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Страна: Великобритания

Год: 1914

Single-engine, two-seat, two-bay biplane, twin-float reconnaissance bomber seaplane

C.Barnes Short Aircraft since 1900 (Putnam)

Short Seaplanes (1914-16): Admiralty Types 166, 827 and 830

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   The smaller seaplanes, at first known at Eastchurch as Short Type C, were more numerous than Type 166 and went farther afield. Originally they had constant-chord ailerons and a span of 52 ft 4 in, but both the span and the aileron area were increased before they were flown. They were the first to be built at Rochester seaplane works when production there began in April 1914. Salmson engines were scarce at that date, and the first eight out of Rochester had to be completed with 100 hp Gnome-Monosoupapes; somewhat misleadingly, the Admiralty called them Improved Type 74, but they were identical in design to the Salmson seaplanes except for the deeply cowled overhung engine mounting and a much smaller fixed fin. These eight (811 - 818) were all assigned to Empress, Engadine and Riviera, and 811, 814 and 815 took part in the Cuxhaven raid, flown by Edmonds, Gaskell Blackburn and Oliver respectively. 135 hp Salmsons were available for the next six off the Rochester line, and the old S.41 was rebuilt to the same standard to serve as a development prototype, still with its original serial No. 70; finally, it saw active service with No. 2 Wing, R.N.A.S., as a landplane at Imbros in 1915. Meanwhile a promising new alternative engine had come into production - the 150 hp Sunbeam V-8 water-cooled engine, later named Nubian. Its makers, John Marston & Sons Ltd of Wolverhampton, were originally bicycle manufacturers, who added motor-cars to their products early in the 20th century and soon earned a name for quality; in 1909 they engaged as chief engineer Louis Coatalen, who designed a 3-litre Sunbeam racing car which won the Coupe des Voiturettes at Dieppe in 1912. Combining two banks of the racing car engine to make a V-8 aero-engine, Coatalen installed it in a Maurice Farman, which was flown for long periods at Brooklands by Jack Alcock during the summer of 1913. Having demonstrated its reliability, it was adopted by the Admiralty, together with a V-12 development of 225 hp, for both seaplanes and airships.
   The smaller Short seaplane was readily modified to take the Sunbeam engine, and its performance was enhanced by an extra 15 hp for the same installed weight as the Salmson. After the early difficulties with the radiator on the 1913 Circuit of Britain seaplane, Horace Short had decided that only a robust unit of rectangular formation would stand up to severe vibration, so he based his design on marine condenser practice, with vertical spiral tubes assembled into flat elements arranged in four rows edge-on to the slipstream and to the pilot’s line of sight. This highly individual design remained a constant feature of Short seaplanes for several years, and has sometimes been disparaged as clumsy and unsightly, but in fact it was efficient and reliable, did not seriously interfere with the pilot’s vision and helped to keep the crew warm in winter; being located above the engine, its circulation was assisted by the natural thermosiphon effect, so that engine cooling was not wholly dependent on water-pump efficiency; in a hot climate, if (as it frequently did) the water boiled away, the cylinders remained immersed for as long as possible, and forced landings were more often averted. Introduced on 135 and 136, this block radiator was a standard unit for either the 135 hp Salmson or the 150 hp Sunbeam in one size, or for the 200 hp Salmson and 225 hp Sunbeam in a larger size. So of the remainder of the first production batch at Rochester, six (819-821 and 828-830) were built with Salmsons and were called Type 830, while 822-822 had Sunbeams and were called Type 827; 827 itself, however, was tested with both engines in turn at Rochester. Since the engine weight was less than in the 200 hp seaplane, the observer was moved forward to a point above the c.g., which also made ballast unnecessary for solo flying; the cockpit under the centre-section required a longer fuselage bay than the wing-spar pitch, so the rear struts had to be raked instead of vertical; all the wing struts were of oval-section steel tube without additional fairings and the ailerons were inversely tapered with straight trailing edges. Only one other batch of Type 830 was built, comprising 1335-1346, which followed 161-166 at Eastchurch; after war began all these seaplanes were camouflaged before being taken by road to Queenborough Pier, where they were lowered into the water by crane for flight test; this pier, built for the Queenborough-Flushing railway steamers, was commandeered by the Admiralty to avoid having to take seaplanes to Sheerness for launching.
   After satisfactory trials with 824 and 826 from H.M.S. Campania in June 1915, Type 827 was adopted for wider production, 30 (3063-3072/3093-3112) being built at Rochester, while 72 were subcontracted, 20 each to the Brush Electrical Engineering Co Ltd, Loughborough; Parnall & Sons Ltd, Bristol, and the Sunbeam Motor Car Co Ltd, Wolverhampton; also 12 to the Fairey Aviation Co Ltd, Hayes, Middlesex, a new aircraft company set up in 1915 by C. R. Fairey, who had been Short Brothers’ works manager and assistant designer at Eastchurch, after previously working there for the Blair Atholl Syndicate. These arrangements resulted from the vastly increased demand for seaplanes after war began, far beyond the combined resources of Eastchurch and Rochester, to meet which a number of Admiralty contractors without aircraft experience were asked to undertake seaplane manufacture under Short Brothers’ supervision, for which they were entitled to claim an agreed royalty after the war was over. Type 827 was the standard equipment from 1915 onwards of many R.N.A.S. coastal stations, including Grain, Calshot, Dundee, Killingholme and Great Yarmouth, for both patrol duties and training; 3063, 3064, 3106 and 3107, allotted to Grain in April 1916, were still there in the Nore Patrol Flight in April 1918. On 25 April, 1916, Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Southwold were shelled by battleships of the German High Seas Fleet, which in turn were bombed by R.N.A.S. seaplanes, including 3108 flown by Flt Sub-Lts Hall and Evans from Great Yarmouth. Three 827s were sent to Mombasa on the armed liner Laconia in July 1915 to help the monitors Severn and Mersey to destroy the Konigsberg in the Rufiji delta, but arrived too late to participate in the final action and were sent on in August to Mesopotamia; there they proved unable to take-off from the Shatt al Arab at Basra because of the heat and limited clear fairway; two were converted into landplanes and pressed into service as bombers against the Turkish advance on Kut-al-Amara in December 1915. Four more 827s equipped No. 8 Squadron R.N.A.S. when it arrived at Zanzibar on the Laconia in March 1916 and were flown from Chukwani Bay, their limited range being later increased by carrying one on board each of the three ships in the area, Laconia, Himalaya and Manica. They spotted for the guns of the monitor Severn at Lindi and reconnoitred enemy positions to assist British landings. Finally, these four (Short-built 3093-3095 and Parnall-built 8219) were handed over in March 1916 to the Belgian volunteer force opposing the Germans on Lake Tanganyika. Shipped in crates from Zanzibar to Matadi, they were transported up the Congo and overland to Lukuga (Albertville) and finally reerected on the shore of Lake Tongwe at Mtoa, whence the first seaplane was flown on 14 May, 1916; this feat was a tribute to both the endurance of the party and the relative ease of assembly of the seaplane with only the crudest of skill and facilities. In spite of their marginal performance in that climate, two of the seaplanes bombed the German lake cruiser Graf von Goetzen in harbour at Kigoma on 23 July, and three days later the town surrendered. Two more 827s, 3097 and 8218 were sent to Zanzibar as replacements for use on Manica and were supplemented by Sunbeam-built 8641-2 shipped from Grain on 29 May, 1916; 8641 was still on Manica in February 1917. Other 827s served in the Mediterranean, at Otranto and on Ben-my-Chree', Parnall-built 8251 was sent to Grain for gunnery trials as late as April 1918, no doubt for use as a target, but in October 1918 three survived at home stations and one at Otranto. They were flown also as dual-control trainers at Windermere, and at least one of these had small boat-built wing-tip floats in place of the usual air-bags.
   Single examples of both Type 827 and Type 830 were modified by R.N.A.S. stations for their own purposes. On one of the latter, whose identity has not been ascertained, the wings were modified to a constant-chord plan-form, with stiff trailing edges, parallel ailerons and elliptical wing-tips; this may have been connected with experiments on new aerofoil sections by the Admiralty Board of Invention and Research. The 827, Brush-built 8237, was more drastically altered at Calshot in 1917 and was flown with equal-span constant-chord three-bay wings, with strut-linked ailerons and wing-tip floats mounted directly on the lower surface; these features were typical of Howard T. Wright’s designs for J. Samuel White & Co of Cowes, and may have been suggested as a means of combining the best Short and Wight design features in one seaplane. The purpose of this modification seems to have been to adapt Type 827 as a trainer reproducing the handling characteristics of the Short 184.
  
Type 827 - Span 53 ft 11 in (16-4 m); length 35 ft 3 in (10 75 m); area 506 sq ft (47 m2); empty weight 2,700 lb (1,225 kg); all-up weight 3,400 lb (1,542 kg); max speed 62 mph (100 km/h); duration 3-5 hr.
Type 830 - Dimensions and area as for Type 827; empty weight 2,624 lb (1,192 kg); all-up weight 3,324 lb (1,510 kg); max speed 70 mph (113 km/h); duration 3-5 hr.


   Ten later Salmson-engined Short seaplanes, S.301-310 (9781-9790), were built at Rochester in 1916, primarily for training duties at Calshot. They were a hybrid design, with the wide-span wings and long fuselage of Type 166, and the straight-edged ailerons and forward observer’s position of Type 830. The power plant was a 140 hp single-row Dudbridge-built Salmson and the top centre-section was left open to afford easy access for slinging; the seaplane was unarmed, but carried a rack for practice bombs. The long fuselage enhanced its appearance and doubtless improved its flying qualities, but by the time this variant appeared, the earlier Short seaplanes had been almost superseded by the larger and sturdier Type 184 with 225 hp Sunbeam, which became the best-known and most numerous of all the seaplanes of the First World War.

S.301-310 - as for Type 830 except length 40 ft 7 in (12 3 m).

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Описание:

  • C.Barnes Short Aircraft since 1900 (Putnam)
  • K.Wixey Parnall Aircraft Since 1914 (Putnam)
  • F.Manson British Bomber Since 1914 (Putnam)
  • P.Lewis British Bomber since 1914 (Putnam)
  • M.Goodall, A.Tagg British Aircraft before the Great War (Schiffer)
  • J.Bruce British Aeroplanes 1914-1918 (Putnam)
  • O.Thetford British Naval Aircraft since 1912 (Putnam)
  • H.King Armament of British Aircraft (Putnam)