From my bookshelves (largely G R Duval’s “British Floatplanes”):
Some Tiger Moths were float equipped, radio controlled gunnery targets for the RN, renamed Queen Bee.
The Blackburn Shark
Vought-Sikorsky Kingfisher
Hawker Nimrod
Auster
DH89 Dragon Rapide – by de Havilland Canada
Bristol Bolingbroke – one tested on floats but not used operationally.

John,
I suspect the incident you are thinking of is 29th May 1943 when Sunderland T9114 from 461 Squadron landed at Angle Airfield near to Pembroke Dock in South Wales. Having picked up survivors from a Whitley and a Sunderland in the open sea, the hull was ruptured on take off so a water landing in Milford Haven was not possible. The aircraft, largely, survived the landing and most importantly, the crew were unhurt. The Sunderland was later scrapped nearby.
I don’t have a picture but there is one in John Evans’ book Sunderland Flying Boat Queen vol1. (p37)

The one I was thinking of as well was Sunderland EJ153 on 5th June 1951. On a night time practice bombing mission with 235 OCU operating from Calshot it hit a hill, slid along and managed to fly off again. The crew spent a long night burning off fuel, shoveling out soil and shoring up the damaged hull. The aircraft flooded on landing but a couple of boats helped to keep it above water until she was beached. The attached photo shows the scale of damage – done by putting a hose inside the aircraft before she was patched with concrete and returned to Shorts for repairs.

I only vaguely recalled hearing about the New Zealand incident. Being able to read the full details is great – that’s why I come to this website 🙂

Allan

Dave,

Wonderfully told story. It was not the only Sunderland to survive a scrape along the ground but this is a superbly detailed story – thanks for drawing attention to it. The Sunderland, NZ4113 is former RAF PP124.

And John, thanks for your link too.

My main interest is in NZ4109 (exDP191) and DP198 (W with 205/209 in Seletar). Both were built just a couple of miles away from me here.

Allan

Oh no – am I being drawn into an enigma? 😀
I’ll dig about and see what I can find if somebody else can track down the serial No of the Gannet. I’m always willing to be proven wrong (and happy to be proven right!)

By Shorts? Doesn’t sound right. Without checking, I can’t think of anything they’d built for water since the 50s.
Why get them to put somebody else’s floats on a Gannet? And where would the RN find a current float pilot? :confused:
I can imagine a conversation but not a conversion.

I was excited until I saw it was from the Daily Mail :rolleyes:
Still lets hope. £3 million doesn’t sound that high. Didn’t the BBMF spend over £1m resparring their Lancaster – that must have been ten years ago now.

Not central to my area of research but sites like this show the internet at its best. I’m in awe of anybody who can do this amount of work – and I know just how much is involved not just in researching it but typing it all in and updating.
It serves as an invaluable resource but also a memorial to bomber crews – I’ve just typed in 14 May 1940 and the list of aircraft lost over Sedan is quite sobering.