Evening All,
In September 1913 F. McClean placed an order with Short Brothers for a floatplane which he wanted to fly along the river Nile from Cairo to Khartoum to see the Aswan Dam and Nile cataracts in the spring of 1914, because when aeroplanes had ?poor or non-existent instruments and unsheltered seating? the climate in the UK ?brought about continual inactivity during the winter months?. McClean had been float testing the much modified and rebuilt Short S 32 in 1913, but even with extended wings its wing loading was still too high for flying in a tropical environment. In addition the machine was underpowered and therefore too slow and it had a narrow fuselage which had too little space for storage on an expedition. The new aeroplane, which was designated S 80, was specially designed for the expedition with a wide nacelle which had two pairs of side-by-side seats, wings of 67 feet span and 5 feet chord, parallel ailerons and folding wings. It was powered by a two row 160 hp Gnome rotary engine driving a large propellor and had two pontoon floats under the fuselage. Twin air bags were fitted under the lower tail booms which were far enough apart to make wing tip floats unnecessary for stability on water. The new machine was the largest aeroplane to be built in Britain before the outbreak of the First World War.
The S 80 was originally fitted with a land undercarriage with which initial proving flights were conducted in October 1913. In mid-November it had been fitted with floats and McClean took off from Harty Ferry with four passengers, proving its weight lifting capability. The machine was shipped to Alexandria where it arrived at the end of December and was re-erected by McClean, A. Ogilvie, H. Short and mechanic Gus Smith. On 2rd January 1914 McClean flew from Alexandria to Cairo with A. Ogilvie, H. Short and G. Smith as passengers. On 6th January the expedition set off from Cairo but the rear bank of engine cylinders began to overheat, and this combined with a ball race ?distributing itself in the crank case? caused the expedition to be seriously delayed at Aswan. (Overheating of the rear cylinders was to be a recurrent problem for the remainder of the expedition and a cause of several more delays while they were repaired or replaced). New cylinders and ball race were sent from Paris: after these had been fitted the expedition restarted on 17th February when they reached Wadi Halfa on the Egypt/Sudan border. From there they flew around the Dongola Bend to observe the second, third and fourth cataracts of the river Nile.
Some idea of the flying conditions were described by McClean in a letter:
?And it was going. Bumps of every sort and description?..Sometimes it felt as though we had hit a brick??.We reached the Sudan boundary and were received by a beauty that shifted Ogilvie in his seat and made him say things. We reached Halfa in a procession of right hand wing lifts that made me perspire.?
In another letter he described the flying conditions over the third cataract:
?Ogilvie?.was too dammed busy holding on to his seat, (to be able to take notes or read the map), and I was jambing myself tight between the rudder bar and the back of my seat and using the steering wheel as a safety stop when I rose to the bump. I did actually hit the wheel with my knees once?..Over the river was a mac?doine of movement when there was a clear channel but when there were 2 or 3 channels with various shaped islands - then there was real trouble. The poor air hadn?t a notion where it should go and we had to take pot luck. Gus saw one dust devil. I?m glad I did not. One time we rose 500 feet in about a minute with the nose down. Again in 2 seconds we rose 100 feet. This means lifting 1 1/2 tons at a speed of 50 ft a second??..Finally close to Argo we landed on a good bit of water. I thought it was a good landing at first, until the left wing caught in the water and turned the machine round and tore the tip off. Ogilvie says that one float was several feet above the other. I thought it was level - but could not have been???As the machine righted I saw water come off the top plane?.
Ogilvie helped to repair the damaged wing tip with wood strengthened by ?some pieces of iron? from the galley floor of a passing steamer, and ?hoop iron and biscuit box lid strappings?. Calico was used for covering the wing. Following these repairs the expedition continued but on 4 March they had another setback when they had to make a heavy landing which resulted in a seriously damaged float and 2 broken float struts. The engine had a broken timing wheel and both oil pumps were broken. When the timing wheel parted company with the engine it damaged two of the four tail booms, which may well have been the cause of the heavy landing. It was not until 14 March that they were able to continue, this time to Atbara. Finally on 22nd March they completed the journey to Khartoum, to everyone?s relief.
The machine was dismantled and returned to the Shorts factory at Eastchurch where it was stripped down and given a major overhaul. There it was found that the main top rear spar of the centre section had a complete fracture: the aircraft had flown in different conditions for many hours in that state - a tribute to the very strong construction of Short?s aircraft and the good fortune of the members of the expedition.
The aircraft was extensively rebuilt with new wings, new tail booms and tailplane of reduced chord. In addition the fuel tank was lowered and placed in the space of the rear seats, and the front elevator deleted. When it was clear that war would break out McClean flew the machine to the Isle of Grain where he presented it to the Admiralty. A 100 hp Gnome rotary engine driving a four bladed propellor replaced the unreliable 160hp engine in October 1914. A rectangular fixed fin and larger rudders were fitted at the same time, but now the machine could not take off from calm water with no wind so it was used by trainee pilots for seaplane practice until 1915 when it was scrapped.
The model will be presented to Eastchurch Aviation Museum where it will be displayed alongside some original artifacts from the expedition.
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.
