Saunders-Roe Princess Flying Boats

[DH82TigerGuy]

Bomberguy, I noticed that the Saro A1, described as the world's first jet flying boat fighter, is mentioned in this clip. Have you any footage of it?

[McLarenMercedes]

Since airstrips made for heavy bombers were getting increasingly common in WW2 and paved runways made with comparatively little effort, I don't see how they thought the glory days of the flying boats in the 30's would still be true by the 1950's, especially considering the dawning of the jet airliner.

The operating costs (less fuel efficient) and service on those flying boats negated any benefit of skipping the need for paved runways and land based airports.

[frpetermark]

A parishoner of ours, the late Robert Herd AO, former RAN Chief Naval Architect, worked on the S&R Princess project, his wife, Dulcie, too, as a technical draftsman. Another deceased friend, HH the late Prince Michael Andreevitch Romanov, worked as an engineer at Ansett ANA's flying boat depot at Rose Bay, Sydney, Australia. He had been seconded to the RAAF during WWII, and so liked it here, he stayed.

[crankbv1]

Before people ridicule the flyingboats,think about this. lf someone hadn't had the guts to design,build and fly these leviathans all those years ago,where do you think the aviation industry would be today. Planes like Dornier DoX, Mars, Princess were a natural part of the developement of the aircraft we fly in today that goes far beyond commercial viability. They were the test beds for the giant air frames of today.So,next time your up there,think about that and thank god someone built them.

[peepeevagi]

And it was pushed out BY PEOPLE?! Wow.

[apache1234657]

lol handles like a jet fighter

[drmartyn]

We have the oceans, all these rivers, lakes and loughs - why not return to Flying Boats again? No maintenance needed for tarmac means less airport-tax. Just a thought....

[JBofBrisbane]

@drmartyn - Just try landing one of these at Alice Springs or Mount Isa.

[safetychoice]

It wasn't the jet age which doomed the Princess flying boat. She was no match for the Constellations and DC-7s either. Politicians are not technologically educated and invariably make the wrong decisions when it comes to technology. (I loved the guys cranking up the engines by hand. Like ancient Rome).

[TheFunkadelicFan]

@MrBEB123 You are a stupid fucking spastic. Just thought you should know.

[LedZeppQueenBeatles]

beautifal flying boat, do bad they where far to late

[twinstu50]

The Saro was a dinosaur, in many aspects, simple as that.

It was of Empire, Cairo,(Sunderland)?..

I, just wonder what migh thave been said of this aeroplane.

[pierstheoneandonly]

I stood next to one of these in the 60's at Calshot. To my kid's eyes, it looked the height of a skyscraper.

[psychoclown420]

such a shame that such an awesome plane be useless. It seems like some of the most promising designs turn out to fail. If it had been released before the war, (probably with less powerful engines) it would have been hugely successful

[ollenhauer1]

all suders princess damage? OR stay in ather lanwitches a pricess plane?

[ragemanchoo82]

3:23, what plane is that?

[TheRealNeill]

Comet

[tspcrowther]

@ragemanchoo82  I`m fairly sure its a De Havilland Comet, one of, if not the first transatlantic jet liner, the start of the end for the flying boats... It had square windows that caused the fuselage on many of them to rip apart.

[IronMountainMan1]

Pairing up the #2 through 8 engines was an act of lunacy. S-R should have taken the hint from the ill fated Heinkel 177 Grief

bomber that had coupled engines and caught fire with horrifying regularity.

This goes for the Bristol Brabazon which was another poorly designed beast.

[5515terminator]

@IronMountainMan1 Was the hughes h4 hercules (spruce goose) bigger than the Princess by much ?

[GMDLGTUK]

@IronMountainMan1

Pairing engines in this fashion made very good sense - each engine drove one element of the contra rotaing propellers through a gearbox but each had its own intake and exhaust.

The DB606 engines on the He 177 were behind each other and shared a common shaft. There were other design problems to boot. The later paired 605s were better.

[Juggernaut96K]

I would not ride on that plane.

[lOmnivoreSobriquet]

Airplanes will always need long runs for take-off and landings. It's part of the concept.

So using sea instead of costly and limited airports will allways be a sound alternative, wether rejected or adopted depending on this or that conjoncture. It wll never be "obsolete" per se, in aviation.

Already, today with the A-380 'compatibility problems' we are seeing first signs of 'huge' airports becoming... Dinosaurs...

No ?

[spider23000]

But I don't think there will ever be a revival of flying boats again. Russia has tried (eg - the Beriev BE-200) but no one to date has ordered the passenger models.

Flying boats were great in their day, but they constantly need to be hangered and treated with rust preventatives, they were heavier, slower, and had a much shorter range than their regular equivilants.

[bubblebruce]

I think it was a great idea that these planes were built to take off from the sea, obviously to save building an airport and causing outrage from hippies! It should of carried on this way!

[ViolentRunning]

They may have been intended for 200 people but these people would not have been crammed in like sheep on a jetliner... the insides of these thigs were like stately homes, not passenger compartments. If they had modern seat plans, the size of them suggests they could carry 500+ people with ease.

[edStueart]

At 1:25 you catch a glimpse of the flying-boat-jet-turbine-powere­d-fighter!

[spartanwarrior340]

ever heard of the hughes hercules its american it can carry 700 people not 200 so fuck off

[NickB1967]

But both the Hercules and the Princess were doomed by modern air travel. Flying boats were obsolete. I wonder if the Navy could have used either plane for fleet support.

[Lorkiff]

Flying boats, per se, were a dead end from the beginning. However, if you look at more modern aircraft, such as the Be-200 and the ever popular Lake Amphibians (the Colonial Skimmer, LA-4, Buccaneer, and Renegade/Sea Wolf/Sea Fury) still prove the usefulness of the Amphibian concept. After all, look how many of them are still used in remote sections of the world like Alaska, Northern Canada, and the like.

[spartanwarrior340]

the americans are great why wouldn't they be, except for obama ha

[miserableoldcunt]

such a sad sad ending.

[BazzTheBoss]

the essence of freedom!

[steve10753]

does anyone know if there any left in flying condition today?

[Hellnoir]

According to "I know you got soul" by Jeremy Clarkson, the book that made me search up the Princess just now, they were all scraped.

[spider23000]

Only one was ever built to flying condition, and clocked up 100 hours of test flights. The other 2 airframes were never fully completed. All 3 were scrapped in 1967

[mercsport]

Your,somewhat,flippant one-liner invited a response in kind.I,regrettably,fell for it.

Could we not have been spared your discourse in 'new-age' economics and Gaia theory though?

To quote from 'The Shape of the Aeroplane':"Sheltered areas of water exist all over the world and provide runways of unlimited length...there are take-off waterways within short distances of almost all the world's great cities for their waterways were the basis of their rise to greatness".

Seaplanes : the future !

[afconcorde]

dose any 1 know what happend to them???

[Lucky14970]

Yeah, they were replaced with REAL planes that take off on runways!

[mercsport]

...that cost millions of that little luxury that is hard earned : MONEY . Aside from the other complication of where to put them . Water usually comes without charge . Yes -'runways' - makes a lot of sense !

[Lucky14970]

Oh, Mr. Logic? Lets first go over the fact that money is made up worthless paper and depending on what country it is from it may also be backed by absolutely no physical worth. Ie: The former gold standard for the US$

Moving along.. WATER isn't always calm and depending on the weather it could make for very risky landings unlike A RUNWAY!! Everything comes from the earth, so "ALL" physical things on this planet are essentially free. Id appreciate it if you thought before you typed next time :)

[hoggdawn]

Using high-density bench seats, these airplanes could be used to provide cheap, affordable transportation so impovrished college kids could get to their spring break destinations.

[nzsaunders]

Excellent - how do I get a copy????

[leyburnhealeyman]

use windows explorer and real player, you can then download

[InfiniteMushroom]

Another outrageous example of Britain destroying its great legacy for the sake of its corrupt financial architecture. These magnificent flying boats should have been purchased by the Royal Navy or bartered to former Crown colonies like Canada or Australia for valuable commodities. It is a moral crime to scrap the labors of skilled workers and destroy a national legacy of industrial expertise to satisfy the petty dictates of the Exchequer.

[Alexvideoclip]

I think the problem is that they tried to do more than what was resonable.

[McTonker]

Ssssh, you'll upset the Americans because everyone knows their the best at eveything and God loves them blah blah blah don't you know young man!

[InfiniteMushroom]

Yes, and the richest Americans are fleeing their capitalist paradise for New Zealand, don't you know?

[McTonker]

Didn't know that, that's not good.

[InfiniteMushroom]

Capital flight out of the U.S. is the greatest open secret today. All the Big Boys have relocated to New Zealand, Cook Islands, private islands, Dubai, UAE, Costa Rica, select enclaves in Mexico, etc. The big hoopla over the so-called "banker bailout" is really the offshore banks robbing $8.5 trillion in broad daylight via the Treasury, with an additional $11 trillion in the pipeline. Anybody with big money, legitimate or stolen, is already out of the U.S. and maintaining only a token presence

[NickB1967]

I think it was another outrageous example of nationalised industry not paying attention to real world market conditions.

[InfiniteMushroom]

Left to itself, the "market" always sinks to the lowest common denominator. Most all technological progress has come via public funded enterprises. The private sector will DO NOTHING until the government puts its money in the pot first. I used to be a grant writer for the government and I've seen it first hand countless times.

Public enterprises are seldom profitable at the outset but, the "market" makes it profitable because the burden of raw R&D was absorbed by the government.

[bettertobealive]

"Most all technological progress has come via public funded enterprises"

This is just blatantly untrue. All mankind's great acheivments haven't come from government planning, they have come from some sort of self-interest ie greed.

[InfiniteMushroom]

Let's narrow the argument to modern times. What mankind did in ages past is irrelevant now. Greed comes to the table AFTER the government throws its blue chips in. Greed and self-interest have only brought new versions of what public funding had already begotten.

I've seen the greed, fear, and cowardice of private finance and how the Big Boys really operate. They won't invest one dollar for anything of scientific or social value until Uncle Sam or the state put their money in the pot, first.

[bettertobealive]

Stop spouting emotional nonsense and come back to me when you have a valid point.

[InfiniteMushroom]

Emotional nonsense? How can you possibly miss my point unless you're full of Austrian and Chicago School propaganda?

I've actually written multi-million dollar grant and loan packages for municipalities and NGO's that took months to compile. In the trendy spirit of "public-private partnerships", such deals involved private banks.

I stand by what I wrote 5 months ago; that goes for R&D, too. Only the most menial economic activity is done nowadays without somebody's hand in the government cheese

[chelmersteve]

Saunders Row wasn't a nationalised company!

[Starfirephoenix1]

My Uncle Les worked on designing that ..my Mum worked for SR in Benllech Anglesey.. Les Roberts worked on design in Osborne House

[Cougarjeff]

Nice job putting that together.

[ragemanchoo82]

Its unfortunate they didn't save any of them. Would have come in handy with all these wildfires...

[baldgit646]

Back in 1983 I found a newspaper under the floor boards in my first house, where in the classifieds, these three beauties were offered for sale. I wanted to keep it, the saw to it other wise. A great posting, being old fashioned, I would like to see Flying boats made compulsary, ie you fly to a land mass coast, then travel by other means.

[nagmashdriver]

Bravo, Bomberguy! Thank you for bringing the newsreels back to the average Joe with a PC and a fast connection! Keep 'em coming!

[fordlandau]

wow what a great collection of rare footage..thanks so much.. I wish they got the jet fighter flying boat going..think of what that would be like !

[richmeister1]

Wonder what did happen to them? What a waste!

Just like the Spruce Goose.....I agree....retrofit them and bring them back....

[hoggdawn]

I love flying boats! Think of all the land that could be saved if they were used! Bring 'em back! Bring 'em back, I say!

[evilintel]

Impressive, but pointless...and kind of ugly. And is it just me or does the cockpit window and double-bubble body look too much like the Stratocruiser?

[rayunseitig]

Why not use the beauties to help in fighting fire fires in Southern California???

[johnrcha]

I was an apprentice engineer at Saunders Roe and was involved in the construction of the Princess and saw her fly.Still think she or rather modern flying boats could have their place in aviation today.

[feherman86]

Very well said!!

[brosindell]

And I was the shorthand typist in the Flight Test Section when the Princess was launched, working for Bill Worner and his team of engineers. We were all very proud of this beautiful aircraft. Many people could not understand why she was not bought and put into service. What a waste!

[alexander1485]

WOW

[megashegem]

Excellent! Love the early British airplane designs.The front almost looks like a C-97.

[brosindell]

Because of the shape of the hull, the Princess was nicknamed the Double Bubble by workers when I worked at Saunders Roe. So was one popular film reader!

[NVanWendy]

What an amazing misjudgment on the part of the builder! Jetliners were coming over the horizon and they thought the old clipper/island hopper system would still, uh, fly. Magnificent, shortsighted, and kind of ugly.

[BreathDoctor]

Well, at least the Spruce Goose survives.

[peepeevagi]

Love the Jet boat at 0:54. It's a sign dude. A sign.

[Speedbird206]

The Russians and Chinese still have flying boats... and have a neat thing going with ground effect vehicles.

[Akki64]

InfiniteMushroom... please don't knock our royals, they do a great job and are generally liked here. The real parasites are opportunistic businessmen, British and foreign, who are chipping away our industry and sending work and jobs abroad to maximise their personal wealth. Think...James Dyson, Peugeot, Clarks Shoes, etc. Nationalise the bloody lot, I say!!!

[jawajawa350]

Probably the most advanced sea plane ever built. Surprising there are no sea planes now, would solve airport congestion,or building 5th terminals on villages etc.

[lasalleman]

Great video. Maybe flying boats could make

a comeback.

[Akki64]

ANewNormalcy is right about corrosion, but as flying boats are slow-movers, skin heating by friction (eg. Concorde) is no problem, so they could well be skinned with composites. I'm sure they could find many uses, civil and military, in this day and age.

[plavins1]

awesome plane

[InfiniteMushroom]

Britain was once a great leader in heavy industry, innovative products, transport, etc. The Princess would have great use today if there were surviving airworthy examples. But, what is Britain known for now? An open prison with millions of surveillance cameras, Third World cancer, homegrown punks, and a worthless parasitic royal class.

[cavalier080854]

WOW, a flying pig.

[PaulRevere000]

It may well be WAY ahead of its time! With such high density traffic in and out of commerical airports, flying boats would provide a realistic alternative since they don't require high-quality runways. They require far less development to operate from and could use commerical shipping ports and less developed airports created for flying boats.

[lesserspottedgrebe]

...agreed entirely. Indeed, noise footprints would be reduced as they would fly out over the sea.

[ANewNormalcy]

Seawater+aluminum=corrosion. Even on aircraft that only fly low over the ocean, corrosion control is a problem.

...Lorenzo

[sidewalker22]

Thanks for this vast collection of video! This is one of my favorite aircraft, since it, the Convair R3Y-1 Tradewind and Martin SeaMaster represent, in my opinion, the epitome of beautiful flying boats. I have searched for many years, looking for information on this airplane and cannot uncover much. I wonder if there is anything else out there?

[denberg2]

Well done Bomberguy...keep 'em coming

[fordroad]

The Princess Flying Boat, what a great idea and remarkable achievement. Pity wrong timing and technolgy allowed aircraft to fly higher and faster.

Economicly not viable. Shades of Hughes's Spruacce Goose. A very good posting