G-AGER Short S-25 Sunderland III

This aircraft was built by Short Bros. Ltd at Rochester, Kent as a Sunderland Mk III - 1942

It was built for the Ministry of Supply under Contract B.78939/40

It was the 1st aircraft built for BOAC by Short Bros under this contract

Contrary to popular belief the Sunderlands built for BOAC were not converted from existing military aircraft

They were built new as civil aircraft without any armament or military equipment at all

Entered onto the British Aircraft Register as G-AGER (CofR 9374/1) - November 12, 1942

Registered to British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), Clifton, Bristol, England

(Bristol was the location of BOAC Headquarters during World War 2)

It was allocated the name 'Scarborough' but it was not taken up

First flown at Rochester, Kent - December 26, 1942

The aircraft was under the command of John Lankester Parker (Short Bros Senior Test Pilot)

The aircraft was delivered to BOAC at Hythe - January 08, 1943

It was the first Short S-25 Sunderland Mk III delivered to BOAC

It was closely followed by a further 5 examples (G-AGES - G-AGEW) forming the initial batch of 6 aircraft

Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA #6955) issued - January 26, 1943

Initially the aircraft were painted in a dark green / grey camouflage livery with very large black registration markings

on the rear fuselage, outlined in silver and underlined with a red, white and blue stripe

This clearly identified them as being British civil aircraft

Entered service operating the Poole - Lagos service via West Africa as 'Service Number 19W179' - March 26, 1943

The BOAC Sunderland Mk IIIs were replaced on the West Africa route by land planes - October 1943

This aircraft was redeployed on the England - Karachi service - October 25, 1943

As these aircraft had to pass through the active military zones in North Africa enroute to Karachi, their civil

registrations were temporarily exchanged for 'military roundels and codes' in the 'OQZA' to 'OQZZ' band

This aircraft was allocated the military code 'OQZR'

It is believed that all 'Hythe' aircraft had their Transport Command call signs allocated on September 23, 1943

These codes were quickly applied to the rear fuselage in place of their current civil registration marks

Both aircraft and flight crews were temporarily transferred to the jurisdiction of RAF Transport Command but the

individual aircraft were still owned by BOAC and were operated by BOAC employed crews

The callsigns identified each aircraft as follows:

The letter 'Q' identified the aircraft as being operated by BOAC;

The letter 'Z' identified the aircraft as being a Short Sunderland Mk III;

The last letter identified the individual aircraft

With the end of European hostilities the aircraft reverted to civilian status - camouflage and military codes were removed

BOAC commenced an upgrade and modernisation program to 18 of their 24 passenger carrying Sunderland aircraft -

January 1945

The aircraft type was named the BOAC 'Hythe' Class flying boat

Each of the converted aircraft in the fleet was allocated a name starting with the letter 'H'

This aircraft - G-AGER - was named 'Hadfield'

The upgrade on this particular aircraft was carried out in stages between April and July 1945

The first stage involved the fitting of 16 new passenger seats on the main deck (H1)

The second stage involved the addition of either a 'C' class' type promenade deck (H2) or

the addition of a further 8 seats (H3) - giving a total accommodation for 24 passengers

The individual aircraft that were upgraded with either the 'promenade deck' or the extra 8 seats are unknown

In addition to the London - Karachi terminating service, BOAC introduced a new 'Hythe' Class service in

conjunction with Qantas Empire Airways (QEA) on the England - Australia route - May 12, 1946

This route: Poole - Marseilles - Augusta - Cairo - Basra - Bahrein - Karachi -

Calcutta - Rangoon (now Yangon) - Singapore - Sourabaya - Darwin - Bowen - Sydney took on

average eight days to complete the entire journey

'Hadfield' departed Poole on its first eastbound flight to Sydney (Australia) as a 'special flight' - July 22, 1946

It arrived at Sydney (Rose Bay) having completed its first 'eastbound' flight - July 29, 1946

The aircraft were operated by BOAC crews from Poole to Singapore return

The Singapore - Sydney return sectors were crewed by a Qantas Empire Airways' crew

Many of these QEA crew members were seconded from the R.A.A.F. due to post-war shortage of QEA employees

Many pilots who had been seconded to QEA in this manner converted their secondment to full-time employment, thus

forging new and permanent careers with the airline

'Hadfield' was badly damaged when it skidded whilst alighting at Calcutta - October 18, 1946

The starboard wing-tip, float and struts were damaged

It was repaired 'on-site' and returned to service - December 06, 1946

The BOAC flying boat base was relocated from Poole to Hythe (Southampton Water) - April 01, 1948

'Hadfield' was withdrawn from service and stored at Hamble (England) - December 03, 1948

Registered to Aquila Airways Limited, London (CofR R2541/2) - December 06, 1948

The aircraft retained the name 'Hadfield' whilst operated by Aquila Airways

Aquila Airways operated services from Southampton to Funchal (Island of Madeira); Lisbon (Portugal);

Montreux (south eastern shore of Lake Leman, Switzerland); Las Palmas (Canary Islands)

This aircraft was utilised to transport film crews who were making the 'Moby Dick' movie, which was partially

filmed at Madeira and Las Palmas (Canary Islands)

When its CofA expired it was withdrawn from service and stored at Hamble (England) - July 19, 1955

Broken-up for scrap at Hamble (England) - July 1956

Cancelled from the British Aircraft Register - July 26, 1956