

As a young lad, I witnessed the Princess flying over a few times when I lived near Shoreham Airport. That was back in the early 1950s.

I can confirm that she ran very smoothly. As she had Proteus engines, she sounded – of course – like a Britannia!

Also saw the Brabazon and many other interesting planes flying over.

For a BIG engineer’s panel, you should have seen the one in the piston-powered Globemaster! I counted around 80 instruments, plus all the switches and controls. A full time job looking after that lot!

And, by the way, I asked the flight engineer how a big thing like that flew with just four engines. He said “Man, they aint jest four engines – they’se got four rows o seven in each one!”

Those engines were four-row radials with 28 cylinders and two spark plugs for each pot. Fancy doing a spark plug change anyone?

That was a big plane in all respects. Looked like a block of flats coming in at night.

Bri 😉

1945. Money available for $-earning civil, none for new military aircraft – no enemy. Brabazon underway for N Atlantic First Class, various Tudor-things for Steerage. Br.S.American Airways through Bermuda to assorted Latins would be on Tudor too, but they saw a First, sleeper need as well – an air-liner. RAF had Lancaster (to be)M.R.3 for the Trade Routes policing role, hoped for something brighter, so made a Joint Spec with BSAAC’s 4, talking of 80. That evolved as jet Saro Duchess and did not die until 1954 (24 hr endurance Nomad/Shackleton M.R.4). That’s why MoS persevered with Princess, and retained the 2 unflown models, after BOAC took over defunct BSAAC, lost all interest in S.America, and after 1949, in marine, because they saw landtypes taking the business. For 2 seasons the Jo’burg route on Hythe was decimated by KLM DC-4. Wallow is as queasy for air pax as hovercraft were cross-Channel.

MoS went on paying for coccoon storage from 1954 to (Calshot,1966) because of odd expressions of maybe…One was a NACA/Westinghouse nuclear reactor. It was probably 1960 takeover of Saro by Westland that caused unwanted inheritance to be swept away.

The one and only Princess!

G’ day again anyone 😀 .

I was reading in a book(P.G.Talor), that a private group wanted to buy and run the Princess.

But the knob’s up top in knob city canned the idea, with alsort’s of excuse’s .

Anyone know anything about this group??

Thank’s in advance if you have the dot’s! 😉

Oooo Rooo now I must crash, knackered again….:o

Croc’s Rule!!!:dev2:

” Gut Nacht “, Good Moaning, good afternoon! where ever you all maybe…..

I was going to pull this thread too!

Stuff it!

It can stay a bit longer just yet!

But remember to grab what pic’s and link’s ya want to keep!

Great info guy’s, yes that doe’s sound like some good book’s in the making there!

Carrrn the Ozzie’s

stick it up em!

Agreed !!

Lot of aircraft just for 108 passengers, when you consider a little old boring 737-400’s size will carry the same… 😮

TNZ

Maybe so, but not in anything like the luxury that the Princess would have offered

D;ck Stratton is still going strong and his memories of his time as development engineer at Saro are amazing.
If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, its well worth doing it. And that’s before he recounts tales of being development engineer on the SR.53 rocket interceptor project, then devising one of the world’s first gas turbine helicopters.
An amazing man! …….A story for KE and Flypast perhaps?

Never mind a story, where’s the book? 😀