Ansett Sandringham "Beachcomber" over Lord Howe Island, 1972

The Ansett “Beachcomber” featured in Marshall's painting is an ex-RAF Sunderland, serial no JM 715. It was converted to a Sandringham Mk V in 1944–its fore and aft gun turrets were removed and replaced with streamlined fairings and the hull partitioned off into cabins. To replace the famous Short “C” class flying boats (see illustration below), Tasman Empire Airways Ltd acquired it to carry up to thirty passengers in luxury on its Sydney to Auckland route. Registered ZK-AMK it was named “Auckland”. Two years later it was sold to Barrier Reef Airways and became VH-BRC and named “Beachcomber”. In 1950, another change saw Ansett as its new owners. Ansett retained its very apposite name and for twenty-five years employed it on charter flights and, most memorably for Sydneysiders, flew it and her sister ship–a Hythe conversion of a Sunderland named “Islander”, out of Sydney Harbour on the regular route to Lord Howe Island.

In the mid-1970s with the completion of a runway on Lord Howe Island, Ansett sold the two much-loved flying boats to Antille Air Boats in the Virgin Islands, “Beachcomber” was renamed “Southern Cross” and registered N185C. Tragically, Captain Blair, the president of Antilles Air Boats was killed and the gracious old flying boat was sent out to graze until being rescued from oblivion in Puerto Rico by one of her ex-pilots, Captain Ron Gillies. This saw the historic aircraft make her last major flight–across the Atlantic to England. The gracious old boat was bought by the Science Museum in London. They agreed to display her in the Southampton Hall of Aviation. Now beautifully restored and sporting her Ansett livery and the name “Beachcomber”, she can be seen to this day.

"Canopus", the first Short S 23 C Class flying boat, from which the "Sandringham" was developed.

“Beachcomber” was popular both with passengers, crews as well as with Sydneysiders. For those who remember the subdued purr of her four Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasps as she banked low over the Harbour to alight among the racing yachts into a lively sea breeze, she has become an indelible part of Sydney history.

Short Bros, the manufacturer of the Sandringham, had a long and distinguished history of producing flying boats and seaplanes. Of three brothers, Eustace and Oswald and Horace, Oswald and Eustace started in the aviation business by making balloons; Horace joined them later when they started building a version of the Wright biplane in 1905 at a site on the Isle of Sheppey, in Kent, England. Later they moved to a larger factory at Rochester and displayed an early interest in water-borne aircraft, fitting a Wright-type machine with airbags in order to alight on water. In the Great War of 1914 -18, among several floatplane designs, their Short 184 seaplane, capable of carrying a torpedo slung between its floats, was the only British aircraft to take part in the famous Battle of Jutland in 1916.

In the peacetime years of the 1920s and ‘30s, the company produced a considerable number of large passenger-carrying flying boats which became the pride of civil aviation in England in those days. Undoubtedly, the most famous of these was the Short “Singapore” twin-engined biplane flown on pioneering flights throughout Africa during 1927. Then, in the late ’30s, with America already producing streamlined all-metal monoplane flying boats, Shorts began producing the “C” Class Empire flying boats which helped drag the British aviation industry into the mainstream of modern aeroplane design. From the “C” class passenger flying boat, the immensely successful “Sunderland” reconnaissance flying boat was developed. This rugged machine helped beat the U-Boat menace in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War Two. (For interest, see my painting of Bay of Biscay Battle, featuring a Short Sunderland III).

The Sandringham then, is a born-again “C” class luxury flying boat, being a development of a wartime modification of the original “C” class passenger flying boat.

Sir Alan Cobham and his Short "Singapore", 1927