The Short Seamew: A camel among horses

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
08/16/2017 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, planes you've (probably) never heard of, Planelopnik

From the Planes You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of Department of Wingspan , we bring you the Short SB.6 Seamew .

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The Short SB.6 Seamew was not the only aircraft to bear the name of what most people would recognize as a common seagull. The first was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a biplane flying boat that took its first flight in 1926. Problems with handling and poor performance limited production to just two aircraft. The second was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , an aircraft that was meant to replace the earlier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Though the SO3C was built in large numbers, it too displayed poor flying characteristics and never achieved great success. Like the albatros hung around the captain’s neck in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the name Seamew continued to be a weight around the neck of lackluster aircraft, and the ungainly Short Seamew proved that the third time is not always lucky.

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By the end of WWII, maritime patrol aircraft had transitioned from merely spotting surfaced submarines to finding both surfaced and submerged U-boats with radar and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . By 1951, the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy began looking for a replacement for its aging !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which had been outfitted with detection equipment to serve in the antisubmarine warfare (ASW) role. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of Belfast responded with the Seamew, an oddly shaped aircraft that was intended to fly from both the Royal Navy’s considerable fleet of leftover WWII escort carriers and from land bases. While the Seamew would never win a beauty contest, its looks were the least of its problems.

Rather than use a piston engine, the Seamew’s designers opted for an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turboprop which provided a much smoother ride than the mighty !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine they had originally planned to use. This was important, since the pilot and observer were placed in tandem directly above the engine in a tall, narrow fuselage. This perch provided the crew with good visibility, but also placed them at a considerable distance above the ground when coupled with the long, fixed landing gear that was necessary to protect the propeller and the radar housing (the gear could be jettisoned in the event of a water landing). At at time when tricycle landing gear were becoming standard on carrier aircraft, the tail-dragger configuration seemed decidedly dated. The broad, thick wings, which could be folded for carrier storage, accommodated a wide assortment of sono buoys, bombs, depth charges or a single torpedo.

Like its ill-fated namesakes, the Seamew proved to be quite difficult to fly. Only one pilot, Short test pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was capable of getting the most out of the awkward aircraft, and he was killed in a crash while demonstrating the Seamew at an airshow in 1956. Despite efforts to improve the handling by modifying the wings and tail structures, the Seamew remained a handful. In the end, shifting priorities in defense expenditures and a reassessment of the need for a slow ASW aircraft in favor of helicopters meant that the Seamew was only produced in small numbers. Just 26 were built, and all were retired just four years after the Seamew’s maiden flight. The aircraft were scrapped, and all that remains of the Seamew is a single engine preserved by the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust.

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More Aircraft Also-Rans

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If you enjoy these posts, please join in the conversation and let me know. If you missed an episode, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Other aircraft also-rans can be found at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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DISCUSSION (12)

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn
08/16/2017 at 12:39

Yep. That’s a weird one I’ve never seen before.

CKeffer > ttyymmnn
08/16/2017 at 13:00

Man that thing is so ugly, it’s one of the few that may be up there in ugliness with the Super Guppy, and Nimrod AEW3.

ttyymmnn > CKeffer
08/16/2017 at 13:31

The fuselage reminded me of the Transavia Airtruk, another plane where the pilot sat directly above the engine.

Kinja'd!!!

CKeffer > ttyymmnn
08/16/2017 at 13:36

Yeah I can definitely see the awkward looking resemblance. Also, is that a passenger compartment at the back below the cockpit? Such a strange looking design.

ttyymmnn > CKeffer
08/16/2017 at 13:44

The Airtruk could be used for passengers, cargo, or ag chemicals. The PL-12 pictured above was an updated version of the original Bennett Airtruck, which was built from parts scavenged from the North American Harvard (T-6 Texan).

Kinja'd!!!

CKeffer > ttyymmnn
08/16/2017 at 13:51

Very cool! Thanks!

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn
08/16/2017 at 18:23

Nice! Another one I’ve never heard of.

And the Short Brothers clearly never cared one bit about making airplanes pretty, did they?

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW
08/16/2017 at 20:46

Well, they certainly made some that were by no means lookers, but they have a very interesting history. They made a name for themselves with large flying boats, and produced the Stirling , the largest strategic bomber flown by the RAF. And they did a lot of important research work. Check out some of their a/c here . In clicking through this list, I found more than a couple to write about in the future.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > WilliamsSW
08/17/2017 at 05:29

C’mon, tell me this ain’t one beautiful old gunboat

Kinja'd!!!

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > CKeffer
08/17/2017 at 05:35

Look at the size of the cockpit relative to the rest of the fuselage to get a sense of scale, then consider that these things took 5 passengers.

I’m pretty sure they had to run them through a chipper and pour them into the hopper.

WilliamsSW > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
08/17/2017 at 07:47

They did make some pretty flying boats in the 1930s - seems to be the only exception I’ve seen, though.

The Canberra doesn’t count - that’s a stunning airplane, but not their design.

CKeffer > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
08/17/2017 at 10:39

Midgets they transported nothing but midgets, it’s the only logical answer.