Saunders-Roe Princess, Duchess, P.192 and other Flying boat projects

[amsci99]

On the subject of Saunders-Roe Flying Boat Projects, would fellow enthusiasts know if the RAE library has any papers/files on the work of Henry Knowles? There is very little information on him and his work on the web, seems to be eclisped by Sydney Camm and the likes.

 

[fredgell]

Duchess 3 view - as promised - you can find a better quality view here.

http://sites.google.com/site/edgeofweb/Home/duchess/duchess%203%20view.jpg

I'm not having much joy posting images to forums at the moment - but link should work fine.

Regards

Fred

 

[Triton]

Duchess 3 view - as promised - you can find a better quality view here.

http://sites.google.com/site/edgeofweb/Home/duchess/duchess%203%20view.jpg

I'm not having much joy posting images to forums at the moment - but link should work fine.

Regards

Fred

Three-view drawing of Saunders-Roe Duchess.

 

[Barrington Bond]

From Sea To Air by Tagg & Wheeler

Combat Information Centre Princess

 

[JFC Fuller]

Fascinating, does anybody have any ideas what radars were in mind for that drawing or were they just notional?

Dont forget that the RAF were using radar equipped Wellingtons to track E-Boats and V-1 launching HE-111's during WW2.

 

[Jemiba]

Three APS 20E, as the drawing suggests ? Front and aft with an 8ft and the dorsal
one with a 20ft antenna ?

 

[JFC Fuller]

Three APS 20E, as the drawing suggests ? Front and aft with an 8ft and the dorsal
one with a 20ft antenna ?

So crazy it might be true...........that will teach me to pay attention!

 

[Abraham Gubler]

"AWACS in 1956!" They obviously never heard of the Super Constellation and the US Navy's Lockheed WV-2 Warning Stars that were flying up and down US coasts from 1954 as AEW&C (aka AWACS).

 

[Barrington Bond]

The small amount of info in the book says...

"Known as a Combat Information Centre, this was an AEW version of the Princess with extremely long range. Also suitable for adaption asa flight refuelling tanker or troop transport. 6 - 8 Bristol BE.25 turbo-props."

Regards,
Barry

 

[fredgell]

This may be of interest - a lecture given in Hamburg re Saro and Princess this June
215 pages of info.

http://www.fzt.haw-hamburg.de/pers/Scholz/dglr/hh/text_2010_06_03_SR_Princess.pdf

Enjoy

Fred

 

[foiling]

Thank you, Fred, for that amazingly detailed find - the Hamburg lecture. The Princess is such a spectacularly elegant aircraft, I truly cannot understand why we preserve some ridiculous tasteless & skilless scupltures etc in musuems & galleries and yet so many of these magnificent aircraft end up being scrapped. It is a tragedy & a disgrace. Many of the proudest & finest works of engineering & design have been lost, especially to Britain. (PS Also found the double-deck Duchess design very attractive.)

 

[Triton]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Saro P.192

Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9929278@N04/

 

[Triton]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Saro P.192

Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9929278@N04/

 

[Triton]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Three-view drawings of Saro seaplane concepts.

Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9929278@N04/page7/

 

[Triton]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Saro concepts.

Source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9929278@N04/page7/

 

[Jemiba]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Many thanks for the P.192 material, Triton, good find !
Looking for those Saro concepts (the original drawings seem to stem from
Tagg/Wheeler "From Sea To Air"), I found a drawing of another Saro concept,
I once got from lark. Unfortunately I cannot tell the source in the moment (Paul,
can you help ?) and there isn't mention of a type number. Anybody who knows
more about it ?

 

[LowObservable]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Hotel Foxtrot Sierra....

German Wikipedia site gives range as 4800 km or 2600 nm - barely Shannon to New York.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_Saro_P.192

 

[lark]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Jens,

The source of the drawing is 'Wings of Tomorrow' John W.R.Taylor and Maurice F.Allward.
The book was published by I.Allan Ltd in the very early fifties.
No type indication given .

Flight of 8 February 1951 published the same illustration without type number..

As I later found in 'Giants of the Sky' by Bill Gunston ,PSL 1991
the drawing was specially made for the book Wings of Tomorrow...

 

[robunos]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

German Wikipedia site gives range as 4800 km or 2600 nm - barely Shannon to New York.

From Putnam's 'Saunders & Saro', page 311.

"...in the 1950s... J. Dundas Heenan, a consultant engineer to... P&O... suggested that P&P were interested in... a very large 1,000 passenger flying boat with accommodation of a similar to... inter war [flying] boats. Provision for freight and mail... was also required.
The... route for this aircraft was Britain-Australia, intended stage lengths were nearly 2,000 miles, and the round trip was to last one week

Saro's response was... 670 tons all-up weight... 24 RR Conways of 18,500lbs thrust [each]...,speed 454mph at 30-40,00ft, range 1,880 miles.
Six passenger compartments were planned, for day and night use.Bars and dining rooms were included, aswere lounges and even dressing rooms.
Plans... for a flight crew of 7, with... accommodation on the lowest of five decks, and... a special office for the purser. There was to be a crew lounge and 40 cabin crew...

... main base was to be Southampton with staging points at Alexandria, Karachi, Calcutta, Singapore, Darwin, and Sydney.
The outbound journey was to take 45hrs, and the return leg 48hrs.

Gunston, in 'Giants of the Sky, quotes the range as "4,200 miles at 510mph". He also mentions a "T-Tailed version with 16 BE.25 turboprops"


cheers,
Robin.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

cheers,
Robin.

Yay, formatting!

 

[robunos]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Yay, formatting!

FAIL!!!


I could give you all sorts of excuses about being tired, or it being late, or being rubbish at typing, but the real
reason is that ever since you posted *those* pictures of the heavenly Christina over on your blog, my hand-
eye co-ordination has gone to pot....

Seriously, though, I forgot to check after posting, will fix it ASAP...


Cheers,
Robin.

 

[robunos]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Hmmmmm.....................

According to Gunston in 'Giants of the Sky',

"One, in fact, was specially dreamed up for a book, Wings of Tomorrow, by John.W.R.Taylor and Maurice Allward, in 1952.
It showed a vast flying boat, exactly like the Do214 but larger, with 8 12,550hp engines (type unknown!) arranged in push/pull
formation. The span would have been 318ft, TOW 500 tons, and the objective was to carry 300 passengers and 40 tons of cargo
to New York at 345mph (and they did mean starting from the UK). The sketch shows three super-imposed pressurised lobes in
the hull."

Now the same author's 'World Encyclopaedia of Jet Engines'gives the following,
"THe [B.E.25] Orion was flat rated at 5,150ehp to 15,000ft, sea-level power being potentially about 10,000hp."

So, 16 B.E.25 Orions mounted in 8 coupled pairs, ala Princess/Brabazon 2,....


cheers,
Robin.

 

[CNH]

There is a brochure on the Duchess flying boat in the PRO which I read years ago: DSIR 23/19266 Saunders Roe Duchess medium range transport 1950.

 

[silvereagle]

The artist 'Castle' is probably Peter Endsleigh-Castle, well known in the 50s and 60s for his 3-views and other artwork in Flying Review and Aircraft Profiles. He was an illustrator rather than a designer.

 

[Jemiba]

Thanks for the clue ! What I found about Peter Endsleigh-Castle seems
to show, that he very seldom, if at all made artwork just by pure guessing.
So this painting could have been based on some drawings from Saro,
not just an imagination.

 

[Johnbr]

I found this surfing the net.
http://www.fzt.haw-hamburg.de/pers/Scholz/dglr/hh/text_2010_06_03_SR_Princess.pdf

 

[Caravellarella]

I've always wondered what the Saunders-Roe SR.45 Princess flying-boat was for; apart from the obvious waste of time, resources and space on some prime waterfront property......

Did it ever even have a proper commercial customer?

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Grey Havoc]

I think BOAC was the intended launch customer.

 

[Caravellarella]

I think BOAC was the intended launch customer.

Poor BOAC; poor taxpayers

 

[alertken]

UK appointed the Brabazon Committee, 12/42 to address how, in Peace, UK might take on C-45, C-47, C-54, C-69 and hope to prosper. Turbines! was the obvious answer, so in 1943/44 we funded 5 Types (Transatlantic, Continental, Empire, Express and Feeder), all intended as piston Mark I, turbine Mark II. (Brabazon Committee’s small technical teams, to be) BOAC/BSAAC were confused between land- or marine types. US was building Martin Mars, France in 1939 had flown Latécoère 631, both very large boats; 18 hr. sectors were being operated by American Export Airlines’ VS-44, and by Pan Am and BOAC (3x$1-Mn.) Boeing 314A Clipper. Pre-War, Empire Trade had been policed by RAF from rivers and coaling ports; most long civil routes had been served by flying-boats: though their dynamic compromises, nor fish nor fowl, were inefficient, most destinations were littoral, their runways free. From 23/3/43 MAP owned (60% of) Short, whose S.23/30/33 Empire boats had operated all Imperial A/W long routes, 3/37-9/39. Funded without benefit of Brabazon's input were transport variants of MR Sunderland, and massive MR Short/Saro S.35 Shetland Mk.I was in prototype build It would match any civil variant of USN boats, so on RAF budget 2nd. prototype was redefined as Mk.II transport, to occupy and maybe fill Short (flew 17/9/47; failed).

Specs. were drafted in late-1945 for an even larger, turbine boat, for (to be) BSAAC, and for RAF MR. Blackburn, Short and Saro bid. Saro's 1938 MR Lerwick had failed, but Short Bros.’ Vice Chairman, (to be Sir) Arthur Gouge in ’43 became Saro Vice Chairman and Chief Executive, restoring their credibility. SR.45 won in May,1946, 6 ordered for BSAAC. The MR was tendered in 1948 to a Requirement for 80: the same 3, plus VS.524 bid. Saro won with Princess-derivative P.104. BOAC, having taken over BSAAC had kept a Princess cell intact, even after abandoning marine in 1950. Their interest in Princess was allowed to lapse in May,1954; RAF's in P.104 ceased in 1955.

 

[Triton]

SARO P.192

Source:
http://theflyingboatforum.hostingdelivered.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=794&start=10

 

[Grey Havoc]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Crosslink to Do 214 thread.

 

[Stargazer]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Contrary to what Triton indicated earlier, all the documents carrying the reference T.P.166 represent the P.192 project (it's only the reference of the document itself).

 

[Triton]

Re: Saunders-Roe marine airliner project

Contrary to what Triton indicated earlier, all the documents carrying the reference T.P.166 represent the P.192 project (it's only the reference of the document itself).

Thanks, I made the corrections.

 

[Schneiderman]

I'll put this in post-war despite the design dating from mid 1943 as it was intended for post war service.
In 1943 Saro drew up preliminary layouts for a variety of civil flying boats optimised for extreme, long and medium stage routes. Scheme V was for the extreme stage routes and was to be powered by 6 Bristol Centaurus. There was no official project number attached to the scheme.

 

[Jemiba]

Thanks for posting this one ! Merged it with an older thread.
Just a remark: Judging the size of the cockpit and passenger windows and the door behind
the cockpit, the fuselage looks considerably smaller, than that of a 200,000 lbs flying boat.

 

[Schneiderman]

Good point, perhaps the artwork is actually the long stage scheme 4

 

[Jemiba]

It reminds me of the A.37 Shrimp, the sub-scale flying model for the Shetland.

 

[Schneiderman]

It certainly does. As the A.37 had proven the design to be good it makes sense to use it as the basis for other projects.

 

[Stargazer]

Fantastic project, thanks a lot!

I'll put this in post-war despite the design dating from mid 1943 as it was intended for post war service.

Usual practice on this forum is to organize projects according to the dates they were drafted, not first flight dates or service dates... but never mind.

There was no official project number attached to the scheme.

Given the highly organized system of designation projects at Saunders-Roe — with a first "P.xxx" system starting in the mid-twenties and counting up to more than 1000 projects by 1945, and a second one from "P.100" up in 1946 — wouldn't it be a safer assertion to say that "the official project number attached to the scheme, if any, is not known"?