Marine Aviation

MA0 new photo from Barry Davidson of Calshot tower (on top of the castle). My marine aviation guru tells me the aircraft is a Sunderland Mk V of 230 Sqn 4X Z serial SZ577. and from the other side too below. Note the RAF launch in the background.

MA0a the Tower on the castle nearest.

MA1 Calshot (and cocooned Princess Flying Boat)

Calshot opened in 1913 as a RNAS water aerodrome and operated as a flying station under RN and later RAF control for 40 years. Its most dramatic period of operations was in the late 1920s and early 1930s when it hosted the RAF High Speed Flight and the Schneider Trophy Races. The Tudor castle, used as the base for the control tower building, belongs to English Heritage and is open to the public.

CALSHOT CASTLE

Most of the other RAF buildings are used for water or other sports activities. The canoe store contains the original 1913 hanger built by Tommy Sopwith for his Batboat flying boat

MA1a

MA1b Princess Flying Boat at Cowes (Saunders Row slipway) Note the SR1 jet flying boat fighter just left of the nose and across the harbour a flying boat of the Sunderland family is up on a slipway.

MA1c  a Princess Flying Boat in more optimistic times

MA1d the sad end of the story below the tower at Calshot.

MA2 just up Southampton Water from Calshot were two more aviation sites. At Hythe there was a major engineering base and at Southampton a civil flying boat water aerodrome, hence this atmospheric shot of the RMS Berengaria, Quantas Short C Class flying boat VH-ABB Coolangatta and the Short S20 Mercury, one half of the Short Mayo Composite flying boat experiment.

MA2a

MA3 Aquila Airways Short S45 Solent III, G-AKNU “Sydney” possibly at Hythe on Southampton water?  On Friday 15 November 1957, the Aquila Airways Solent flying boat departed Southampton at 22:46 for a flight to Lisbon and Madeira. At 22:54 the crew radioed that the number 4 propeller had been feathered. While trying to return, the Solent crashed into the face of a quarry between Chessel and Brook on the Isle of White. At impact the aircraft was banked 45 degrees to the right. Of the 58 occupants 45 were killed.

MA3a some more Aquila aircraft at Southampton

MA4 keeping with the maritime theme is this photo though actually on land at Southampton Airport. I am told that this aircraft was stored at British Power Boat Co and  was destroyed during the fire 1931

If you have any kind of interest in flying boat operations I recommend the web site of the Poole Flying Boat Celebration Trust. Those of us who were 1960s students at the School/College at Hurn will remember an assistant called Peter Davidson, a slight dapper polite guy, always smartly dressed. Pete had been a Coxwain on the Air Ministry seaplane tenders at Poole and Southampton, and he contributed his archive to the Trust. You’ll find them incorporated within the archive pages. I remember him describing the complexity of marking water “runways” with buoys and flares, fighting changing tides and winds – remarkable skills now all extinct.

MA5  four Supermarine Southampton Flying Boats  setting off from Calshot on the Round Britain tour. photo via Barry Davidson

MA5a Saro Cloud at Calshot

MA6 G-AGJM was a Hythe Class Short S25 BOAC (ex ML754 OQZM RAF), named ‘Hythe’ & photographed on the apron at Hythe, c1948 – 50 with 3 others moored-out. photo via Barry Davidson

MA6a

MA6aa Caledonia at Hythe

MA6b Capella at Hythe

MA6c Short Solent G-AHIX at Hythe,  lost on Wednesday 1 February 1950 in a landing accident in Southampton water

MA6d

MA6e G-AEUD  Short S23 Empire Flying Boat “Cordelia” at Hythe

MA6f BOAC Short S-25 Sandringham 7 Bermuda Class flying boat G-AKCR  “St Andrew” at Hythe

MA7 RNAS Lee on the Solent

MA8 Shorts Rochester

MA8a

MA9 a series of photographs in Felixstowe now in a separate post under Marine Aviation Experimental Establishment

MA10 Short C Class Castor moored out in (presumably) Southampton water

MA11 Pan Am Sikorsky S-42 Clipper moored opposite the Supermarine factory at Woolston, Southampton water.

MA11a  N175 the sole Supermarine Swan flying boat

MA11b

MA11c Vickers Vildebeest K2016 at Woolston

MA12 Fairey Seafox at Hamble.

MA12a

MA13 AVRO factory at Hamble

MA14 Sunderland MkV coded A 2, at Pembroke

MA14a

MA14aa

MA15 Golden Hind looking very purposeful at Rochester

MA16 Caledonia high & dry at Hythe

MA16a The Aquila Solent is G-ANAJ Solent 4 ‘City of Funchal’  – almost certainly in Southampton. Images of it in Funchal usually depict the mountains behind.

MA16b ‘Southampton’ is photographed on the pontoon at Southampton – possibly ahead of its naming ceremony. Solent 2 G-AHIN, passed to Aquila, upgraded to Solent 4 & renamed ‘City of Southampton’. Flew Aquila’s last commercial service in Sept 1958

MA17 RAF Mountbatten moorings Plymouth Sound

MA 18 Sunderland RB G of 10 Squadron RAAF at RAF Mountbatten

MA19 Sunderland on the ramp RAF Mounbatten

MA19a

MA19b Sunderland RB-D or O

MA20 POOLE HARVOUR VIEWS

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RAF Bathurst

MA20 Sunderland Mk I KG E 204 Squadron RAF

MA21 Sunderland KG ? of 204 Squadron RAF

RAF Bathurst

RNAS Stannergate Dundee

MA21

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MA23 Wig Bay Stranrear

MA25 Supermarine Walrus being difficult at RNAS Boaz Is (HMS Malabar II) in Bermuda

MA26 Sunderland 2 U EK591 at Castle Archdale. issued to 422 Sqn RCAF at Castle Archdale 3/10/43. see this link too

MA27 BLACKBURN B-20 at (probably) Dumbarton

MA27a

MA28 Short Stellite/Cockle G-EBKA possibly at Rochester

MA29 C Class flying boat G-AFCV “CARIBOU” at Invergordon