Short S.25/V Sandringham 4 - VH-BRC Beachcomber

This aircraft was originally built by Short Brothers at Rochester as a standard Sunderland Mk.III general reconnaissance flying-boat with the serial number JM715.

After the war Shorts devised a passenger carrying conversion of the Sunderland which they called the Sandringham and in March 1946 the company received an order from Tasman Empire Airways Ltd. (TEAL) of New Zealand. JM715 was purchased from the Air Ministry for conversion. After conversion at Short's Belfast factory the aircraft was allocated the conversion number SH.55C and registered to TEAL, delivered from Southampton to Waitemata Harbour, Auckland on 29th October 1947 and was soon in service on the 1300-mile Sydney- Auckland route. In May 1950 ZK-AMH, was sold to Barrier Reef Airlines of Australia where it was renamed Beachcomber. Barrier Reef Airlines were subsequently taken over by the major Australian airline Ansett and became Ansett Flying Boat Services.

Unfortunately the vast amounts of money required to keep the aircraft in flying condition were not available and in 1981 the aircraft was purchased for the National Aeronautical Collection by the Science Museum with the aid of a grant from the Heritage Trust and it was moved across Southampton Water to HMS Daedalus, RNAS Lee-on-Solent. The next year arrangements were made to house it in the new museum then being established by the R J Mitchell Memorial Museum. The aircraft was then dismantled, cleaned, repainted and moved to the, then uncompleted, museum building. When the building was finished it was reassembled in time for the museum opening in June 1983.

This exhibit is on loan from the National Aeronautical Collection of the Science Museum

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