Saunders-Roe Princess

The Saunders-Roe Princess was a very large British flying boat aircraft built by Saunders-Roe, based in Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

At the time, the Saunders-Roe Princess was one of the largest aircraft in existence; unfortunately, by the 1950s, the concept of a passenger carrying flying boat was obsolete. Better runways and airports meant that future long-range airliners would be land-based aircraft, without the weight and drag of a boat hull or the corrosion problem due to seawater.

The Princess was powered by ten Bristol Proteus turboprop engines, powering six propellers. The four inner propellers were double, contra-rotating propellers driven by a twin version of the Proteus, the Bristol Coupled Proteus; each engine drove one of the propellers. The two outer propellers were single and powered by single engines.

The rounded, bulbous, 'double-bubble' fuselage contained two passenger decks, with room for 105 passengers in great comfort.

The prototype, G-ALUN, first flew on 22 August 1952 and was flown by test pilot Geoffrey Tyson. It was the only one to fly - making 46 test flights in total, about 100 hours flying time. Two others (G-ALUO and G-ALUP) were built, but they never flew. After spending a number of years in mothballs awaiting possible future use, two of them at Calshot Spit, all were broken up in 1967.

They were the last fixed-wing commercial aircraft produced by Saunders-Roe. The company built one more fixed-wing design, the Saunders-Roe SR.53 mixed powered (rocket and turbojet) fighter design; aside from that, the company concentrated on helicopters and hovercraft after this point.

General characteristics
* Length: 148 ft (42.1 m)
* Wingspan: 219 ft 6 in (66.9 m)
* Height: 55 ft 9 in (17 m)
* Wing area: 5,019 sq ft (466 qm)
* Empty weight: 190,000 lb (86,184 kg)
* Max takeoff weight: 345,025 lb (156,500 kg)
* Powerplant: 10× Bristol Proteus turboprop, 3,200 hp (2,386 kW) each

Performance
* Maximum speed: 360 mph (579 km/h)
* Range: 5,720 miles (9,205 km)
* Service ceiling 39,000 ft (11,887 m)
* Rate of climb: 1,900 ft/min at sea level (579 m/min)