I have a question, . . . BUT how can the flight crew gain competency on an aircraft type that the RAF hasnt flown for nearly 20 years? Are there any current Vulcan Instructors around? Bex

Sorry bex – this question? To be glib, in much the same way as with the prototype Vulcan. :diablo:

Seriously, it should be easier than that as the Vulcan is well understood and documented, there are crews around who have flown her and, although they are not current, they can provide a lot of experience. The procedures can be practised on the ground before the first flight – they have the cockpit of XM602 as a ground trainer, and they are also using the ground running XM655 a live aircraft training aircrew and ground crew so they are well up to speed even before XH558 comes live. There’s more on the TVOC’s website forum.
I’m not an expert in this but all sounds professional.

I’ve not met an ace as such but I have been honoured to meet many WWII veterans.

One Sunderland pilot I met had an eventful career including two major accidents. He calmly explained the details of how a tragic combination of fatigue from long patrols without time to rest and the boats marking out the landing path moving with the tide led to the aircraft crashing into an island. His injuries needed pioneering “guineapig” plastic surgery. Remarkably, despite a long career he never saw a U-boat which was a problem Coastal Command had to face – how can crews gain vital experience when they might only see the enemy once or twice?

I also met a holocaust survivor who came to England after the war. An apparently ordinary old man with a slight German accent, his tales were chilling. He was one of two to survive from over 300 at one camp. He had returned to visit the village which had been his first home on arrival in Britain. He had surprisingly little bitterness but mainly a huge gratitude for the people of this country who gave him a home and chance for a new start.

And one other springs to mind. I had been exchanging correspondence with the son of a pilot in Canada who was talking to his dad about what he did in the war. In one letter he wrote that his father found it very difficult to remember events that he had spent over 50 years trying to forget.

I’d be delighted to help as well – that’s three of us. 🙂 What specifically do you need to know about?

If it is losses then there was a privately published book out quite a number of years ago which lists all Sunderland losses – saves going to look at the accident cards at the RAF Museum. I have a copy which IIRC lists incidents by dates so let me know the dates and, if possible, aircraft involved.

The Crowood book (by Ken Delve) is good as is an earlier one by Chaz Bowyer which has even more detail.

Can anyone please advise a website with details of production of Short Sunderlands and if possible losses.

Many thanks

It depends how much detail you want but if it is anything more than basics of which factories built how many of each model then I suspect there aren’t any websites with the info you want.

Well, we should add “yet” – I’ve thought about doing a website myself to list all the Sunderlands but am too busy with other projects right now. But if you’re going to set one up do let me know. 🙂

There are a number of books on the Sunderland. For lists of aircraft and their fates, the best would be Chaz Bowyers “The Short Sunderland” published by Aston in 1989 ISBN 0-9446627-34-7. My favourite place on the web for secondhand books is http://www.abebooks.co.uk where at the moment, there are five available from UK bookshops, three in the USA and one in Canada.

Allan

This evening I’m trying to work out if the photo on this postcard is faked. I think the aircraft was photographed a few miles away and overlaid on the view at the north end of Windermere.

But what I should be doing is transcribing a couple of recent interviews and tidying up a few bits of research to clear my desk.

I still suspect this photo is faked though.

Peter,
Stirling/Sunderland wing construction is similar (Stirling being based on the Sunderland look at the tailsection as well) but different sizes.
Pity, would have been a great boost for the Stirling project.
Cees

Cees,
Do you know how much commonality there is in the parts used to make up the wing – as Peter said, fuel tank covers, and other bits such as control runs, wing spar structures etc. I’m sure the Stirling Project must have looked into this but I’m just curious.
I know the Empire Boats and Sunderlands looked similar but had quite different construction – the Sunderlands used a lot more machined parts.

Silly thing to say, but when I bought my Airfix Sunderland kit in the 60’s, and what a big b##### it was, I built it as a BOAC example.

I dropped a book on my Airfix kit. Shame I didn’t keep it – would have made a nice Chatham Islands model.

So how many intact Sunderlands are there

It depends how you classify the civil conversions but these are the survivors of the large Short Brothers flying boats:

Short Sunderland
ML824 – Sunderland MKV – The RAF Museum, Hendon, UK
ML786 – Sunderland MKV – Imperial War Museum, Duxford, UK
SZ584/NZ4115 – Sunderland MkV – Museum of Transport and Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Civil Sunderland
ML814/N814ML – Civil Sunderland V – Fantasy of Flight, Polk City, Florida, USA

Short Sandringham
JM715/Beachcomber – Sandringham IV – Solent Sky, Southampton (formerly Hall of Aviation) UK
JM719/F-OBIP – Sandringham 7 – Musee De L’Air et L’Espace, Le Bourget, France

Short Solent
NJ203/N9946F Solent III – Western Aerospace Museum, Oakland, USA
ZK-AMO ‘Aranui’ Solent IV – Museum of Transport and Technology, Aukland, New Zealand.

The Sandringham is a Sunderland conversion which remodelled the nose and tail and, of course, extensively altered the interior.
Kermit Week’s example at Fantasy of Flight was converted in Australia and really only has the turret apertures plated over rather than getting a full Sandringham nose, so is probably best called a civil Sunderland. During WWII some Sunderlands were converted for BOAC and called Hythes but they only had the turrets removed and some benches fitted inside. Postwar some Short Brothers conversions were simply refered to as Sunderlands if they didn’t have a Sandringham nose.

The Solent is based on the new longer fuselage for the MkIV Sunderland. They were either converted from the military MkIVs (also called Short Seaford) or new build – one of each has survived.

So the answer to the question is three or four.

I was lucky not only to have seen the Kermit Weekes ‘Solent’, fly at Biggin Hill one year, but remember seeing service examples flying over the Solent in the mid 50’s.

I was very fortunate to be on board Kermit Weeks aircraft during a step taxy run when it was in the UK. Ah happy days.

Allan

To be serious for a moment

Going a bit off topic ? 😉