Short Sandringham

what is it?

The Short S.25 Sandringham is a British civilian flying boat designed and originally produced by Short Brothers. They were produced as conversions of the widely used Short Sunderland, a military flying boat that was commonly used as a maritime patrol aircraft. Prior to the Sandringham, numerous Sunderlands which had been built for the Royal Air Force (RAF) had been converted to a civilian configuration as early as 1942 to fulfil a requirement of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) for additional long range airliners.

🔎How to recognise it: 4 piston engines with propellers · 34.4 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 331 km/htop speed
• seats 22passengers
• size 27.2 tmax take-off weight

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 83 years ago, in 1943.
• 🏎️Top speed is 2.5× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 34.4 m: about 8 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 5 African elephants (~6 t each).

piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.

spec sheet

first flight

1943-01

introduced

1943

retired

1974

status

retired

number built

—

role

civil flying boat

origin

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

makers

Short Brothers

engines

4× Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92D Twin Wasp / -90B

crew

5

passengers

22

length

26.3 m

wingspan

34.4 m

height

7 m

max take-off weight

27.2 t

top speed

331 km/h

cruise speed

283 km/h

range

—

ceiling

5,456 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.

family