Does anyone remember the Short Empire flying boat?

The Flight Detective
an airplane on the water

The Short Empire was a medium range flying boat powered by four Bristol Pegasus radial engines. Designed and built by Short Brothers’ in Rochester, it first flew on 4 July 1936, taking off from the River Medway in Kent. First revenue services commenced in 1937.

Designed to connect the United Kingdom with the dominions of the British Empire, it reduced travel time quite substantially. For example, England to Australia takes over 40 days by ship, while the flying boats reduced this to 85 flying hours over 10 days. Nine overnight stops were taken en route as the aircraft did not fly at night.

Short Empire Flying Boat Video

Following on from the last video about the Fairey Rotodyne, this time we head back to the 1930s for a look at the Short Empire flying boat. The first video runs for a little under three minutes and is quite jubilant in its presentation.

Have you ever heard of a robopilot before? Clearly a precursor to today’s autopilot! The next video runs for just 47 seconds and even though it has a watermark, you do get to see the interior, food service and cocktails being made.

With a range of 1,220 kilometres and a cruising speed of 266 km/h, it was not particularly fast by today’s standards. However, this was the latest technology in the late 1930s.

How About One More Video?

Imperial Airways referred to the aircraft as the Short C Class, and each one had a name starting with C. The next video is a compilation of newsreel clips from the days it was in service.

Running for almost 10 minutes, it covers things such as the crash of Capricornus in France from 7:35. What is great is that the various clips give a great feel for how news was reported in this era, as well as how amazing people found this new technology.

Overall Thoughts

Short Brothers’ claimed, “We don’t built aircraft that float, we build ships that fly” and you can see this in the clips. The announcers refer to the aircraft as ships more often than not, as it really fell between two areas.

On board service was inaugurated on the flying boats and while there were no cooking facilities on board, passengers were served excellent meals. A typical breakfast consisted of grapefruit, steak and pineapple juice, while lunch could be ham, salad and strawberry ice cream.

Just 42 of these flying boats were produced from 1936 to 1940. They were operated by Imperial Airways (later BOAC), Qantas of Australia and TEAL (now Air New Zealand) and had a very short life, being withdrawn from service at the end of 1946, with final flights in 1947. Land planes had progressed to the point that flying boats were obsolete. As far as I am aware, none were preserved in museums.

What did you think of the flying boat videos? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by Qantas Heritage Collection via aussieairliners.org.
With thanks to Sydney Living Museums and History Ireland.

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9 comments
    1. Same here, only from pictures! I imagine only people who are about 90-100 years old would remember actually flying on one!

      1. Greetings, I know nothing about the history of aeroplanes but if it is of any interest to you I did fly in what we called a ‘BOAC Sunderland Empress Flying Boat’ from Yokohama to Southampton in August 1949. It was the very last on this route. I was 5 years old. If you are keen I can describe at your request the 9-day voyage and ports of call that left me with personal indelibly fond memories.

        1. That is brilliant that you got to do that! I would certainly love to read about your experience, so please go ahead. That would be fascinating. Appreciate the offer!

          1. Thanks for your keen reply. My comprehensive description is 3 pages. Shall I send it as an attachment? Otherwise the format could become clumsy.

          2. It will probably come out as one block of text on here, but that is probably best, that way others can read it easily. If it looks really terrible, I’ll see if I can make it look better somehow. Otherwise we’ll see if we can do an e-mail or something. Thank you for this!

          3. B.O.A.C. Sunderland Empress Flying Boat – Yokohama, Japan to Southampton, U.K.
            by John Lind

            B.O.A.C. Sunderland Empress Flying Boat – Yokohama, Japan to Southampton, U.K.
            by John Lind

            August 1949 – Sunrise departure from Yokohama, Japan.
            For the commencement of our 9 days flight to England my English father, my White Russian mother and I (age 5) were conveyed to Yokohama Bay in the British company limousine from Hyama on Tokyo Bay. Hyama was little more than a fishing village but the mansion that the company rented (our home for 6 months) had been the former summer resort of one of Nippon’s Imperial princesses. Half Westernized. Half traditional with tatami rooms, sliding doors of timber and paper walls and an enclosed interior garden with a large water lily pond and carp/coy.
            It was 3.a.m. and our Japanese servants had gathered to bid us a final farewell. My child’s mind remembers my lovely ama (nanny) standing in her pretty kimono, waving gently like a fragile flower and weeping.

            At Yokohama Bay a launch conveyed us at dawn to the B.O.A.C. Sunderland Empress Flying Boat (for some reason I remember her being referred to as “Empress” and not “Empire”. Probably because as a maritime vessel “boat” she would be referred to as “she”. But let’s consider that I am mistaken).

            We were greeted by tall elegant B.O.A.C. air-hostesses in immaculate dark blue uniforms. Their long legs seemed to rise to the sky. I can still see them 71 years later. They were very kind and gave me a little blue book that had ‘Junior Jet Club’ inscribed on the cover to log in all my future travels with B.O.A.C. as a child. The captains of each flight would sign it.
            After our flying boat ascended with a mighty roar, I saw Mount Fuji below. For 6 months she had been my daily view from my little bedroom window in Hyama. Now I was seeing her from a very different perspective. She was enjoying full radiance in the rising of the sun.
            Our destination today was OKINAWA.

            There would be 8 or 9 touchdowns before SOUTHAMPTON. The reason was limited fuel capacity.

            Every late afternoon we would descend into a new port. We would be conveyed by launch to the wharf and accommodated. And every sunrise we would re-board by launch and fly off to the next destination. I remember observing that the world was full of rainbows as every time we descended onto the harbour waters the flying boat would throw up arcs of water on both port and starboard. The late afternoon sunlight would create rainbows.

            The interior of the flying boat seemed huge (bearing in mind my perspective as a 5 year-old). There were only 12 of us passengers. The smart bar area seemed more spacious than the extensive seating area. My mum and dad were merry. This felt good.

            OKINAWA – a basic hotel at the wharf itself. Little sleep thanks to the nocturnal activities of U.S. soldiers operating fork-lift trucks shifting crates. Could it be a combo of post WW2 presence and a prep for Korean War? I haven’t done a fact check.

            HONG KONG – a plane crash ahead of us. We had to circle and circle and circle Victoria Island until given the all-clear to descend. I felt giddy and vomited over dad’s smart business suit. He was annoyed. We were to be greeted by his superiors based in HK. We were whisked away to the Peak and hosted by the Head of the Company HK HQ. They threw a party for my parents with dancing. From my bedroom door I peeked. I saw my mother and father waltzing in each other’s arms. They were happy together. This made me feel good. Later I would learn they were dancing to Glen Miller.

            RANGOON BURMA (we stayed in a luxury hotel and I remember a big Golden domed temple).

            COLOMBO, CEYLON (a ride on a donkey and perhaps we stayed at the Mount Lavinia Hotel).

            KARACHI, newly established PAKISTAN (hot and humid and a friendly pock-marked Pakistani passport official are all I remember).

            BASRA, IRAQ (accommodated in a British Military barracks too hot to sleep).

            ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT (AH! an epiphany of sacred joy!) I won’t go into details except to say that in my parents’ absence ‘off dining’ I looked out of the high hotel bedroom window onto early evening streets. Alexandrians were promenading under rows of street cables illuminated with glowing light bulbs red, yellow, green and clear. They were holding hands as couples or families and singing as they headed off to local eateries after their afternoon siestas. My 5 year-old heart felt their harmony.
            Decades later in Sydney I described this experience to a cab driver from Egypt’s Alexandria.
            His eyes misted up (I could see this via his rear-view mirror). He advised, “With such a memory of my home city, do not return. Please do not return.”

            PORT AUGUSTA, SICILY. Mum, dad and I walked around this port city early evening. It was full of rubble, not yet restored from WW2 bombings mainly by the British. Midnight eyes of fellow-children peered from their broken homes. A girl of about 11 and her two younger brothers invited me into their hovel. I left my parents. On a worn piece of paper, I drew a clumsy design of a plane to convey “this is my home in the sky”. Through invisible language they enquired why the plane had a door when it is in the sky. The girl gave me a little stone horse a few inches long. A stone gift from her rubbled home of Sicily.

            MARSEILLES, FRANCE – we visited the harbour’s prison island Chateau d’If where novelist Alexandre Dumas had set the imprisonment of the Count of Monte Cristo. I am 80% convinced that our Sunderland flying boat did stop here.

            FINAL DESTINATION – SOUTHAMPTON, UNITED KINGDOM
            We were informed that this Yokohama-Southampton flight was a B.O.A.C. swansong. We were the last to fly this route.
            Everything seemed so clean and calm and green in England. A Green-Line bus conveyed us to London. At one spot en route the bus halted behind a row of stationary cars on the highway. I asked my dad why we had stopped. He replied, “An elderly man is crossing the road. We are in England now.” Feeling safe I showed England to the Sicilian stone horse through the window.

            * * *

          4. This is wonderful, thanks so much for sharing this! The Empire flying boats were the Short C Class from the 1930s. Your Sunderland would not be an Empire flying boat. I was trying to see if it was called an Empress, perhaps from the aircraft names, but I couldn’t find anything about it easily online. I’d think your memory was pretty reliable though. I believe these flying boats were retired in 1949, so you did indeed get on one at the very end of their careers. What a fantastic experience all of that must have been, even at so young an age. A completely different era to today, that’s for sure. Again, thanks for that – it’s a great read and I appreciate you sending it over for anyone to read.

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