Flying Boats

by Charles Woodley

  These aircraft are reaching the end of their operational life. They are well maintained to the highest standards, but should have no place in Australian civil aviation ... An airstrip has to be built, and quickly ... The company has investigated all available flying-boats, amphibians, and short take-off and landing aircraft, and there is no doubt that the most satisfactory service can be provided with a Fokker Friendship.

  During 1973 the flying boat services received AUD$170,000 in federal government subsidies, but by then a land airstrip was under construction on Lord Howe Island and it was clear that the end was in sight for the flying boats. The last official scheduled service was operated from the island to Sydney on 31 May 1974 by VH-BRC Beachcomber, but until the airstrip was fully operational the flying boats continued to operate ‘facility flights’ for the benefit of the islanders. On 8 June 1974 Beachcomber was chartered by the Australian Department of Environment and Conversation to transport a group of officials out to Lord Howe Island to examine the impact the new airstrip was having on the natural beauty of the island. While they were there the other flying boat, Islander, was due to depart Sydney on 17 June on delivery to the purchaser of the two aircraft, Antilles Air Boats, in the Virgin Islands. However, these plans were disrupted on 9 June when Beachcomber broke free from her moorings on Lord Howe Island in an 80-knot gale and ran ashore onto the beach during the night. A team of sheet metal workers was flown out to the island and within three weeks had carried out temporary repairs to the severely damaged aircraft, which was then ferried to Rose Bay for more work to be done. Islander’s delivery flight had to be postponed, and she was sent out to Lord Howe Island to fly the charter group back to Sydney. On 10 September 1974 the now fully restored VH-BRC Beachcomber operated the final flying boat service from Lord Howe Island to Sydney. The Ansett base at Rose Bay, Sydney, was finally closed down in 1977.

  The famous signpost at the Rose Bay flying-boat terminal, showing the route mileages to points in the Empire. (Qantas Heritage Collection)

  In 1954 Captain P.G. Taylor, a former director of Trans-Oceanic Airways, travelled to England to take possession of the Short Sandringham 7 aircraft G-AKCO, which he had bought from the aircraft dealer W.S. Shackleton for £20,000. This aircraft had previously served with BOAC on services between Bermuda and the USA, and he had ambitions to use it for ‘aerial cruises’ from Sydney to ‘the fabulous and beautiful islands in the South Pacific’. Each year he intended to offer around ten such trips on a variety of routeings taking in such holiday destinations as Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and the Great Barrier Reef. To this end the Sandringham was furnished to accommodate thirty passengers in a luxurious interior containing five compartments, a bar, lounge and galley. Whilst waiting for the work to be completed he took the opportunity to sell places on the aircraft’s delivery flight to Australia via Madeira, the South Atlantic, the Caribbean, California, and several Pacific islands. A maximum of twenty-five passengers were to be looked after by two flight attendants, and the fare for the one-way journey was set at £850. In due course the aircraft arrived safely in Australia, and was given the registration VH-APG and the name Frigate Bird III. The aerial cruises operated until May 1958. The Sandringham was then sold to the French air operator Regie Aerienne Interinsulaire (RAI), and Captain Taylor commanded its delivery flight to Tahiti.

  Aerial view of the flying-boat terminal at Rose Bay, Sydney, under construction, with two Short S.23 aircraft moored offshore. (Qantas Heritage Collection)

  The flying-boat terminal at Rose Bay, Sydney, with a tender alongside and the tail of a TEAL Empire flying-boat visible in the background. (Qantas Heritage Collection)

  At that period in time the area of French Polynesia had no landplane links between its scattered islands. Seaplane flights had commenced at the start of the 1950s, and in 1953 two Catalina flying boats were acquired by Transports Aerienne Interinsulaire (TAI), a commercial division of the Regie Aerienne Interinsulaire (RAI) that operated for the Department of Public Works and Transport. A network of links between the islands was built up and in 1955 services in the Austral Archipelago were inaugurated with the opening of routes to Tubuai and Raivavae. In early 1958 TAI took a controlling interest in RAI and amended that organisation’s name to Reseau Aerien Interinsulaire, which roughly translates as Inter-Island Aviation Network. In April of that year services connecting the airline’s base at Papeete to Huahine, Raitea, and Bora Bora commenced. To cope with this expansion Captain P.G. Taylor’s Short Sandringham 7 Frigate Bird III was purchased and re-registered as F-OBIP. It was placed into RAI service on 15 October 1958, providing the landplane services arriving at Bora Bora with connections to Papeete, which at that time had no land runway. RAI equipped it with accommodation for forty-five passengers, and it also gained a secondary role, being on call for air-sea rescue and casualty evacuation duties during emergencies. The Bora Bora to Papeete services were to continue until 20 September 1960, ten days before a new land airport was opened at Papeete. The Sandringham then found a new role, providing TAI passengers landing at Papeete aboard the airline’s DC-8 jets with onward flights to Huhahine, Tikihau, Raiatea, and Rangiroa in the Society Islands. A stopover of almost four hours was made at the atoll of Rangiroa. Passengers were taken ashore to the tiny village of Tiputa, where lunch was served at the Club Mediterranea and swimming facilities were available. After its passenger-carrying duties came to an end the Sandringham remained with TAI on standby for emergency rescue flights, finally making its last sortie, a search and rescue mission out of Tahiti, on 29 September 1970.

  9

  SOUTH AMERICAN OPERATIONS

  Jose Alberto Dodero was the owner of various shipping concerns in Argentina and neighbouring Paraguay prior to setting up his own airline, named Dodero, in 1945. After the war in Europe ended he paid a visit to Short Bros in Belfast, which led to the first airline order for their Short Sandringham flying boat. Four examples were purchased at a total cost of US$1,250,000 for use on proposed new routes across the River Plate. Two were to be completed as Sandringham 2s, with accommodation for twenty-eight passengers on the lower deck and a further seventeen on the upper deck, which also housed a cocktail bar. These machines were intended for use on the airline’s shorter routes. The other two examples were to service longer routes, including those to Natal and Bathurst, and were to be Sandringham 3s, seating just twenty-one passengers on the lower deck, with a dining room and bar upstairs. All four aircraft were to be powered by Pratt & Whitney Twin wasp radial engines. At the time the order was placed Dodero had still to secure the necessary traffic rights, but construction proceeded anyway, and on 1 November 1945 the first example was named Argentina by Señora de Dodero and launched at Belfast. Temporarily registered as G-AGPZ for the ferry flight, the aircraft set off for South America on 19 November and arrived in Buenos Aires two days later after stops at Lisbon, Bathurst, Natal, and Rio de Janeiro. An order for a fifth aircraft was placed, but the delivery position was then sold on.

  With all four Sandringhams safely moored in Buenos Aires, Señor Dodero was still battling to secure permission to operate his proposed routes. In a move to overcome this hurdle, in May 1946 he became one of the founders of a new airline called Aviacion del Litoral Fluvial Argentino (ALFA), and transferred ownership of the Sandringhams to this company. On 8 January 1947 ALFA was able to launch services, using the two Sandringham 2s on a routeing that followed the course of the Parana River northwards to Parana, Corrientes, Formosa and the Paraguayan capital Asuncion. Another route followed the Uruguay River to Concordia before continuing over land to Posadas. The Sandringhams also operated between Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and to Punta del Este in Uruguay in the summer months. Señor Dodero had hopes of obtaining traffic rights to Europe for ALFA, but these were awarded instead to the Argentine state-owned airline FAMA. He did gain some satisfaction when FAMA was obliged to charter ALFA Sandringhams to operate some of these services during the period June–September 1946, and in the course of one of these flights the
ALFA Sandringham LV-AAR Brazil became the first Argentine-registered aircraft to cross the Atlantic on a commercial service, flying from Buenos Aires to Bicarosse in France via Rio de Janeiro, Natal and Bathurst on 4 July 1946. In November 1946 ALFA acquired another Sandringham 2, LV-ACT Paraguay, but this addition to the fleet was balanced out by the loss of LV-AAP Uruguay in an accident on 29 July 1948. During that year ALFA placed an order for three civilianised Short Sunderland Vs, configured for fifty-one passengers, but before they could be delivered all of Argentina’s privately owned airlines were nationalised in May 1949 and merged to become Aerolineas Argentinas, which was formally established on 7 December 1950.

  Short Sandringham G-AGPZ on a pre-delivery flight in 1945 before being ferried to the Argentinian airline Dodero to serve as LV-AAO. (via Raul)

  Aerolineas Argentinas Short Sandringham LV-AAQ. (via Raul)

  A taxiing shot of ALFA Short Sandringham LV-AAS. (via Raul)

  On its formation Aerolineas Argentinas inherited a mixed fleet of landplanes plus the Sandringham flying boats. The state airline initially wanted to withdraw these as quickly as practicable, but they were seen to perform so well on the services across the River Plate that they were retained for this purpose. On the route between Buenos Aires and Montevideo they operated alongside the Sandringhams of the Uruguayan airline CAUSA, and the shortage of suitable land airports in the region was to ensure their continued use for some years to come. Three round trips each week linked Buenos Aires to Concordia, and also to Posadas, the 500 miles to Posadas being covered in a scheduled time of three hours twenty minutes. Seasonal flights were operated to Punta del Este in Uruguay, and the aircraft also flew to Corriente, and to Asuncion and Conception in Paraguay. When the Scandinavian airline SAS terminated its flying boat operations in 1955 Aerolineas Argentinas acquired that company’s last example, a Sandringham 6 that, in 1946, had been the last Short Sunderland to be civilianised for airline use. Throughout its history Aerolineas Argentinas was to operate nine Sandringhams in total. In January 1957 Sandringham schedules to Rosario were introduced, with three round trips each week, but on the last day of that year one of the fleet was lost in an accident. Shortly after departure from Buenos Aires LV-AAR Brazil suffered an engine failure. Her crew elected to return to base but were then forced to attempt a landing in rough seas. The aircraft bounced on contact with the water and sank with the loss of nine lives. On 11 February 1959 another Sandringham was written off, this time without fatalities, when LV-AHG Uruguay sank whilst alighting at Montevideo.

  Aerolineas Argentinas Short Sandringham LV-AAO Argentina. (via Raul)

  Aerolineas Argentinas Short Sandringham LV-ACT Paraguay. (via Raul)

  By the end of the 1950s new land airports were being constructed, and new local service airlines had been formed to make use of them. In 1959 Aerolineas Argentinas announced its intention to retire its flying boats in April 1960. This provoked anxious responses from communities who feared they would be left without air links, and so initially the airline only withdrew the Sandringhams from the trunk route between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. On 1 May 1962 Aerolineas Argentinas finally ceased all flying boat operations. The five surviving Sandringhams were placed into storage at Puerto Nueve, Buenos Aires, until a new concern called Cooperativa Argentina de Aeronavegantes took them over, along with their associated repair shops and three launches, in 1963. The aim was to revive flying boat services in Argentina, and some flights were operated from December 1963, but the venture was not a success, and financial problems led to the cessation of all flying by mid 1964. During 1966 work was carried out on Sandringham LV-AAO to prepare it for operation as a freighter, but this did not happen. The Sandringhams gradually rotted at Puerto Nueve until they were broken up in 1967.

  On the other side of the River Plate the Uruguayan airline Compania Aeronautica Uruguaya SA (CAUSA) had been set up in 1936 to provide air links between Montevideo and Buenos Aires. In the years immediately after the Second World War Junkers Ju 52/3m floatplanes were operated, but then the airline was offered two new Short Sandringhams by the British government. The first one, CX-AFA, entered service on 16 April 1946. The two original aircraft were later joined by another example purchased from the Argentine airline ALFA, and the trio settled into a routine of services between Montevideo and Buenos Aires twice each weekday, one flight each weekday between Colonia and Buenos Aires, and summer-only flights to Punta de Este. During its operational life the CAUSA fleet was to suffer its fair share of accidents and wear and tear, and in 1951 two surplus BOAC Sandringhams were acquired and placed into service as fifty-two-seaters. When Aerolineas Argentinas ended its flying boat services in 1962 it ceased to be viable for CAUSA to continue to maintain the marine aircraft bases in Montevideo and Buenos Aires purely for its own flights. The airline had already introduced Curtiss C-46 landplanes between these points, and on 30 April 1962 CX-ANI operated the last scheduled commercial flying boat service across the River Plate. CAUSA had been operating marine aircraft between Montevideo and Buenos Aires since 1938. The Sandringhams languished in the harbour at Montevideo until they were eventually broken up. The flying boat terminal building there survived for some time afterwards, being utilised as the harbour office.

  10

  NORWEGIAN COASTAL SERVICES

  Before the major Scandinavian airlines were amalgamated to form the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in 1951, the national airline of Norway was Det Norske Luftfartselskap (DNL). The scarcity of suitable land airports along Norway’s long coastline meant that flying boats would be needed in the short term to restore commercial services to the far north of the country in the aftermath of the Second World War. DNL accordingly placed an order for three Short Sandringham 6 aircraft to enter service from 1947. These were allocated the registrations and names LN-IAU Bomse Brakar, LN-IAV Kritbjorn, and LN-IAW Bukken Bruse. They were powered by Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp piston engines and configured to carry thirty-seven passengers on two decks, with a galley on the lower deck. A crew of seven was carried on each aircraft, and to assist with navigation amongst the cliffs and mountains along the route the aircraft retained the ASV.6c radar of the Sunderland Vs, from which they had been converted. When services commenced in 1947 the aircraft had to be moored to buoys and the passengers and cargo transferred to them by small boats, but later on piers were constructed to simplify the procedure. Before each take-off or landing a watchboat would carry out a sweep of the area, looking for floating debris. The schedules were normally carried out by two of the Sandringhams, operating in opposite directions, with the third aircraft held in reserve. The northbound service departed from Sola, Stavanger, at 0600hrs and arrived at Bergen one hour later. On the next leg the flying boat threaded its way through the mountains on the two-hour journey to the seaplane base just outside Oslo’s Fornebu Airport. After a crew change here the aircraft was airborne again an hour later, flying over land to Trondheim and onwards to Brønnøysund, Sandnessjøen, Bodø, and Harstad, before alighting at Tromsø in the Arctic Circle at 1750hrs. From here, connections to Kirkenes were available, using Ju 52/3m floatplanes. On the following day the Sandringham retraced its journey southbound, setting off at 0700hrs and eventually arriving back at Sola at 1845hrs. During the winter months the danger of sea ice, coupled with several weeks of almost continual darkness, rendered the operation of the flights too hazardous and so the service only ran between late March and early October each year.

  Short Sandringham LN-LMK of the Norwegian airline DNL. (Anthony Leyfeldt)

  After the first season the stops at Brønnøysund and Sandnessjøen were eliminated, but despite its limitations the coastal service quickly became very popular, with the services usually fully booked. In addition to passengers the Sandringhams could also accommodate up to 2 tons of mail or freight. Cargo loads on the southbound schedule frequently included live polar bears, caught in the Arctic regions and bound for zoos in Europe. The flying boats built up a reputation for reliability, despite being unsui
ted to operations along Norway’s more or less unsheltered coastline, but all three of the original aircraft were to be lost in accidents. One of these involved LN-IAW, on which the philosopher and author Bertram Russell was one of the surviving passengers. Two more Sandringhams, LN-MAI and LN-LMK, were acquired as replacements in April 1948 and June 1949. In addition to the scheduled services the aircraft were also used for popular ‘midnight sun’ excursion flights. By the time DNL was absorbed into SAS in 1951 land airports had been constructed along the coastal route, and flying boat operations soon ceased.

  11

  PRESERVED FLYING BOATS

  Short Sandringham. Construction number SH974

  This aircraft was originally delivered to the RAF in 1944 as a Short Sunderland III with the serial number ML814. It was later modified to Sunderland V standard and used by 330 Squadron on airline-type scheduled services out of Sola in Norway to Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø during the summer of 1945, pending the re-establishment of civil airline services. After conversion to a Short Sandringham it served in Australia with Ansett Flying Boat Services as VH-BRF Islander until that the Ansett flying boats were withdrawn in 1974. The two Sandringhams operated by Ansett were then bought by veteran US aviator Charles Blair for his new US Virgin Islands-based airline, Antilles Air Boats. On 25 September 1974 Islander departed Sydney on its delivery flight across the Pacific, the US mainland, and the Caribbean to its new home at St Croix. Here it was registered in the USA as N158J and given the new name Excalibur VIII. However, from that point Antilles Air Boats ran foul of the US licensing authorities. Because the aircraft’s conversion to a Sandringham had not been carried out by the manufacturer it was regarded as a non-standard modification, and the authorities refused to allow it to be operated in US territory. The flying boat was ferried to a disused US Navy base at Isla Grande in Puerto Rico, where she lay neglected in a hangar until 1978. In September of that year wealthy English businessman and flying boat enthusiast Edward Hulton heard about the aircraft and contacted Antilles Air Boats with a view to purchasing it, only to be told that Charles Blair had died that very day in a flying accident. Shortly after that, Antilles Air Boats went out of business. The flying boat deteriorated, and the local authorities threatened to sell it as scrap to pay overdue base charges. However, a casino chain then acquired Charles Blair’s business interests, and entrusted Ron Gillies, the former chief pilot of Antilles Air Boats, with the task of trying to find buyers for Excalibur VIII and the company’s other Sandringham. In the meantime, Edward Hulton had let matters lie for a while, but in May 1979 he travelled out to the Caribbean and purchased Excalibur VIII from the casino chain. He set up an American company as the registered owner of the aircraft, which by then was in a sorry state, and arranged for a Miami-based aviation organisation to restore it to airworthy condition.