Aeroplane September 2017

AEROPLANE SEPTEMBER 2017 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com 33

SARO JET FLYING BOATS

A period illustration by Saunders-Roe of

the planned P131, or Duchess. AEROPLANE

Neither of Saunders-Roe’s two commercial jet flying boat

projects, the P131 and P192, saw the light of day — but the

concepts in themselves were impressive WORDS: RICHARD PAYNE

BRITISH AIRLINERS: PROJECT CANCELLED

BRITISH AIRLINERS:

PROJECT CANCELLED

A

fter the Second World

War, the future of British

flying boats looked bleak.

However, while Blackburn

and Short Brothers turned their

attentions mostly towards landplanes,

Saunders-Roe continued to persevere

with major new flying boat projects.

Henry Knowler had been the Saro

chief designer since 1927, having

previously worked at English Electric

and Vickers. By the time he retired in

1957 he was acknowledged as one of

the leading names in marine aircraft.

In the post-war period his team’s

creations included a new single-seat

jet fighter flying boat, the SRA/1, and

a 100-plus-seater turboprop passenger

airliner, the Princess.

Plans had been proposed for the

Princess to operate on the South

Atlantic routes of British South

American Airways (BSAA), for

which seven may have been procured.

However in March 1951 the Secretary

of State for Air Arthur Henderson

announced that BOAC, which had

absorbed BSAA, would not be using

the type. The reason was obvious.

On the Australia run, the Short

Solent flying boats the airline was

using would take 10-and-a-half days,

whereas the Lockheed Constellation

landplane took just four-and-a-half.

By the time the Princess took to

the air for the first time on 22 August

1952, its fate was sealed. Two further

aircraft under construction at Cowes

were not fully completed and instead

towed to join the sole flyer at Calshot.

There they were cocooned until the

last was broken up in 1967, despite a

multitude of projects to put them into

service.

Surprisingly, given all this

negativity and the lack of potential

orders for such aircraft, Saunders-

Roe unveiled two further flying boat

airliner projects during the 1950s —

both powered by jet engines.

The last aircraft to be penned by

Henry Knowler was the beautiful

P131 or Duchess, a 500mph, six-de

Havilland Ghost-powered jetliner

employing the most advanced

aerodynamics. Details were

announced in Flight magazine during

May 1950, the project being offered

to Tasman Empire Airways Ltd

(TEAL) to operate between Australia

and New Zealand. In a manner very

similar to the DH106 Comet, the six

engines were installed in the wing,

which, unusually, was mounted above

the hull. As with the Princess, the

lateral stabilising floats retracted to

lie within the wingtips.

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