A cup of tea and a pipe, or flying the Short Sunderland

dhfan · **Posted:** Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:54 pm

James, is that colour photograph really blue and green? I thought I'd heard, if only in passing, of most RAF type camouflage schemes but that's a new one to me.

Canso42 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:08 pm

I believe it would have been 'Sea Gray' and medium Gray Green like on the Cansos and Catalinas.
Add a cheer for me for the flying boat gang!

Doug Ratchford
Plane Capt. N68740 ex. RCAF9742

Jack · **Joined:** Wed Jun 29, 2005 3:34 pm **Posts:** 45

ww2John wrote:

IIRC, Mr. Weeks Sunderland last flew during an Olympic Torch flight for the '96 Olympics? And, IIRC, used parts from the engines on his B24 to make that flight possible.
I would love to have been on that last flight across the Atlantic to OSH (in '93??).
I have been through Mr. Weeks Sunderland @ FOF and the one at RAF Hendon which is outfitted with all military equipment. Mighty impressive.

We didn't pull any parts off the B-24. We did pull all the cylinders on #2 & #3 engines and had them overhauled by Rudy Blakey and reinstalled.

I was on the flight across the Atlantic as well as most of the test flights leading up to it and all the flights after we brought it to the USA. All the flights in that airplane pegged the cool meter. The most memorable was the 1:45 take-off run out of Reykjavik, Iceland. It's not the greatest flying airplane I have ever flown, but 50,000 lbs. of airplane going 60 mph on the water is a neat ride.

The airplane could fly again but it will require a lot of work. I did an evaluation on the airplane for a possible film deal back around '99 or 2000
and got the engines running. The deal didn't pan out, the engines were pickled and it has been sitting ever since.

dhfan · **Posted:** Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:34 am

I saw it moored down at Hythe on Southampton Water in 1989. A bunch of guys went out and onboard so we hung around for a long time hoping they were going to fly but sadly they didn't. I would have loved to see a Sunderland in the air.

Canso42 · **Posted:** Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:03 pm

Jack, that must have been the experience of a lifetime, especially for a flying boat fan. That pretty much leaves the two Mars boats as the only four engines left flying.
Anyone know anything about Japanese Shin Meiwas?

JDK · **Posted:** Sat Jan 17, 2009 1:09 am

Thanks for the responses. For those that haven't seen any Sunderlands fly...

Augsburgeagle · **Joined:** Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:17 am **Posts:** 112

Great stuff everyone, I've been fortunate enough to go inside 2 sunderlands and a solent now. I've got internal photos of weeks' sunderland but not on this computer and some photos of inside the motats solent and their outdoors sunderland.
The Solent is absolutely incredible inside, I was not expecting the level of preservation/restoration that has been done to it, rather than just restore it the boat is crammed full of Teal memrobillia it really is incredible and was completely not what I was expecting!

Unfortunately though the sunderland was in much worse shape and was a very sad sight to see, I was informed that there are people working on it and that it will be coming indoors soon but to see it out there with rusty clecos in it and looking rather sorry for itself was a bit upsetting. I'm hoping that it is in good condition inside and that it just looks superficially as if it has been forgotton, I wasn't able to get any good photos of it

Dave Homewood · **Posted:** Sat Jan 17, 2009 5:51 pm

You'll be pleased to know that restoration on the Sunderland is apparently stepping up and going well in preparation for the new building. I remember when the Solent looked in as bad a shape before the team restored it back to the pristine condition we see now.

bryan ribbans · **Posted:** Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:42 am

Don't forget that there is a host of flying boat reference material on www.seawings.co.uk........................!! It is the largest reference site on the web for flying boats.

If anyone is looking for a permament place to host flying boat reference material, you are welcome to send it to me at bryan.ribbans@btinternet.com - all contributions will be gratefully received and taken good care of, for others to enjoy and share.

I am currently working on the PBY Catalina reference Archive and the one after that is the Sunderland.

And you can always apply to join my Flying Boat Forum (from the link on the front page) where we have 198 members from all around the world and the material that is being found there is second to none...............!!

Come on, who's going to be member number 200, then???

Look forward to seeing you all there.................!

JDK · **Posted:** Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:47 am

G'day Brian,
Nice to see you here. (I've just signed up to get No.200, I hope!) and I can recommend Brian's site to any waterbird fanatics who haven't already found it. It's an excellent, growing resource.
Cheers,

Canso42 · **Posted:** Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:38 pm

Hi Brian, Seawings is well known among the PBY bunch.

JDK · **Posted:** Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:02 pm

dhfan wrote:

James, is that colour photograph really blue and green? I thought I'd heard, if only in passing, of most RAF type camouflage schemes but that's a new one to me.

Interesting, isn't it? I'm no colours expert. The test is the nice useful roundels look colour true to me, so there's no 'shift' in the repro (on my monitor, anyway).

It looks like the Sunderland's just had the aelerons recovered / replaced, but the rest of the aircraft is in older paint - the colour difference on the rudder being typical of a fabric covered surface next to a metal covered one. My understanding is that the standard Coastal Grey/Green was quite 'blue-grey' and green as seen here; note how the grey is more or less blue depending on where it is on the aircraft.

Hmmm.

Canso42 · **Posted:** Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:30 pm

Weathering and paint quality as manufactured may have caused differences too.

dhfan · **Posted:** Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:28 am

I noticed the roundels looked about right, that's why I asked.

However, I've just opened it in PSP and reduced the blue by 30%. Roundels still look about right and it's certainly nearer to grey.

Canso42 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:30 pm

Are they running #3? The prop looks blurry compared to #4.

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A cup of tea and a pipe, or flying the Short Sunderland

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