Short Brothers
3 types · 0 airframes
Pre-1950 Narrative
Narrative coming soon.
Aircraft Types
Short S.23 Empire
The Short S.23 Empire was a four-engined British flying boat airliner, built by Short Brothers at Rochester for the Empire Air Mail Scheme and flown by Imperial Airways — later BOAC — Qantas Empire Airways and Tasman Empire Airways. First flown in July 1936, the C-class boats carried passengers and mail between Britain, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand; production totalled 42 aircraft: 31 S.23s and the developed S.30 and S.33 variants. The war brought the Horseshoe Route, RAAF service and heavy losses in 1942. The last boats were retired and scrapped in the later 1940s, and no example survives.
Short Stirling
The Short Stirling was a British four-engined heavy bomber built by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force. The first of the RAF's three wartime four-engined heavies to enter service, it flew its first operations in February 1941, but the 100-foot wingspan limit and divided bomb bay written into its pre-war specification left it with a low ceiling and a restricted bomb load. Withdrawn from front-line bombing by the end of 1943, it went on as a glider tug, paratroop and supply aircraft and transport. Shorts built 2,371, and no complete example survives.
Short Sunderland
The Short Sunderland was a British long-range maritime patrol flying boat built by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force. Developed from the company's Empire airliner flying boats, it entered service in 1938 and spent the Second World War hunting U-boats and watching over convoys, from the Atlantic to the Far East. It stayed in front-line RAF service for over twenty years, flying in the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War before retiring in 1959. Short Brothers built 749, and a few survive in museums.