Saunders-Roe Princess

Common card · No. 246421

The Saunders-Roe SR.45 Princess was a British flying boat aircraft developed and built by Saunders-Roe at their Cowes facility on the Isle of Wight. It is the largest all-metal flying boat to have ever been constructed. The Princess had been developed to serve as a larger and more luxurious successor to the prewar commercial flying boats, such as the Short Empire. It was intended to serve the transatlantic route, carrying up to 100 passengers between Southampton, United Kingdom and New York City, United States, in spacious and comfortable conditions. To achieve this, designers decided early on to make use of newly developed turboprop technology, opting for the Bristol Proteus engine still in development to power the aircraft. The project suffered delays due to difficulties encountered in the development of the Proteus engine. On 22 August 1952, the first prototype Princess, G-ALUN, conducted its maiden flight. Between 1952 and 1954, the first prototype performed a total of 47 test flights...

Read on Wikipedia · Image RuthAS, CC BY 3.0