S23 Awarua

[BendyFlyer]

A few screenshots of the Empire Class Shorts Flying Boat "Awarua" operated by TEAL. Recently I have been putting together all I could on the Dunedin born Empire Airways Captain who brought out the 'Centaurus" and was the initial Chief Pilot for TEAL before returning to work with BOAC, Captain J W 'Jack' Burgess. Retracing a lot of his flights via JBKs S23 with a few mods by me for authenticity.

Amazing career Jack Burgess had, worked as a seaman to get to England. Joins the RAF in the Depression, gets sent to Iraq on flying boats. While in the RAF he was one of the pilots in the flight of Shorts Rangoons that came down to Australia for the Centenary of Parliament in Victoria, itself a pioneering feat. Is recruited to Imperial Airways and in a very short space of time is a captain on the new Shorts S23. Set an altitude record in the Shorts of 22,000 feet. Took off one day of Lake Tiberias with one prop removed and on three engines back to the UK. Converted over to Stratocruisers with BOAC, he was the delivery pilot, and retired back to NZ in 1952. Anyway these are part of that journey. His dad was the master of the NZ Government Lighthouse Steamer and his uncle the Auckland Harbour Master. Brother was in the NZAF in WW2. His greatest achievement? He was the pilot along with a great Aeroplane, the S23, who pioneer long distance airline travel for New Zealand and showed that it could be commonplace and comfortable. Helped start up TEAL as its Chief Pilot and works to establish the regular Flying Boat Services between NZ and Oz before being called into service with RAF Ferry Command and BOACs WW2 Atlantic runs via Baltimore in the US. Deserves a place of honour in the New Zealand history books. There are some great anecdotes, like the S23 being flown down the main street of Mackay in QLD at tree top height and Jack telling the Australia DCA/CAA official to get off his flight deck and if he wanted to know about flying boats then go and read about them, priceless! Well respected and trusted by all his crews.

Groote Eylandt at Dawn


Passengers view of the take off.


On climb to Darwin



Breakfast time


Great Weather

[Ian Warren]

Nice screens Bendy One type we really need is a good Shorts flying boat, I have put in a request with a developer , Ole Captain Jack, the many flights even in the later Solent's making it to Sydney with no more than a few gallons due to winds, it would have been one hell off a ride.

[BendyFlyer]

Agree re a good FSX design, not that there is anything wrong with the work by JBK in fact his models have stood the test of time, they are all classics. It is a pity he dissappeared from the sim world. I have tweaked the textures and cockpit as best I can but there is not much to improve really as they had quite simple instrument panels due no clutter from radios and other electronic or electrical gadgets. I have found JBK's texture mapping a bit weird at times and you get unexpected outcomes which has to do with the model coding itself. A model with a really good build and 3D design would be fantastic. JBK's Shorts all perform as per the book and with a freeware Pegasus engine sound pack and a rewrite of sound cfg to make it 4 engines I find it great. No vices, even copes with FSX's weird water-air transition and coding.

I was smitten by the romance of flying boats and the simple brute power of having, on a regular basis when a lad, have a big white RNZAF Sunderland go over your head and watch them land and take off was an experience you can never forget. They were big aeroplanes then and still are. I know from reading the accounts of operations and flights in the Shorts that the crew would have had very little time to do nothing, in fact the opposite. They had to run the engine controls from the rear of the cabin, do all the navigation, fuel management, general paperwork and worry about the route because they were no radio navaids and you can imagine how reliable(not) any weather forecast for the flight was, you could arrive and quite a few did, in the dark in a sandstorm or seriously bad weather after hours flying and probably two to three legs or over ten hours stick time, then find a way to somehow get in VFR.

I am still amazed at how advanced they were in every respect you can think off. While Kingsford Smith is buzzing about essentially in a post WW1 design the Fokker, Shorts come up with the C Class flying boat. All aluminium, flush rivets, simple fuel system, advanced electrical systems and electrical controls, auto pilot, and still flown only with two pilots and a radio officer, no FE just a steward and a clerk for the passengers. They get hot and cold meals, wine service, toilets and big comfortable leather seats and even a smoking lounge, and now you can fly across the world in days and they did. Internally they were basically a double-decker Dash8. I still reckon it is amazing that a 26 year old Kiwi gets a Command on a pommy airline in the midst of the Great Depression. Bit like doing charter in a tiger moth and then getting command on a 747 today.

Jack Burgess is part of my interest in NZ Aviation History from the 30's to the 1960's and inevitably that leads you to flying boats and it was amazing that of all the countries in the world, only NZ (after the UK and Imperial Airways ten years before) made these aeroplanes work commercially and safety wise (Ansett's Lord Howe Island run might have lasted longer but its ops were pretty limited to SY-LHI. The Empire boats and the Solents are a great record especially for TEAL aka Air NZ. Alas aeroplanes with wheels and jet engines spelt their demise. Never met or see an ex flying boat driver who did not say it was the best flying they ever did, they loved it!

[Ian Warren]

Agree re a good FSX design, not that there is anything wrong with the work by JBK in fact his models have stood the test of time, they are all classics. It is a pity he dissappeared from the sim world.

I completely agree, his external modelling on all his flying boats really have nothing to compare to.

I have tweaked the textures and cockpit as best I can but there is not much to improve really as they had quite simple instrument panels due no clutter from radios and other electronic or electrical gadgets. I have found JBK's texture mapping a bit weird at times and you get unexpected outcomes which has to do with the model coding itself. A model with a really good build and 3D design would be fantastic. JBK's Shorts all perform as per the book and with a freeware Pegasus engine sound pack and a rewrite of sound cfg to make it 4 engines I find it great. No vices, even copes with FSX's weird water-air transition and coding.

I would like to get upto MOTAT again , they were showing interest with two of my paintings, the Solent and the Sunderland tho nothing come of it at the mo, just get up there to photo the internals of both aircraft, you have done a fantastic modification , It would a real cue if JBK gave you the source files to work with.

I was smitten by the romance of flying boats and the simple brute power of having, on a regular basis when a lad, have a big white RNZAF Sunderland go over your head and watch them land and take off was an experience you can never forget. They were big aeroplanes then and still are. I know from reading the accounts of operations and flights in the Shorts that the crew would have had very little time to do nothing, in fact the opposite. They had to run the engine controls from the rear of the cabin, do all the navigation, fuel management, general paperwork and worry about the route because they were no radio navaids and you can imagine how reliable(not) any weather forecast for the flight was, you could arrive and quite a few did, in the dark in a sandstorm or seriously bad weather after hours flying and probably two to three legs or over ten hours stick time, then find a way to somehow get in VFR.

I am still amazed at how advanced they were in every respect you can think off. While Kingsford Smith is buzzing about essentially in a post WW1 design the Fokker, Shorts come up with the C Class flying boat. All aluminium, flush rivets, simple fuel system, advanced electrical systems and electrical controls, auto pilot, and still flown only with two pilots and a radio officer, no FE just a steward and a clerk for the passengers. They get hot and cold meals, wine service, toilets and big comfortable leather seats and even a smoking lounge, and now you can fly across the world in days and they did. Internally they were basically a double-decker Dash8. I still reckon it is amazing that a 26 year old Kiwi gets a Command on a pommy airline in the midst of the Great Depression. Bit like doing charter in a tiger moth and then getting command on a 747 today.

Jack Burgess is part of my interest in NZ Aviation History from the 30's to the 1960's and inevitably that leads you to flying boats and it was amazing that of all the countries in the world, only NZ (after the UK and Imperial Airways ten years before) made these aeroplanes work commercially and safety wise (Ansett's Lord Howe Island run might have lasted longer but its ops were pretty limited to SY-LHI. The Empire boats and the Solents are a great record especially for TEAL aka Air NZ. Alas aeroplanes with wheels and jet engines spelt their demise. Never met or see an ex flying boat driver who did not say it was the best flying they ever did, they loved it!

Other than the plans I have here I do like following up on the history, one neighbour went overseas, island hopping so to speak, looking after his cat and the mail he brought me back three large 1950s T.E.A.L travel posters , they really suit the one area and space in my place here.