Saben Hart flying boats
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Model of the Saben-Hart flying boat freighter concept is depicted with a Vickers Viscount 800 for scale.
Source: http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1957/1957%20-%201707.html
The Saben-Hart flying boat freighter concept has a wingspan of 476 ft and loading doors forward and under the rudder. Gross weight would be 3 million pounds with a 1 million pound payload. A 1,800 passenger variant was considered.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1957/1957%20-%201760.html
The smaller Saben-Hart flying boat airliner concept has a 325 foot wingspan and has a skate-type hull powered by very large turbojets.
Source:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1957/1957%20-%201760.html
Anyone know anything more about this forum other than the fact that the it was proposed around the same time as the Saunders Roe Princess and that it was a design study by the engineering consultancy firm of Saben, Hart & Partners.
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This thread really should be moved to Theoretical and Speculative, as a quick reading of the article in Flight would make clear.
Saben, Hart and Partners (Group) were an engineering consultancy based in London but with numerous subsidiary companies located throughout the country. I can find no record of the formation of the parent company, or of who Saben and Hart were, but in 1956 it had come close to being wound up. However they kept going and launched an aircraft subsidiary in Bournemouth, employing a director recruited from Airspeed and P.W.Parish as chief designer. I do not know anything about Parish’s previous employment. The two flying boats in the article were the work of R.B.Cullum and I can find not information on his previous employment either.
The two flying boats are purely speculative. The freighter was an idea based on the suggestion that an aircraft for the bulk carriage of freight may be required by the late 1960s or early 1970s. It was to be powered by turbo-props of a size that was greater than any then under development. There is no indication of the expected market for the jet-powered passenger carrier. It is worth noting that neither aircraft was to be fitted with windows, to simplify construction, and that both would have a structure constructed using dimpled alloy sheeting developed by the German company Callotan. There is no connection whatsoever with the Saro Princess, for which a specification had been issued ten years earlier, nor, as far as can be seen, with the Saro P192 project drawn up in association with the shipping line P&O
Both designs were little more than sketches and no wind tunnel or water tank evaluation had taken place. It was estimated that six men working for 18 months would be required to bring the designs up to a standard where they could be presented as true projects to potential customers and aircraft constructors. All in all they were just ideas intended to raise interest in the press to promote the company, which they did. However no one was in interested financing any further work, which is hardly surprising.
The various Saben Hart and Partners companies began to be wound up through 1958 to 1961. The parent company, at least on paper, managed to continue until 1972
Done, thank you !
Saben, Hart and Partners (Group) were an engineering consultancy based in London but with numerous subsidiary companies located throughout the country. I can find no record of the formation of the parent company, or of who Saben and Hart were, but in 1956 it had come close to being wound up. However they kept going and launched an aircraft subsidiary in Bournemouth, employing a director recruited from Airspeed and P.W.Parish as chief designer. I do not know anything about Parish’s previous employment. The two flying boats in the article were the work of R.B.Cullum and I can find not information on his previous employment either.
The two flying boats are purely speculative. The freighter was an idea based on the suggestion that an aircraft for the bulk carriage of freight may be required by the late 1960s or early 1970s. It was to be powered by turbo-props of a size that was greater than any then under development. There is no indication of the expected market for the jet-powered passenger carrier. It is worth noting that neither aircraft was to be fitted with windows, to simplify construction, and that both would have a structure constructed using dimpled alloy sheeting developed by the German company Callotan. There is no connection whatsoever with the Saro Princess, for which a specification had been issued ten years earlier, nor, as far as can be seen, with the Saro P192 project drawn up in association with the shipping line P&O
Both designs were little more than sketches and no wind tunnel or water tank evaluation had taken place. It was estimated that six men working for 18 months would be required to bring the designs up to a standard where they could be presented as true projects to potential customers and aircraft constructors. All in all they were just ideas intended to raise interest in the press to promote the company, which they did. However no one was in interested financing any further work, which is hardly surprising.
The various Saben Hart and Partners companies began to be wound up through 1958 to 1961. The parent company, at least on paper, managed to continue until 1972
Done, thank you !
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Saben, Hart & Partners are tough to track but they did a minor connection with the Saunders Roe Princess. Indeed Saben, Hart seems to have had a minor finger in lots of bigger pies -- aviation, nuclear power, architecture, etc. BTW, a Raymond Hart is mentioned as a director of Saben, Hart & Partners in a 17 Nov 1957 article in the Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/123531388/
And then there's this snippet:
"... to join a firm of consulting engineers, Saben Hart and Partners in 1951 as a Senior Draughtsman. The company had a contract with Saunders Roe and my first job found me working on their SR 53 fighter and Princess flying boat, both were later cancelled. I was then transferred to work on the new Aden aircraft gun. I had enjoyed the work and was disappointed when the company closed in 1954, due to lack of orders, leaving me unemployed."
Alan Mann, Some of my Teenage Memories, pp.14-15
http://www.memoriesofwar.org.uk/documents/Some_of_my_teenage_memories.pdf
Since P.W. Parish, AFRAeS, joined the Saben, Hart aircraft division in Bournemouth in mid-1956, this part of the firm seems to have popped in an out of existence until 1958. https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1956/1956%20-%200543.PDF
The London Gazette, 23 Sept 1958, pg.5852
SABEN HART AND PARTNERS (RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT) LIMITED (Creditors' Voluntary Winding-up) [19 Sept 1958]
-- https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/41505/page/5852/data.pdf
Despite all that, Saben, Hart & Partners Ltd. in mentioned in Hansard (10 Dec 1962) as contractors to the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Aviation.
FWIW, a few divisions listed in The London Gazette, 30 Sept 1960:
Saben, Hart & Partners (Bournemouth) Limited
Saben, Hant & Partners (Bristol) Limited
Saben, Hart & Partners (Coventry) Limited
Saben, Hart & Partners (Glasgow) Limited
Saben, Hart & Partners (Portsmouth) Limited
And then there's this snippet:
"... to join a firm of consulting engineers, Saben Hart and Partners in 1951 as a Senior Draughtsman. The company had a contract with Saunders Roe and my first job found me working on their SR 53 fighter and Princess flying boat, both were later cancelled. I was then transferred to work on the new Aden aircraft gun. I had enjoyed the work and was disappointed when the company closed in 1954, due to lack of orders, leaving me unemployed."
Alan Mann, Some of my Teenage Memories, pp.14-15
http://www.memoriesofwar.org.uk/documents/Some_of_my_teenage_memories.pdf
Since P.W. Parish, AFRAeS, joined the Saben, Hart aircraft division in Bournemouth in mid-1956, this part of the firm seems to have popped in an out of existence until 1958. https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1956/1956%20-%200543.PDF
The London Gazette, 23 Sept 1958, pg.5852
SABEN HART AND PARTNERS (RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT) LIMITED (Creditors' Voluntary Winding-up) [19 Sept 1958]
-- https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/41505/page/5852/data.pdf
Despite all that, Saben, Hart & Partners Ltd. in mentioned in Hansard (10 Dec 1962) as contractors to the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Aviation.
FWIW, a few divisions listed in The London Gazette, 30 Sept 1960:
Saben, Hart & Partners (Bournemouth) Limited
Saben, Hant & Partners (Bristol) Limited
Saben, Hart & Partners (Coventry) Limited
Saben, Hart & Partners (Glasgow) Limited
Saben, Hart & Partners (Portsmouth) Limited
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Thanks. London Gazette was as far as I got tracking them down too. Did you have any luck finding Cullum or Parish?
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I got absolutely nowhere in searches for R.B. Cullum, P.W. Parish, or Raymond Hart. The latter is a really common name (incl. an Air Marshall and a Commodore ... both retiring too late to be the right person). Overall, Saben, Hart & Partners are a really frustrating group to try to track
