Flying Boats

by Charles Woodley

  Aquila was now operating an all-Solent fleet of four aircraft on ten services each week, but their annual utilisation of around 800 hours each was low, even by the standards of the time. They required constant maintenance, and anti-corrosion treatment after every service, and had become costly to operate. They were in need of replacement, but it was not at all clear how this could be achieved. In the meantime they soldiered on.

  During the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956 Aquila used three Solents to fly naval personnel out of Malta, and then operated them on a shuttle service evacuating British civilian workers and their families from Fanara on the Great Bitter Lake in Egypt to Malta, from where landplanes took them onwards. During the year two of the Solents were damaged, fortunately without casualties. On 11 April G-ANYI suffered damage to its port float during a landing on rough water in the Bay of Genoa. In order to prevent the risk of capsizing the passengers were swiftly ordered out onto the starboard wing to balance the aircraft, before being transferred to small boats. The damaged float was repaired and the aircraft returned to service within forty-eight hours. On 26 September, at the very end of the tourist season, it was the turn of G-ANAJ to suffer damage. The aircraft was at Santa Margherita and should have operated a service to Southampton on the previous day, but the flight had been postponed because of rough seas. The conditions did not improve, and the Solent was blown from its moorings and onto the beach. As the service was over for the winter, the damage was not repaired, and a replacement Solent was acquired in time for the following season. The weather had been a continual cause of problems for Aquila, and the airline had imposed an operating limit of 4ft of swell for the operation of services. During the winter recess Aquila devoted more attention to the possibilities offered by inclusive tour flying, being granted a licence to operate package tour services to Majorca, and entering into an agreement with Club Mediterranee for charters, including flights from Marseilles to Palermo and Corfu.

  One of the Aquila Airways Short Solents, G-AKNU Sydney. (via Dave Thaxter)

  During the summer of 1957 the scheduled services to Madeira continued to do well, and that year the airline’s Solents carried almost one-third of the total number of tourists visiting the island. However, accidents continued to throw a shadow over the operations that year. During May G-ANYI struck a reef while taking off from Pollensa Bay in Majorca. On this occasion no injuries were sustained and the aircraft was repairable. However, on 15 November tragedy struck. G-AKNU was operating flight AQ101 from Southampton to Funchal and Las Palmas with fifty-eight occupants. Shortly after take-off the crew experienced engine problems and decided to turn back. They were unable to maintain height and the aircraft crashed at Shalcombe on the Isle of Wight. There were only thirteen survivors among the passengers, and all eight crew members perished. Aquila Airways ended 1957 with passenger numbers slightly up on the previous year, but the November crash had an impact on advance bookings for the following summer, and the company’s problems were piling up. Services continued in 1958, but at a reduced frequency on many routes, and the operations were gradually being run down. In early summer the flying boats operated twice-weekly to Funchal via Lisbon and once-weekly to Genoa, but by July the Genoa route had been suspended. To add to the struggling airline’s problems, abnormal sea conditions off Funchal made it impossible to alight there and the aircraft had to land off the northern coast of Madeira. There were no established handling facilities there, and so the turnarounds became very protracted. Finally, in July 1958, Aquila Airways announced that all of its operations would cease permanently at the end of the summer season. The main reasons cited were the lack of a suitable replacement for the elderly Solents, and increased competition from charter airlines operating more efficient landplanes into the Mediterranean resort areas. The three remaining Solents were put up for sale.

  A taxiing shot of Aquila Airways Short Solent G-ANAJ City of Funchal. (via Dave Thaxter)

  Aquila Airways Short Solent G-ANAJ City of Funchal taxies past steep cliffs during the inaugural flight to Capri in 1954. (via Dave Thaxter)

  The Aquila Airways Short Solent G-ANYI at Southampton. (via Dave Thaxter)

  On 26 September 1958 Solent G-ANYI Awateri had the sad distinction of being the last passenger-carrying flying boat to depart Southampton when it set off from Berth 50 on the final Aquila service to Lisbon and Funchal. During the stopover in Madeira the aircraft’s crew attended a farewell tea party at the British Consulate, followed by a special dinner at the Hotel Miramar. The return service was scheduled to arrive at Southampton in daylight for the convenience of the waiting media, but was delayed by engine problems. In the end, Captain Derek Weetman was eventually interviewed under floodlights after G-ANYI had arrived flying a 59ft ‘paying-off’ pennant from its mast. With its arrival, commercial flying boat operations at Southampton came to an end. Ownership of the three Solents was transferred to a Portuguese company called ARTOP for intended use on operations out of Lisbon under the company name of Aerovias Aquila. They were flown out to Lisbon but were destined never to enter service. Instead, ARTOP reopened the Lisbon–Funchal route with two Martin Mariner flying boats. One of the ARTOP pilots was former Aquila Airways Captain Jim Broadbent. He was in command of one of the Mariner aircraft on 9 November 1958 when it crashed shortly after take-off with the loss of all on board. The Solents were beached and spent almost thirteen years slowly decaying on the banks of the River Tagus in Lisbon before they were finally broken up in 1971.

  8

  AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC

  On 18 January 1935 Qantas Empire Airways was established as a joint venture between the Australian airline Qantas and Britain’s Imperial Airways, and given responsibility for the operation of the Singapore–Brisbane and return portions of the Empire Air Mail route to Australia. In 1938 three of the Short S.23 C-Class flying boats on order for Imperial Airways were transferred to Qantas Empire Airways (usually referred to as simply Qantas) for use on this service. The first of them, named Coolangatta, was delivered in early April 1938 and was followed shortly afterwards by another named Cooee. On 10 June they both landed at the marine base at Rose Bay, Sydney, also sometimes referred to as Sydney Water Airport. On the 26th of that month the Imperial Airways C-class flying boats Camilla and Cordelia set off from Southampton shortly after dawn, carrying 3 tons of mail and twenty passengers. Among the passengers were seven British and one Australian journalists, bound for Sydney on tickets paid for by Qantas. When the two aircraft reached Karachi Camilla’s passengers were transferred to Cordelia and the first aircraft returned to the UK as planned. On the evening of 3 July Cordelia arrived at Darwin, where her passengers were dismayed to find that hardly any preparations had been made for their arrival apart from the laying of a few buoys to mark the alighting area. No sooner had the flying boat been moored than it was boarded by immigration officers. The health certificates of the occupants were scrutinised and it was announced that three passengers and three of the crew had not been adequately vaccinated and additional injections must be administered before they could leave the aircraft. After two hours had elapsed the refuelling had been completed but the passengers and crew had still not been allowed to disembark. Eventually a small boat was found to ferry them ashore in three batches to a small and inadequate customs shed. The journalists made clear their dissatisfaction with their treatment in the reports they filed for their newspapers. When their articles were published the repercussions made sure that when the next service arrived on 9 July the port officials had its occupants ashore within nine minutes, and the inspection of their luggage was carried out by customs officers in the more comfortable surroundings of the Dan Hotel. In the meantime, Cordelia had completed her journey to Sydney on 5 July, the date on which Captain Lynch-Blosse of Qantas commanded the inaugural Sydney–UK service as far as Singapore, where he handed over to an Imperial Airways crew. The first public scheduled service duly followed on 4 August 1938.

  An Ansett Airways Short Sandringham about to alight
. (Ansett Australia)

  A diagram of the interior layout of a TEAL Short Solent. (via author)

  In 1939 the Qantas services from Sydney to Singapore travelled to Townsville via Brisbane and Gladstone on the first day. After a night stop they continued onwards via Karumba and Groote Eylandt to Darwin. After a dawn departure on the following day the passengers were flown across the Timor Sea to Koepang and Bima before the final night stop at Surabaya. They were up early again the next day for another dawn departure to Batavia and Klabat Bay before finally arriving at Singapore. In the course of their journey the passengers were kept well fed. Breakfast consisted of bacon and eggs, or sausages, or fish. For lunch, soup, chicken, and ham or a cutlet were on the menu. Cheese and biscuits, tea and coffee were served with all meals. Smoking was permitted, but only in the aft compartment. Dinner was always taken ashore at the night stop location.

  After an enforced break during the Second World War the service was reinstated on 12 May 1946 as part of the joint Qantas/BOAC Kangaroo route to London, this time using Hythe-class flying boats configured to carry twenty-one passengers. Passengers were supplied with literature describing the points of interest along the way:

  Leaving Rose Bay the route skirts the rich, sub-tropical coast, permitting enchanting views of the Great Barrier Reef. A refuelling stop is made at Bowen, a prosperous North Queensland town. You then proceed north-west across Queensland, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and Arnhem Land to Darwin. The next stage finds you over the Timor Sea and flying along the fascinating islands of the Netherlands East Indies, Surabaya-bound. Departure for Singapore leaves Java behind, with Sumatra on the port side and Borneo to starboard. From Singapore your aircraft is flown by BOAC personnel. You depart early next morning en route to Rangoon along the interesting Malayan Peninsular. From Rangoon the flying-boat turns north-west over the head of the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta, and on across India to Karachi. On the following day stops are made at Bahrain and Basra, and you fly high across the sandy wastes of Saudi Arabia to Cairo. Then over the Libyan desert and the Mediterranean to Augusta in Sicily, onto Marseilles, and cross France to alight in southern England.

  On 17 November 1945, at the request of the governments of Australia and New Zealand, Qantas opened a route linking Sydney with Suva in Fiji via Noumea in New Caledonia. This was the last route to be opened using C-class flying boats, and as Coriolanus was the last operational example it was this aircraft that flew the inaugural service and also the final service by the type, alighting at Rose Bay, Sydney, from Noumea on 20 December 1947. After the aircraft’s retirement Captain Crowther of Qantas offered to purchase her for £200, but had his offer rejected and she was eventually scrapped. By 1947 more than 270 people were employed at the Rose Bay base. During that year another flying boat route, this time to Norfolk Island, was opened. Initially, Catalina aircraft were used on this route and on a fortnightly service to Noumea and Suva, but in 1950 these machines were superceded by two Short Sandringhams that Qantas had purchased from the New Zealand airline Tasman Empire Airways Ltd, usually abbreviated to TEAL. One of them, registered VH-BRC, went into storage at first while VH-BRD was used for twice-weekly services out of Brisbane to Townsville, Cairns, Lindeman Island, Daydream Island, and the South Molle Islands. However, during the night of 10/11 September 1952 this aircraft was struck by a boat at her moorings and badly damaged, and VH-BRC was brought out of storage to continue the services. The Qantas flying boat operations at Brisbane had been using the Hamilton Reach stretch of the Brisbane River, but this had become congested with shipping movements and could not be used after dark, so in 1953 the services were transferred to Redland Bay, the nearest suitable alternative site for a marine airport. The Qantas service from Rose Bay to Noumea and Fiji was scheduled to alight at Redland Bay at around 2300hrs with the aid of a powerful searchlight. During the two-hour refuelling stop there, passengers in transit were able to come ashore and take refreshment at the Redland Bay Hotel. Another stop was made at Noumea, where breakfast was served ashore, and then it was all back on board for the five-hour leg to Fiji. Flying boat activity at Redland Bay reached its peak in July 1953 when 105 commercial movements passed through. The Sandringhams were also utilised on services to other island destinations, and Qantas flying boat operations to New Guinea were to continue until 1960.

  A TEAL advertisement for its Short Solent flying-boat services from New Zealand to Fiji and Australia. (via author)

  On 2 April 1937 the British, Australian and New Zealand governments reached agreement in principle on the operation of joint air services across the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, operated by TEAL. Two C-class Empire flying boats were ordered for TEAL to use, and at 1430hrs on 28 August 1939 the first one, ZK-AMA Aotearoa, arrived at Auckland from Sydney on the last leg of its long delivery flight. By then, however, most of the UK aircraft production was for military use, and it was considered impractical to try to launch trans-Tasman services with just a single aircraft, so Aotearoa spent several months engaged on route-proving flights across the Tasman Sea and out across the Pacific to Noumea, Suva, Tonga and Western Samoa. Eventually, in March 1940, the second TEAL machine, ZK-AMC Awarua, set off from Poole on her delivery flight. On board were six passengers. These were mostly TEAL staff travelling on duty, but also aboard was Miss Ame Harrison, the first fare-paying passenger from England to New Zealand. During 1940 one of the TEAL machines was used to transport dignitaries to the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in Wellington. Here, the alighting point was at Evans Bay, where a temporary passenger terminal was improvised out of the roadside parking garages along Evans Bay Parade. A more substantial terminal was to be constructed on reclaimed land there in 1951, and after flying boat services had ceased the site later became the home of a local yachting club.

  Mechanics Bay in Auckland, with TEAL Short S.30 Empire flying-boats ZK-AMA and ZK-AMC on the water with two RNZAF Short Sunderlands. (State Library of South Australia)

  Trans-Oceanic Airways Short Sunderland VH-AKO, with a passenger launch alongside. (Qantas Heritage Collection)

  TEAL Short Sandringham ZK-AMB Tasman being loaded with parcels at Mechanics Bay, Auckland, in May 1949. (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington)

  On 13 April 1940 Aotearoa inaugurated weekly scheduled services on the 1,370-mile journey across the Tasman, carrying nine passengers and 41,000 letters from Auckland to Sydney. When the first service in the opposite direction set off on 2 May, the final link in the Empire Air Mail Scheme had been forged. At 14,277 miles from Auckland to Poole, this became the world’s longest air route. The passenger capacity was initially restricted to fifteen, but was later increased. Passengers arriving at Auckland were able to connect with Pan American Airways services to Honolulu and San Francisco until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 brought about the suspension of all Pan American flights west of Hawaii. On 18 August 1940, in the course of a trans-Tasman service to Auckland, TEAL’s Awarua passed within 40 miles of Pan American’s California Clipper, out of Auckland for San Francisco. Although the two crews exchanged radio messages they were unable to establish visual contact. On 21 May 1944, for the first time, the two TEAL flying boats arrived at Auckland on the same day. Unfavourable weather conditions on previous days had resulted in the doubling up of the service, with the two aircraft landing within twenty minutes. Aotearoa was to operate the 1,000th trans-Tasman service on 19 June 1945. During the flight from Sydney to Auckland each of the eighteen passengers was presented with a commemorative certificate by the captain, Oscar Garden. In the five years since the service was inaugurated the two flying boats had maintained the operation without injury to passengers or loss or damage to cargo or mail. By the end of the Second World War Britain had withdrawn its financial interest in the airline and TEAL was owned solely by the governments of Australia and New Zealand.

  TEAL Short Sandringham ZK-AMB Tasman riding ‘on the step’ at Waitemata Harbour, Auckland, around 1949. (R.N. Smith Collection, copyright to aussieairliners
.org)

  In 1946 the frequency of the Auckland–Sydney service was increased to four round trips each week. The C-class flying boats were nearing the end of their service lives, and on 2 July 1946 the first of four Short Sandringham 4s ordered to replace them was launched at the Belfast works. The Sandringhams were conversions of surplus RAF Short Sunderland airframes. The process included the removal of their armament, the fitting of large passenger windows, the replacement of the windscreens with new curved versions, the replacement of the bow and tail sections with streamlined fittings, the installation of thirty seats on the lower deck, and the modification of an aft upper cabin to serve as a bar and galley. Power was provided by four Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines. The Sandringhams were initially going to be advertised by TEAL as the Dominion class, but this was later changed to the Tasman class. The type entered service on the Auckland (Mechanics Bay)–Sydney (Rose Bay) route in December 1946, permitting the retirement of the two C-class machines. Awarua was withdrawn on 16 June 1947, and Aotearoa after the completion of its 442nd trans-Tasman service on 29 October that year. Both aircraft were eventually broken up, but before succumbing Aotearoa served ashore as a tearoom at Mechanics Bay from June 1948 until October 1950.