The Greatest Flying Boat That Never Was - Saunders-Roe SR.45 Princess (Reworked)

[@andrewmcphee8965]

Awesome video, always enjoy your work! Back around 1970 aged 10yo my older sister gave me a plastic model kit of the Princess for Christmas. I was so thrilled that I assembled it the same day. What happened to the model is lost in the mists of time but I would kill to have another kit of it now. Happy memories.

[@DaveSCameron]

Truly an outstanding channel.

[@monocat6]

no need to kill, there seems to be a kit available: www.google.com/search?q=saunders+roe+st+45+kit&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=de-ch&client=safari

[@More_Row]

If I was born 30 years earlier I would have been a model kit guy

[@zerocool5395]

​@More_Row It's never too late, when I was a kid I used to build cars and planes. I'm in my mid 40's now and got into Gundams.

[@scofab]

What a sad waste... these gals deserved better. Fascinating as always and thank you again.

[@prosto_potomuwto]

perhaps

[@ross.venner]

As a little boy, I saw the Princess flying over my home. It was a grey day and she was travelling from west to east. Huge...

[@markbeames7852]

how do you know it was flying from west to east?

[@N9197U]

@@markbeames7852 maybe he saw it flying over his home

[@ross.venner]

@markbeames7852 - I can remember how the plane looked against the Elm trees which lined the road.

[@Bulletguy07]

@@N9197U 🤣👍

[@Larkinchance]

a bit hefty for a princess

[@timweather3847]

I was a 10+year old on a round-the-island trip on a paddle steamer and saw the Princess take off on her maiden flight. I was told later that she was just supposed to taxi that day but the test pilot said something on the lines of “she just wanted to fly, so I let her.” I wonder if there is anyone else still alive who saw that.

[@LewisBeck]

Ah--what a shame! Such a lovely aircraft where so much thought, effort and treasure was poured into it. Very sad indeed! Thank you for this video; the Princess deserves to be remembered!

[@richardmayes8797]

Classic post-war English. A stunning, beautiful thing, exquisitely designed and built by brilliant craftsmen. Following hopelessly misguided direction from out-of-touch bosses who simply didn't get it, who assumed mother England would just support whatever they served up out of some patriotic sense of duty and tradition, and had entirely the wrong vision for the future. (See also: British Leyland, Austin-Rover.) GIVEN that there was clearly no sensible business interest or military mission for these things... they should have got all 3 aircraft to flying condition ASAP, fitted them out as live-aboard ultra luxury yachts for billionaire playboys, and sold them on that basis to at least recover some fraction of the costs. Imagine taking off from New York at sunset on friday evening, and flying non-stop overnight to arrive the next morning in Venice, Ibiza, Tahoe, Como or Monaco for the weekend in your giant gold plated f-off I'm bigger than you flying boat. I'd do that every weekend if money was no object!

[@markgouthro7375]

I think you hit the nail on the head. There was still a market for them, but it was very very niche.

[@loddude5706]

Trick is finding two hundred galley slaves who can open the windows & row fast enough. ("Remember, please remove your own rowlocks, before attempting to close windows" : )

[@keithwaites9991]

NASA was interested in using them but they had rusted too badly

[@BlackPill-pu4vi]

The English are magnificent at inventing great things but, their management skills are subpar. Those Princess flying boats were a natural for Australia, New Zealand, and connecting flights to the various islands in the south Pacific.

[@peterdavy6110]

As a little girl my Mother went over the SR.45 when it was in the Thames. She said it was one of the great events of her childhood.

[@Jedi.Toby.M]

So basically the A380 but on water... I love it... Fantastic as always!

[@michaelhoffmann2891]

"Nuclear-Chemical Pratt&Whitney T 57 engine"? "Unit Shield General Electric Reactor"? Which of these behemoths did they envision being powered by that? EDIT: ah, never mind, 18:09 answers that.

[@johnjephcote7636]

It still amazes me that although the country was essentially broke, such vast sums could be poured into these advanced projects. One thinks of the Brabazon that required also new hangers, longer runway (not needed incl. destruction of village) and for no interested buyers. And then the Princess even after. Finally the name 'Duncan Sandys' would be enough to kill any hopes.

[@owencarlstrand1945]

Interestingly this was also the era of nationalisation of industry and transport, introduction of the NHS and the development of the welfare state. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Just imagine how much fuel the Princess would have used!

[@MrJimheeren]

Yes that’s because a bunch of upper class nitwits with no sense of the real world insisted on building their glorious, slow flying boat, and no England couldn’t actually pay for it, the country was broke, it was just more debt, debt for building dreams in the vain hope the British empire still existed. And in the 70s that debt had to be paid and labour got the blame for it, as always

[@ross.venner]

​@@owencarlstrand1945- It is worth remembering that the modern welfare state was first attempted by Bismarck in Prussia. Fortunately, the British version was not oriented to sustain a militarised state. One of the first events in my political consciousness was the axeing of several projects by Labour. The TSR2, P1154 and others.

[@owencarlstrand1945]

@@ross.venner True but TSR2 and P1154 were both cancelled in 1965 some twenty years after NHS etc and after 13 years of Macmillan’s “You’ve never had it so good”.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

​@ross.venner there were plenty of cancellations under the Conservatives as well. One was the intended replacement for the Shackleton MR.

[@bigantplowright5711]

The East Cowes site was amazing, How they built these behemoths down there never ceases to amaze me. I am pleased I worked down there before most of the site was cleared.

[@bigantplowright5711]

Only Union Jack hanger left.

[@JohnJohansen2]

Like it's sad that Britain didn't preserved any of their battleships, this goes with some of their magnificent planes. Although they sometimes failed. Most were great. 👍👏

[@johnjephcote7636]

Nobody wanted the Short Shetland either. I remember the Princesses laid up at Calshot

[@atomdent]

Much like the " spruce goose," so much hope, effort, and expense gone to waste. Kinda makes sad. But the fact they exist at all is pretty cool, thanks.

[@duncancurtis5108]

Civilian flying boats are featured in several Tintin episodes, being from the early 50s. Most are Short Stirlings. King Ottos Scepter The Seven Crystal Mazes Flight 174.

[@duncancurtis5108]

I said, get in!

[@flybobbie1449]

Unlike the Goose, it could actually fly, not just hop in ground effect.

[@RielMyricyne]

There was simply no more market for flying boats airliners. Perharps, Saro could have survived by making a small flying boat for niche markets where flying boats still made sense (small islands , aerial firefighting...). Of course, it would have been a much smaller beast. the problem is that thousands of WWII flying boats were available at low prices... Catalinas, Albatross and others.

[@davidwright8432]

On sheer scale and boldness, the Princess reminds me of the Russian Ekranoplan ground-effect plane. Another beautiful techno-dream fated never quite to be conjured into reality. Cost overruns, dithering governments, internal politics.

[@nickmiller76]

Plus being the wrong technology of course!

[@GaryNumeroUno]

And now we are squashed into outdated 737 sardine cans! What progress! 😂

[@RaySmith1662]

That's "The Best Documentary" that i saw about the SR.45... Very Good Video!!!

[@mongolike513]

Look at that dinosaur and visually remove everything below the ‘double fuselage’, dump the boat hull . Then add a sub wing underneath the fuselage containing the main landing gear plus a nose wheel up forward and you have a six engined ‘Hercules’. Then again the Brit’s would probably have insisted that she be a taildragger. Great video. My dad flew Sunderlands out of Pembroke Dock 1944.

[@nickdanger3802]

Blackburn B-101 Beverley

[@laszlokaestner5766]

Hi Ruairidh, you should do a video of the history of the Columbine Yard at East Cowes It is probably the most iconic British industrial building, instantly recognisable for the giant Union Jack (the largest in the world apparently) painted on the front to the succession of brilliant but often doomed projects that it has issued forth. Not only was it the birthplace of the Princess but also the first jet propelled flying boat the SR. A/1, the worlds first hovercraft also was built there and launched off that ramp along with its successors the huge Mountbatten cross channel hover ferries to name but a few. SARO was also involved in the Black Knight rocket project and more latterly, now known as GKN, Osborne the sister site to Columbine in East Cowes designs and produces a large proportion of the worlds aircraft winglets. Columbine is still a factory, being the home of Wight Shipyards and produces high quality aluminium boats including the Thames Clippers.

[@Nimboid-20]

SARO also originated the Scout/Wasp helicopter which became part of the Westland portfolio.

[@YveDahl]

such a beautiful plane wish i could’ve seen it fly

[@AtheistOrphan]

The cocooned aircraft can often be glimpsed in the background of various ‘Look at Life’ short films (Talking Pictures), particularly ones about hovercraft.

[@rod4095]

Incredible technology at the time. Shame it was not devised as a land plane from the beginning

[@michaelallden6270]

That was effectively what the Brabazon was

[@simonchaddock4274]

The fact that all three were scrapped for corrosion problems despite being cocooned does make you wonder what their airframe life would have been in commercial service. Modern airliners can now survive for 20+ years. I too saw them on Calshot spit as a boy.

Modern airliners don't have to live in seawater which helps. Not sure how well they cocooned them, if they didn't ventilate and open up regularly, then they would have been badly wrecked from within. Stupid to cocoon them IMO. Better covered to keep them out of direct sunlight, and regularly opened to stop them overheating in the summer, and rotting with damp in the winter. It's the non Aluminium parts that would be shot.

[@clivestainlesssteelwomble7665]

They sealed them in but didn't/couldn't maintain the forced air conditioning . If they had been sprayed with just lanolin inside and out they might have stood a chance. Like the Sproat lake Martin Mars ... The geared turbo props were still in the early stages of development ..but the air frame was way ahead. The Turbo jet version would have taken it into a swept wing giant. Ironically now we can see where a large cargo Seaplane would be just the ticket for heavy lift resupply ... Or port to offshore resort tourism without heavy airport infrastructure or for disaster relief evacuation work. It makes an amazing scale electric RC model..

[@donalddodson7365]

Very well done. Thank you. As a child growing up in 1950's San Diego, California USA, I loved seeing the large Convair cargo seaplanes and the much smaller Albatross Coast Guard rescue seaplanes. I still picture my blue plastic toy with swing up nose, extending cargo ramp, spinning props, swing-down wing pontoons and military vehicles. 😊

[@NielMalan]

Oh, I found this interesting: I was given to understand that one of the reasons for the demise of the flying boat was that the boat-shaped hull could not be pressurized, and that flying boats were therefore limited to flying at uneconomically low altitudes. The Saro Princess shows that pressurization was not impossible.

[@DeliveryMcGee]

The actual reason for the demise of flying boats was that on-land runways were built all over the place for bombers during the war, and ground-based aircraft were much easier to handle logistically (concrete runways don't have problems with waves, terminals and parking are easier to do, &c.) once the runways were built.

[@davidgreenland9136]

one of my earliest memorys is visiting calshot in march 67 and seeing the 2 flying boats covered in snow . eventhough i was only 4 years old my comment to my farther was "but theyve got no engines " pitty they were gone a month later

[@frostyfrost4094]

Was very fortunate to go down to Eastleigh to watch the Bristol Freighters with my parents tea was always at Hamble Common in the hope that CofAT was flying little did we know that these were waiting for me to be seen at Calshot

[@alandinsmore]

Not only wrong-headed market analysis but the Proteus was a troubled engine. One can only gasp at the development problems of a coupled Proteus. Well done video with tech details on powered controls that I had never seen.

[@hadial-saadoon2114]

How Saunders-Roe with the Princess and Bristol (Brabazon) ever dreamed that their designs had a snowball's chance in hell of being commercially viable is beyond me. I hadn't heard of Aero Spaceline's interest in the Princess until now.

[@davidpeters6536]

Bit of a late UK "Spruce Goose".

[@frasermitchell9183]

A classic case of new technology replacing the familiar. And, of course, with WW2 leaving hundreds of airfields with concrete runways, the air travel market was never going to bother with flying boats with passengers having to take a journey to the coast just to board one ! The Comet showed the future despite its travails, and flew at over 500 mph, as did the Boeing 707 and others. Speed like this also revolutionised the productivity of airliners, although the ultimate example of this, Concorde, unfortunately failed due to the sonic boom problem.

[@billwendell6886]

Still inventing ways of making sealing wax......Thanx for the vid, wanna try Boeing314. Brit connexion was Churchill's favorite mode of travel across the pond. Another vid is how thanks to Ultra, no 314 or troopship across the Atlantic was ever fired upon. That is staggering if you think about it.

[@andrewbaird509]

My grandfather was a sheet metal worker at Saunders-Roe and worked on these planes at Newport , Isle of Wight

[@johneddy908]

"These 'giant' airplanes are actually the last of the LITTLE airplanes. There is a need for great ocean airliners two to three times the size of these Clippers." A spokesman for Pan Am said those words before the Japanese militarists' attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii brought the U.S. into World War II, and that would hasten the trend away from flying boats and toward larger, land-based airplanes and ultimately towards the Jet Age.

[@finlayfraser9952]

Oh for one of those magnificent wind tunnel models!

[@roadking99jokerst60]

Possibly constructed from an exotic wood, I imagine. Yes. Would be nice to see, much better to own one. "Honey, what's this airplane in the dining room all about ?"

[@coreyandnathanielchartier3749]

Today, people would be lining up to fly trans-Atlantic on this plane, and the more stops for refueling, the better. What an adventure.......

[@rogerking7258]

It's a shame, but they completely failed to understand the direction that aviation was headed in. They would have been magnificent though.

[@michealfigueroa6325]

Even after eighty years of seeing the wonders that men have creatid It is still hard to grasp a Flying Boat Really Buittyful

[@dmfraser1444]

Such a magnificent engineering effort and for naught. The managers of the company just a little too stuck in the past.

[@1BCamden]

Great episode, fantastic detail, although sadly depressing, again demonstrating Britains out of step pace to the changing needs of the day. But what an amazing engineering feat.

[@stevelewis7263]

With the call signs, pilots often abbreviate them if departing and returning to the same airfield for convenience, so "Golf, Alpha, Lima, Uniform, November" would be shortened to " Golf, Uniform, November" to save time, unless the last two letters were on another aircraft.

[@hjp5150]

Diese Flugzeuge halfen täglich mit ihren Einsätzen bei der Luftbrücke nach Berlin während der Sowietblockade. Sie flogen über uns nahe Lüneburg im Tiefstflug und waren für mich mit Alter 6 Jahren ein Erlebnis der besonderen Art

[@fr57ujf]

Very interesting. Well written, organized, and presented. Romanticized travel for the wealthy during the 30's. The airfields built during WWII hastened their end, but seaplanes are more expensive to build, maintain, and operate than landplanes so their demise was inevitable.

[@atypicalmotorcycle752]

Splendid presentation.

[@rogerhudson9732]

Britain was coverered in the scars of about 600 airfields/airbases during WW2, they doomed the flying boat. The 1945 Labour government should have dug up 90% of them and returned them to agriculture,

[@scroggins100]

Nothing ever changes in UK, Government and Civil Service messing with things they just do not understand. What appealed to me was the idea of changing the basic design to a cargo plane. Now that would have been some plane and a good replacement for the Beverly on many levels.. Typical waste of effort and money in the end.

[@chrislong3938]

I used to have fantasies of winning the lotto and buying a huge flying boat and kitting it out with all the modern conveniences of a Winnebago and being able to fly off to Hawaii or the Caribbean and just dropping anchor to party with my friends in some secluded bay! How fun would that have been! Alas! I'm old now and such dreams are long gone...

[@crossleydd42]

I was based at 238 MU, RAF Calshot, (which overhauled Air-Sea Rescue launches) at the end of Southampton Water, from January to March 1959 and clearly recall seeing all three beached nearby. They were enormous!!! Theirs is a sorry tale to hear about.

[@flybobbie1449]

The fact that offers were made to buy it, shows somebody somewhere didn't want it flying. I wonder who?

[@flybobbie1449]

Wonder if it might have been more luxurious than being crammed into a Comet on N. Atlantic route.

[@sullivanrachael]

Apparently £1M apiece was offered for the Princess. What a saboteur Duncan Sandys was. Traitor to the British Aircraft industry. Wonder if the CIA paid him to destroy our industry whilst encouraging us to buy American?

[@Harry-kw1fy]

..usual standard; enlightening and well produced - thank you..

[@1960alftupper]

Can't help thinking the engineers would have been better employed on the Comet... Maybe with greater engineering support and more eyes on the design the later problems with the Comet could have been overcome before before the crashes.

[@CorrieBergeron]

Excellent video, thank you!

[@jamesgudgeon4868]

Imagine a Flying Boat With Jet Engines 😳 😮 4:49

[@clive373]

no need! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_SR.A/1

[@bitterdrinker]

To think all this effort could have been put into a jet airliner. It looks magnificent but who thought it was a good idea?

[@Sacto1654]

It was essentially chasing an idea that was already obsolete by 1945, especially the British didn't see what the Douglas DC-4 and Lockheed Constellation could evolve into by 1950 with land-based airliners that could fly between New York City and London with only one refueling stop.

[@acsimpson2633]

I watched one of the Saunders-Roe Princesses near Cowes in about 1952-53; I was 8-9 years old, living with my parents and two younger brothers at Lancing Sussex. My father was a (then) Technical Officer in the Royal Air Force (now called Engineering Officer). Approximately during the same period we went down to the beach to watch Sqn Ldr (later Sir) Neville Duke setting a new record in his red Hawker Hunter. Happy days. Odd thing about many of these documentaries is that the narrators are nearly all foreign because they can’t pronounce certain words incorrectly and put pauses and tonal lilts in the wrong places. I wonder why…… but not for long - I bet that they’re cheaper ☹️

[@davidbarnsley8486]

What was a great aircraft with no actual commercial use as it was completely obsolete before being finished The planes builders did a great job all for nothing All that money ,effort and materials being wasted Very good video very informative 👍👍😊

[@Shaken_AND_Stirred]

Could you imagine the pilot(s) responding to ATC as “Go Ask Larry”.

[@RyeOnHam]

5:30, uh, you know that Aileron is pronounced different than you're pronouncing it, right?

[@sakkra93]

A sad tale of what could have been. The luxury of a trans-oceanic cruiser ship with the speed of an aircraft. I can only imagine what the SARO Queen would have looked like in flight!

[@sardu55]

A real flying boat flight is on the bucket list. I wonder how long it takes to fly from New York to Paris.

[@marklelohe3754]

When I was a little, I remember seeing them at moorings in Southampton water while travelling to the Isle of Wight by ferry with my parents. I was very sad and intrigued. I couldn't understand the concept of obsolescence. It seemed such a waste. I suppose in retrospect the world had been transformed by WW2 and was changing too fast to predict the way things would be. SARO was eventually bought out by Westland and the site became the factory & HQ of the British Hovercraft Corporation where the huge SRN 4 car carrying Hovercraft were made. Looking at previous comments it seems that some people do not understand or respect the dilemma that rapid change creates in business. You cannot sit on your hands, you have to fare forward be it right or wrong. At least respect the creativity and technical expertise of those involved. Someone has to lead the world and attempt to show the way ahead. Don't forget that at that time transcontinental flight was in it's infancy and logically if you can't be sure you will make it across the oceans you need to be able land safely on them to be rescued.

[@michaelwallbrown3726]

amazing that they couldn't see the writing on the wall with the large bombers and transport airplanes being built everyday in combination of long concrete runways built around the world

[@simon-oy6um]

As a youngster i remember seeing these at calshot spit looking very sad with no engines 😢

[@iankemp2627]

A microcosm of Britain, really.

[@YYZ-SRQ]

@2:25 you did not make mention of the proposed nuclear reactor and nuclear/chemical engine

[@jamesbulldogmiller]

I too, saw that on the drawings,

[@Steve-GM0HUU]

Yes, spotted that on the drawing. Some quick reading indicates that it may have been a modification that Convair were looking at to meet a proposed US Navy requirement after they had expressed some interest in the SR.45. Due to it's size and payload, it may have been capable of carrying the rather large and heavy nuclear propulsion system?

[@WilliamLHart]

I would love for you to do another video based on the proposed Princess "luxury interior" and compare it to an Emirates A380 which is probably the closest thing we have today.

[@peterholder6103]

Saw it from my bedroom window when it was a small boy in Southampton

[@johannesbols57]

The pontoons appear and disappear. Was this two variants?

[@alecbell5453]

Remember watching that aircraft taxiing in the Solent.

[@fredscratchet1355]

I saw them moored up when leaving Southampton on a ferry to France in the sixties

[@dirk6001]

Thank you for the video. 👍

[@exharkhun5605]

I'm not for nostalgia nor for endless hype-chasing, just for steady progression. I have a thorough dislike for "what may have been". I prefer to see something like this beautiful aircraft as the closing statement of a generation. If you have to go alone into the endless night, pray that you're allowed to go like this.

[@mongolike513]

Excellent video!

[@simonh6788]

Have you converted your voice into an AI commentary? The cadence and tone seems to have changed. If so that’s disappointing

[@SDU1969]

BOAC and BEA helped destroy the British aircraft industry,

[@johnreed8336]

I agree but wonder what their motives were if any .

[@gbentley8176]

@@johnreed8336 Miles Thomas did make mistakes and was a ruthless businessman.

[@davidjones332]

That is rather unfair to BEA, who did at least buy British aircraft in the form of the Ambassador, Viscount, Vanguard and Trident, all technically successful and quite advanced aircraft in their day. The main problem was that British manufacturers really paid far too much attention to what the British flag-carriers wanted, without considering whether that was what the rest of the world wanted to buy, so the volume demand for economic production was never there.

[@David-yy7lb]

I guess that plane has more powerful engines compared to the spruce goose that barley flew because of under powered engines

[@nor0845]

What glorious aircraft.

[@RJM1011]

interesting thank you for the video.

[@johnmoulton9728]

A wonderful video many thanks

[@drstevenrey]

When they showed this ship at Farnborough, did they not think: wait, there is no water here. Doh.

[@N9197U]

that mic is CLEAN niceeee

[@drstevenrey]

It was a seriously pretty thing. Useless, but really nice to look at.

[@cyrilmeynier5688]

The bosses of Saunders Roe were oblivious to the reality. Everyone else understood that large flying boat liners were a thing of the past. There were niche markets in which flying boats still made a sense (and still do today) like sea rescue... But the market was flooded with surplus WWII aircraft (catalinas mostly) so developping a new flying for those markets didn't make sense either.

[@lurin971]

Well done!

[@wilsonlaidlaw]

At least BOAC did not insist on square windows.

[@Knopfzelle12]

War es denn wirklich größer als die bv 222von Blom und Voss. Von der gab es leider nur2flb..

[@george-stathopoulos]

That would be the perfect fire fighting airplane

[@yes_head]

I can't imagine a plane this expensive was very popular with the public in austere post-war UK.

[@simon-oy6um]

Seemed like a good direction at the time 🤔

[@andrewcarr3650]

And a nuclear powered option too! 2:30

[@cirian75]

waited while the Government dithered.

[@richardrichard508]

14th-23rd March 2020 Like COVID; the consequences being the same.

[@cirian75]

@@richardrichard508 indeed

[@johnreed8336]

Nothing new here. Will always be the same regrettably.

[@bobjove6511]

Great work! 👍👏

[@dusterowner9978]

Looks like a modified C-97 Stratofreighter to me .

[@george-ev1dq]

LOL, you could fit the little C-97 in its cargo bay.

[@bryanpalmer9660]

A beautiful, majestic aircraft built by committees instead of surveys and,like the Bristol Brabazon, without deciding first who would want them!

[@WOFFY-qc9te]

02:22 WHATS THIS ALL ABOUT !. You casually go through all the IC and turboprop engine options but you seemed to have missed this little modification. I had no idea they SR were even thinking of a Nuclear power concept which the American flew in 1956 with the Convair powered by a GE open cycle nuclear jet engines. Ooops, home goal, 17:54 Project P213

[@DaveSCameron]

Was this larger than the Spruce Goose?

[@zanelindsay1267]

A most intriguing history of an ultimately misguided project.

[@jamesbulldogmiller]

@ 2:30 the drawings on screen are depicting a nuclear reactor core amidship , and "nuclear-chemical " engines

[@Franklin-pc3xd]

I swear that if I see anyone on here commenting with a false bash against Ruairidh for supposedly plagiarizing prior videos on this topic I will put them on report to KZbin's Moderation Battalion for racist and bullying commentary. Ruairidh is doing us a great service by reminding us of the details of this great aircraft and nobody has the right to cast racist aspersions against him for any reason. Anyone suggesting otherwise shall be ON REPORT!

[@GeorgeRuffner-iy7bm]

Very interesting and entertaining video. I truly enjoyed seeing this video. Thanks for sharing it. 🙈🙉🙊 😎 🇺🇲