Detachable Wings & Giant Quadplanes | Early Supermarine Aircraft Were Weird
supermarine most will remember this company for one thing the spitfire which is totally justified it was a gorgeous and amazing aircraft and it is by far the most numerous aircraft they ever built but in many ways the spitfire overshadows the rest of the company's history particularly its early pioneering achievements in the development of flying boats and that's why today we're taking a look at the earliest aircraft developed by the company its curious origins and how it influenced the birth of commercial aviation in britain but before we talk about that i'd like to talk about the sponsor of today's video squarespace whose wonderful service allowed me to create my website last time i showed you how i set up the home page and today we're going to make an updates section squarespace comes with a huge selection of pre-built pages and among them are a collection of blogs that come fully pre-built with full functionality much like the home page the templates can be fully edited so i got rid of all the placeholder stuff and set up my first proper post i decided to use the pre-made text boxes as i'd liked the layout but those can be fully changed once you've written out your post you can format the page to your liking font colors sizes etc i prefer darker screens as it's easier on my eyes especially when i'm spending so much time at my computer the blog template has a bunch of built-ins you can utilize such as seo or keyword optimization tags comment settings you can add various sharing functions and you can add your location because many blogs are often travel blocks sadly i don't travel that much but i do take a lot of plane related photos so i'll select one of these as my main image for this post once that's done i can type up a little excerpt that'll show up on the main page and it's done it's dated titled photoed and it has writing and it has all of the social links that i built in a previous video already installed on the bottom of the page now all of that was incredibly easy to do and it didn't take me that long to make it all my horrible wants of decisiveness notwithstanding but if you want to have a go at building a website for yourself for your business or even just to collect your thoughts or experiences in a blog head over to squarespace today for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com forward slash rex's hangar to get 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain once again thank you to squarespace for sponsoring today's video and now let's explore the early years of supermarine aircraft its history began with a man called nol pemberton billing he was a man of changing passions sailing inventing politics music and for a time aviation he'd taken an early interest in aeronautics and this was almost his undoing in 1904 he nearly killed himself by jumping off the roof of his house in a makeshift glider but billing was not deterred indeed he was doggedly persistent setting up his own airfields in essex in 1909 unfortunately this venture failed within a year owing to the popularity of brooklyns following this he dabbled in various things property the study of law and he discovered what was to become a lifelong love of yachts by 1912 he had a small business on the river itching in southampton and with the help of his business savvy friend hubert scott payne things were profitable but aviation was never far from pemberton billing's mind and he was determined to build his own aircraft but there was one small problem legally he couldn't fly he hadn't even been aloft as a passenger yet but that wasn't going to stop him for long in 1913 billing made a bet with frederick hadley page yes that hanley page that he could get his pilot's license within 24 hours of first sitting in an aircraft he won this bet gaining license number 683 and hadley page had to fork over 500 pounds which was no small amount of money back then billing immediately used this money to complete his production facilities and he officially founded his aircraft business pemberton billing limited by this point he had become obsessed with the idea of marine aircraft so much so that he registered the telegraphic address of his business as supermarine a poetic choice as he wanted his aircraft to be the opposite of a submarine and this leads us onto the company's first aircraft though technically it made its public debut months before the company was officially registered this was the supermarine pb1 and it was shown off at the olympia aeroshow in march of 1914. its sleek lines were the work of linton hope a yacht builder hired by pemberton billing he introduced advanced design techniques into the hulls of his flying boats and his hull designs would be used by a number of manufacturers well into the 1920s though it made a striking appearance with its fish-like hull and flared sponsons the pb1 was a complete failure it made use of a weak gnome rotary engine that just managed 50 horsepower and it was angled slightly upward in the hopes of improving takeoff performance in fact this design choice had the reverse effect providing not enough forward thrust and the pb1 never flew even after a full redesign next we have the pb7 which was the start of an unfruitful obsession with the concept of detachable wings pemberton billing once said that he saw marine aircraft as not airplanes which float but boats which fly and the bb-7 certainly met these criteria in these early days of aviation this line of thought certainly had merit docking flying boats with shore facilities was a challenge that often led to bits of broken machinery the pb7 was intended to eliminate this problem the aircraft would land in the shallow water near a port or other facility moore itself and then the hull which was in essence a typical motorboat would detach and head for the slipway designed to carry up to six passengers the pb7 was one of the most adventurous designs of the pre-war period with an expected range of 200 miles or 321 kilometers it would have been more than capable of completing channel crossings with fuel to spare it wasn't expected to be the fastest of aircraft being powered by a single 225 horsepower sunbeam engine but the predicted top speed of 35 to 40 knots or 64 to 74 kilometers an hour was still enough to attract orders unfortunately the only orders that were placed were for the german navy and by the end of the summer of 1914 completing said order was made difficult by something known as the great war by this point some of the motorboat hulls were completed and there seems to be some evidence that these were requisitioned by the navy but the pb7 appears to have never flown the idea of using detachable wings lived on with several of billing's other designs but these only ever existed on paper and never made it into production with the outbreak of war design focus shifted towards military aircraft after the failure of the pb7 and short of money billing accepted an admiralty order to build the 12 short s38 biplane trainers but he was not content to build other companies designs this led to the rapid development of a private venture the pb9 this aircraft is sometimes known as the seven day bus as it was apparently designed and assembled and flown in seven days but as it turned out this was not the case as billing had a talent for mixing truth and fiction with the skill of a veteran politician his claims that he did the drawings in a day and that the machine was built from scratch have since been debunked but in the stressful mood of a country going to war some exaggerations were hardly uncommon designed built and flown in nine days the pb9 was a stout looking or wood equal span biplane contrary to previous claims the aircraft was not completely designed and built by pemberton billing the wings were taken from the leftovers of the recently defunct radley england's company these were simple one-piece designs and it took little effort to design a straightforward fuselage to go with them in fact the fuselage merely rested on the bottom wing and was attached by a handful of u-bolts hoping for a large production order pemberton billing designed the fuselage to be built from methods found in any joinery or cabinetry shop in the country the main structure was built using mortise and tenon joints and complexity was kept to an absolute minimum despite being built in such a hurry that people worried the glue hadn't properly dried the pb9 performed well on its first flight and as an added bonus all the important bits stayed in the right place powered by the same 50 horsepower engine that was used in the failed pb1 it achieved a maximum speed of 78 miles an hour and a climb rate of 500 feet per minute these were promising figures but despite this no orders eventuated instead designs by the royal aircraft factory had their production orders increased and the disregard given to pemberton billing's design thoroughly enraged him believing that the government's favoritism towards the royal aircraft factory would prevent further work billing joined the royal naval air service and in october was granted a temporary commission as a lieutenant he then took part in one of the first on taunt bombing missions of the war flying over lake constance to bomb zeppelin hangars and their factories zeppelins would play a key part in the development of pemberton billing's next aircraft for while billing himself was off with the rnas his company was still working to produce new designs in 1915 the bombing raids by german airships posed a real threat to national morale not only was it terrifying but it was embarrassing so far no british fighter had been able to intercept and engage these flying giants and public and government pressure was mounting the pbe 23e sometimes known as the sparklet was an attempt to correct this it more than likely took heavy inspiration from de havilland's aircode dh2 which predated it by more than two months but whereas the dh2's nacelle was mounted directly on the lower wing the pb-23's metal nacelle was mounted in the wing gap on a set of struts it featured parallel cord on swept wings with the lower wing having a pronounced dihedral the twin fins and rudders were located inboard of the widespan tail plane and this was carried on a four boom structure initially it was powered by an 80 horsepower rhone engine and it was equipped with a forward firing lewis gun when it first flew in september 1915 the results were disappointing it was reported to be underpowered and its excessive rearward center of gravity made it highly unstable it failed to impress officials at the war office but the admiralty saw potential they ordered 20 examples of a modified version to be built and this would be redesignated as the pb25 in effect it was almost a full redesign the nacelle was lengthened and was now constructed from wood and fabric to save weight both wings were swept back 11 degrees to improve stability so that it flew like a plane and not like an intoxicated seagull and the engine was swapped out for a 110 horsepower closure rotary owing to shortages this engine was only installed on the first so-called production pb25 and the rest were fitted with 100 horsepower gnome engines instead the flight performance of the aircraft was somewhat improved but pilots continued to register complaints the biggest concern was the use of wooden fabric in the nacelle it protruded so far forward that in the event of a nose over landing the pilot essentially became the crumple zone for the aircraft there was also the uncomfortable thought that the lowest gun mounted in the nose could break from its mounting and quite literally run the pilots clean through if the impact was strong enough pancaking and weaponized impalement assigned the aircraft also proved difficult to handle particularly during takeoff and landing which increased the chances of the aforementioned incidents occurring in the end it appears that none of the pb25s entered full service this was partly due to the handling problems partly due to a short supply of engines and partly because of the dire need for reliable fighters on the western front courtesy of the fokker scourge said scourge along with the continued zeppelin raids became key talking points for pemberton billing when he made his way into politics by early 1916 he had already become known for both his vocal support of air power and his vocal condemnation of the royal aircraft factory though his opinion was certainly coloured by a personal grudge he truly believed that britain's other private manufacturers could build better planes his critical views of the government and the air department meant the future of his aircraft company was uncertain after all you can't expect to get many orders if you tick off the people signing your checks after some encouragement from cubit scott payne and the other company directors billing sold his shares and moved on to pastures anew which is a fancy way of saying the house of commons the company was officially renamed as supermarine aviation works limited during this transitional period one more of billing's designs would take to the sky and it was by far and away the most outlandish hunting the german zeppelins was proving to be troublesome there was almost no warning of their approach as they traveled at night and by the time interceptors had taken off and climbed to their altitude the airships had moved on pemberton billing continuing his trend in unorthodox designs came up with the idea of a fighter that could remain in the air for the entirety of the night climbing to altitude at dusk performing its patrols and then landing at dawn because of this long endurance requirement a large amount of fuel was needed which itself meant that the aircraft on a hull was going to be pretty big with four wings two austro-daimler engines and looks only a mother could love it was certainly an interesting design it was to have a crew of three a pilot observer and gunner and it was expected to have a flight endurance of 10 hours the pb 29e was known in-house as the night fighter and it apparently flew for the first time in essex on the 16th of january 1916. i say apparently as the only actual evidence of this was a reference to the flight that billing made in a speech during the mile end by-election later flights certainly took place and it was flown by several pilots of the fleet air arm to evaluate its performance but said performance is difficult to determine as the pb-29 was then destroyed in an accident several weeks later this was not the end of the project though the admiralty maintained enough interest in this lumbering zeppelin hunter to justify further development and so when the company had been reorganized as supermarine work began on an improved version known as the pb31e one of the company's new designers a young man by the name of reginald j mitchell took billing's early design for an improved pb-29 and modified them further mitchell would go on to design several of supermarine's best aircraft including the spitfire but all of that was still ahead of him and it could be felt that this was given to him because he was the new boy the quadriplane wings and by plane tail were retained but the whole structure was significantly strengthened the fuselage and cabin was almost completely redesigned from the ground up and the austro-daimler engines which were installed as pushers were now replaced by 110 horsepower 10-cylinder anzani tractors known as the supermarine nighthawk it was not the most visually appealing plane ever made in fact it took number one spot in a video that i did which covered the ugliest aircraft ever made in britain but despite being a visual horror it was an overall improvement not only did it have better engines and a sturdier airframe but its firepower was increased the main weapon was now a one and a half pounder recoilless davis gun mounted in the main gunner station and this was complemented by a lowest gun in the nose and another mounted in the rear the nighthawk also featured some novelties which had yet to make their way into aircraft thus far the first was the provision of a bunk in the pilot's cabin the nighthawk came with two pilots and each would take turns resting during their bumpy 10-hour patrols the second was the installation of a small searchlight mounted on gimbals in the nose this was not only useful for illuminating enemy airships but also for takeoff and landing at night a perilous affair in something that more resembled a flying tower block rather than an actual aircraft despite being generally underpowered the anzani engines allowed a maximum speed of 75 miles an hour although the usual patrol speed was 60 and a positively sedate landing speed of just 35 miles an hour was usual despite all the work put into this ill-looking project the nighthawk would never get a chance to do its job it was tested several times by the navy beginning in february 1917 and a second model had been ordered but this order was cancelled a month later and no production orders ever came this is mostly because conventional interceptors were now achieving the performance required to effectively hunt and engage zeppelins rendering the nighthawk completely useless following the nighthawk we come to an odd period of supermarine history immediately after the departure of pemberton billing the company needed to secure work and this came in the form of aircraft designs from the admiralty air department the two aircraft that were contracted to supermarine were the ad boat and the ad navy plane work on the ad boat had begun during pemberton billings time and the two prototypes were in the middle of their flight tests when the company changed to supermarine like many of the earliest flying boats and these were among the first they were plagued with hydrodynamic problems it suffered from chronic purposing on takeoff and it had some truly alarming your defects to get up safely it had to be initially pointed downwind and then as the speed rose it had to be gradually turned into the wind this turned out to be the result of the rudder and fins being too small which meant that control at slow speeds pointing into the wind was presumptively optimistic eventually the kinks in the design of the hull placement of the engines etc was worked out but by this point it was late in 1917 and they were effectively obsolete designers at both supermarine and the air department had learned valuable lessons though and these lessons in particular would help supermarine achieve fame in the not-too-distant future additionally though their time at the military had passed the ad boat would continue to see use with supermarine in the civil sector but before those are covered there are two other aircraft that need mentioning the ad navy plane was originally an admiralty design but it was given the supermarine to complete as the detailed design work and all of the construction was done by them it can probably be considered a supermarine aircraft more than an aberralty one it was completed as a two bay biplane accommodating a crew of two its lightweight nacelle was fitted with a lewis gun and it came with a wireless radio to avoid the prop wash which often interfered with tail control the tail plane was raised up as far as possible it was completed with pontoon floats though there were originally plans to use those developed by linton hope but the earlier models had proved to be unstable and the admiralty preferred their men and equipment to not sink the navy plane was intended for reconnaissance and bombing duties because of this the central part of the nose was glazed over with this extending underneath the front pilot seat and this provided excellent views for both reconnaissance and bomb aiming unfortunately the navy plane would never get to test this feature in action as it never made it to production it had been equipped with the infamous smith static radial engine which had also powered the twin black burn that i covered in an earlier video and it was woefully underpowered because of this only the first prototype was completed it was refitted with a radial engine built by bentley in a hope of salvaging the design but this also proved to be a disappointment air cooled radials were still proving to be a challenge to get right at this time despite their advantages in saving space and weight and converting the navy plane to a liquid-cooled engine required too much work and so the design was eventually abandoned later on an improved version of the navy plane was attempted as the so-called supermarine patrol seaplane this was intended as a potential replacement for the short 184 which didn't really need replacing as it was performing perfectly fine but the navy was looking for one anyway it was to have occur of two be capable of carrying four 100 pound bombs wireless equipment signal gear and a handful of carrier pigeons contracts were placed for the design to be built by supermarine phoenix and shorts but one by one these were all cancelled not only had the navy realized that this replacement was totally unnecessary but supermarine were busy working on a far more promising project of all their early designs the adorably named supermarine n1b baby is perhaps the most important the sopwith baby also built by ferry had been the navy's main single seat fighter since 1915 but by the end of 1917 it was getting a bit long in the tooth to address this the air department issued specification n1b this called for a single seat fighter that had to be either built as a float plane or a flying boat it had to be able to be launched from a ship if needed it had to have a top speed of 109 miles an hour at 10 000 feet and a maximum ceiling of 20 000 feet which was a huge ask when the reliability of most engines at the time could be best described as dubious the task of designing this new machine fell to supermarine's chief designer fj hargreaves assisted by rj mitchell who had worked on the nighthawk and the navy plane he designed and built the first single-seat flying boat to be operated by the united kingdom whereas every previous designer flying boat had some sort of major unforeseen drawback the supermarine baby was the first where everything seemed to mostly work straight away its hull was the tried and tested design by linton hope who had built previous bodies for both pemberton billing and supermarine by now the previous problems with purposing had been mostly overcome and its redesigned step allowed it to get onto the water plane and stay on it much easier following experiences with the ad boats an inverted camber tail plane was chosen being mounted above the single fin and rudder with a smaller fin on top this was done to address the issue of lateral control at low speeds the single bay wings were robust and could be folded backwards for easy storage aboard a ship initially ailerons were fitted to the upper wings only but they would later be installed on the lower wings as well propelling it through the water and then the air was a four blade propeller driven by a powerful 150 horsepower liquid called hispano swiss v8 when it first flew in february of 1918 the baby exceeded expectations by achieving 117 miles an hour at sea level making it both the smallest and the fastest flying boat in the world in the air it was considered almost voiceless pilots praising both its speed and handling and on the sea the only real problem was a tendency to ship water the engine and propeller were positioned to minimize the effect of spray during takeoff but hargreaves had underestimated the aircraft's capacity for acceleration which forced the nose down and thus forced water up which rather quickly exposed a major drawback of the open cockpit when sitting upon a body of water but aside from this issue the baby was well received to deal with the water problem hargreaves drew up six different design modifications to the hull and while these were being reviewed they also upgraded to a 200 horsepower sunbeam arab engine with 33 more power the aircraft was not only faster but it was deemed powerful enough to safely complete aerobatic maneuvers and later on that year the baby became the first flying boat to complete an inverted loop despite its impressiveness and the placing of a production contract the aircraft was never put into service with just one example being built this was the result of two things one the royal naval air service was now capable of launching aircraft from ships utilizing sop with pups aboard early aircraft carriers as well as launching them from battleships and cruisers that had been re-equipped with specialized platforms two by the time work was underway on the first production models the war was over and there was little need for them though they would never be flown the design modifications to the second and third aircraft would be found in several successive supermarine designs some of these would achieve fame for themselves and the company when competing in the schneider trophy races of the 1920s though the end of the war curtailed the potential success of the supermarine baby it did lead to the success of another aircraft the supermarine channel in early 1919 the company was rapidly making plans to enter the commercial markets the plan was to establish coastal flowing services both for tourism and commercial use around the southern coast and the isle of wight the now surplus a.d flying boats were
chosen as the best aircraft for this task they were already built they were now thoroughly reliable thanks to multiple modifications and the admiralty was keen to offload them 1080 boats were purchased from the navy and as early as february the first drawings for their design conversions were already being produced the conversion involved the installation of a second cockpit just forward of the wings the replacement of the 200 horsepower hispano sweezer engine with a 160 horsepower beardmore model though less powerful they were more reliable and more readily available and the fitting of a water rudder to improve low speed water handling with the additional cockpit the aircraft could be used as a dual control 3c trainer at coastal flying schools or with some slight modifications it could be used as a four seat passenger aircraft the latter would turn out to be the most common of the 10 ad boats that were purchased five were intended for active service with the others held in reserve this was to allow servicing and overhauls to be carried out without the flying service itself being affected in terms of delays or cancelled flights in 1920 when all design drawings were changed from admiralty to supermarine nomenclature the name channel was selected seeing as it was those waters in which it would operate but by this point the aircraft had already been in service for over half a year as soon as the first certificate of airworthiness was granted which was july 23rd 1919 supermarine began using the channels for joy flights and they also set up their first passenger service running from southampton to bournemouth things developed quickly after this and by the end of 1921 the channels were operating multiple routes both domestically and abroad to cover their entire use and history is well beyond the scope of this video but i will quickly cover it in a general sense to give an impression of just how much these aircraft achieved in a relatively short time in august 1919 they began operating a service between the mainland and the isle of wight often carrying prominent officials members of parliament or private passengers that same month another channel was used to supply petrol to the ventino motorboat service the first time fuel had been transported commercially by air one of the channels was also used by supermarine managing director hubert scott payne as a personal transport during the 1919 schneider cup the british railway strike of 1919 which began in september provided even more opportunities for the company the southern daily echo which was based in southampton hired a channel to transport their newspapers to bournemouth the flight took 43 minutes which by today's standards puts it on par with travelling by car but for 1919 this was a blistering pace and did much to display the potential for commercial aircraft scott payne further capitalized on the strikes when the cross channel steam packets also joined the industrial action he quickly established the first international air route for flying boats selecting two channels to fly the route between woolston and lahave this required crossing just over 100 miles of sea on a daily basis easy enough my ship but regular channel crossings by air was still uncommon and it created quite the sensation the cross channel wrote was inaugurated on the 28th of september and although the strike ended just a week later on the 5th of october the channels had made quite the impression scott payne had been adamant about operating the service in all weather conditions keen to dispel the doubts that commercial aircraft were unreliable in poor weather this led to the channel flying its service during a roaring gale on the third day of operations carrying a naval officer and a belgian banker through a storm that varied between driving rain freezing sleet and painful hail the gale was so severe that the wind at times reached over 100 miles an hour resulting in a channel crossing that took over five hours to complete but it was completed safely and both the aircraft and its passengers arrived in france cold but completely unharmed the channels quickly found service overseas they were operated in bermuda chile japan norway and venezuela some of these were operated as commercial transports carrying passengers mail or both but others were ordered as military aircraft along with ordering a trio of channels for commercial use norway ordered four more to be used as naval seaplanes little is known of their operational history one of the first was delivered as a 3c training model and another was used for a postal service but it is clearly evidenced that they were not happy with the beardmore engines they re-equipped two of their channels with the more powerful 250 horsepower silly puma a configuration which had been contemplated back in england but not settled upon however upon reviewing the improved performance of the puma equipped channels which boasted a top speed of 92 miles an hour supermarine also started to use the engine and these aircraft were known as the channel mark ii among two channels were purchased by the imperial japanese navy who ordered a trio in march 1921 and another was bought by the royal swedish navy a short time later the last channel to be built was delivered to chile in 1922. ostensibly designed as a three-seat mark 1 it featured a completely different hull design that was more in line with the recently developed super marine seagull but for whatever reason it was officially listed on record as a mark ii channel and entered operations with the chilean naval air service despite their successes in the commercial air routes most of the channel services were stopped by the end of 1921. many businesses and politicians had yet to be convinced of the viability of commercial air travel particularly flying boats and though this mood would be reversed in a few short years the interest was not yet strong enough for the channels to be a commercial success there were also some highly influential people who had large investments in rail and shipping and their lobbying led to such a high surcharge for airmail that it was just as affordable to simply pay for a telegram the air ministry was aware of this situation indeed 1919 to 1921 could be considered the battleground years where aircraft manufacturers the world over were fighting for their very survival to encourage the development of commercial aircraft and to show the public there was long-standing government interest in aviation they announced two development competitions in 1920 one was for land planes and the other was for seaplane amphibians and this is where the inventively named supermarine commercial amphibian comes in the requirements in the competition were as numerous as they were specific each aircraft had to carry at least two passengers airframes and engines must be fully designed and built in the british empire the aircraft must remain buoyant if a section of the hull or floats is perforated the aircraft must cover a range of 350 miles at no less than 70 knots at 1 000 feet carrying a useful load of 500 pounds and there were also numerous requirements for self-controlled flights meaning the pilots had to take their hands and feet from the controls and the aircraft was expected to fly safely for a set period of time and distance both with and without engine power three companies submitted aircraft for this competition fairy supermarine and vickers the commercial amphibian was designed and constructed in a hurry the company being so busy with the channels that the competition caught them off guard the hull followed the now well established at linton hope designs with two skins of mahogany the inner laid diagonally and the other longitudinally the whole lot was then covered in doped fabric and this was then finished in the usual varnishing polish used in boat building the unequal span wings were non-folding with ailerons fitted to both and a rotatable tail skid was installed which could also serve as a rudder the amphibious undercarriage was a simple pair of steel structures hinged under the wings and the engine selected was the 350 horsepower v12 rolls royce eagle this made the aircraft the least powerful of the competition but super marine designer rj mitchell was still confident of success owing to the robust build quality of his design after all he wasn't building a racer for speed he was building a transport for safety and economy unfortunately for mitchell the lack of power proved to be their undoing the commercial amphibian completed all of the required tests self-controlled flights unpowered flights low and high power water trials high and low speed aerial trials and mooring and poor weather exercises throughout the whole of these trials no adjustments repairs or replacements had to be made and it was the only aircraft to complete all of the assigned tasks the amphibious undercarriage was particularly praised with both vicars and fairy having issues with theirs and the layout of the flight equipment within the hull was considered to be the most sensible but and this was a big one the supermarine was considerably slower than the competition and this hurt the score when it came to overall flight performance and fuel efficiency both the vickers and the fairy aircraft had the more powerful 12-cylinder napier lion which put out 100 horsepower more than the rolls-royce eagle because of this the vicar's viking would win the air ministries competition supermarine would come second but the ministry had been so impressed with their design that they doubled the consolation prize to eight thousand pounds which today would equate to about a quarter of a million pounds though the buying power would be even greater still this certainly took the sting out of the defeat and rj mitchell had plans to improve upon the design of the commercial amphibian unhappily these were never realized as it was crashed just a month after the competition instead of building a second a development of the commercial amphibian was decided upon instead and this leads us to the last aircraft of today's video the supermarine sea eagle the sea eagle was a response to a rumor that government was considering an official and permanent air route between southampton and the channel islands rj mitchell began design work on this upgraded amphibian in march of 1922 adding the provision for folding wings an enclosed ford cabin for passengers and improved mountings for an uprated version of the rolls-royce eagle by june of 1922 when the air ministry approved air routes between england france and the channel islands mitchell had further consolidated his design it would now carry six passengers in the enclosed cabin with the pilot and mechanic in a raised cockpit for the aft and the engine was now confirmed to be the rolls-royce eagle 9 putting out 360 horsepower while construction of the prototype was underway super marine and southern railway who owned the southampton docks formed a subsidiary the british marine air navigation company at super marine's woolstone facility they established britain's first commercial flying boats terminal and the air ministry agreed to pay them a subsidy to purchase three sea eagles and spares to operate the new air routes when completed the sea eagle was first flown in june of 1923 by ex-rnas pilot henry beard i apologize if that's pronounced incorrectly he was born in england but his father was french and some sources have his name as henry baird and others as henry beard and i've decided to go with the latter before beginning commercial services he entered the sea eagle in the 1923 king's cup air race the aircraft did better than expected being virtually untested and it came in third place it also ran for a remarkable amount of time at full power biad's average speed for the race was 91 miles an hour and the sea eagle only had a top speed of 93 following the race the sea eagle gained an unexpected but powerful admirer on the 5th of august sir sefton branca director of civil aviation in the air ministry visited the wolston works and was offered to go for a flight in supermarine's new aircraft along with five other passengers he was taken for water demonstrations of its seaworthiness darting between the various moored ships in cows road the sea eagle then took off circled the royal yacht and its guard ship hms byram and returned to wallston about an hour later so septum was impressed by both the performance and the comfort offered by the sea eagle not only did it provide a smooth and relatively quiet flight but the placement of the engine meant that oil and fumes did not enter the cabin and the passengers were provided with wonderful forward views he would spend the rest of the decade encouraging public interest in civil aviation and his often preferential treatment towards flying boats can be attributed to his initial experience aboard the sea eagle unfortunately he would perish in the disastrous maiden voyage of the r101 in 1930.
sea eagles began regular service between southampton and the channel islands on the 25th of september 1923. due to constant nitpicking by customs authorities who insisted on things being as clear and understandable as possible to passengers workers at wolston in a mild half had painted the word airport on the roof of their shed in large lettering apparently the concept of an aerial port was difficult for some to understand though this may have been a large case of sarcasm as the sea ramps and aircraft facilities made its function abundantly clear it is perhaps the first recorded use of the word airport in the way that we use it today by the end of november over 180 passengers had been carried between the channel islands and the mainland but the service to france was never established this was partly due to a breakdown in negotiations with the french ports and partly due to a reduction of government subsidies which reduced the number of sea eagles that could be built and maintained the channel island service ran smoothly throughout 1923 and into 1924 but although they were successful a lack of orders was not generating supermarine the money it needed scott payne its managing director was becoming more and more involved with the affairs of supermarine subsidiary british marine air rather than the company itself this led to conflict with supermarine's other director james bird who eventually convinced scott payne to sell his share of the company not long after this british marine air would merge with hanley page transport and the instant airline to form imperial airways scott payne became one of the new directors and it was a position he would hold until 1939 two of the three sea eagles would resume service under this new banner but the original was crashed on the 21st of may and was written off their time under imperial airways was short-lived the service ran for about a year before being suspended in the summer of 1925. by now more advanced flying boats were coming onto the field not only by supermarine but ones built by blackburn and shaw brothers both of whom had invested into large aircraft while supermarine had slackened under scott payne the sea eagles got a second win in 1926 as the demand for seaplanes outstripped the supply but the third was accidentally rammed and sunk at its moorings in january 1927 leaving just the second to carry on this it did until 1928 when it was finally retired in favour of the short calcutta it was an inglorious end to what had been the instigator of the first long-term regular air service in britain though the air route itself would be terminated in 1929 others would take its place and between 1924 and 1928 the sea eagle had fully demonstrated that commercial air travel in britain was not only viable but it was safe and economical now those of you who are more knowledgeable on supermarine aircraft may have noticed this video is not fully complete there were a few aircraft developed before or during the time of the sea eagle that i have not yet mentioned such as the sea king with the sea lion and the seal to name a few that is because these aircraft are ones that are best remembered for their participation in the schneider trophy races that is a topic that is definitely getting its own video and in that i'll be discussing the aircraft that took part in the various races in all honesty that will probably be a multi-part video because it's a pretty extensive topic i don't have an eta for when that would even be out i've done some preliminary work on it but there is just so much more research to do and i've got a bunch of other long videos that i started planning before it but rest assured it is coming however this does mark the end of today's video covering the early days of supermarine aircraft as always thank you all so much for watching and a big thank you of course to the patrons especially those who voted on today's video and a big shout out to the wing commanders the senior officers of this special group apologies if i missed anyone this week the new video schedule means that i have to record further ahead of time but you'll get a mention in the next one if i've missed anyone from this week and hopefully my voice wasn't too bad i'm still dealing with this long coveted crap and it's thoroughly exhausting just send me a new pair of lungs please alright thank you all so much for watching and i will catch you all next time goodbye
2022-09-16 21:27
