FLOATPLANE LINER

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19759, 14 December 1935, Page 24 (Supplement)

FLOATPLANE LINER

MANY NEW FEATURES. VERY' LOW HORSEPOWER. A new and strikingly original form of the passenger carrying aeroplane has been produced by Short Brothers at their Rochester works. It is a high-Wing, cantilever, floatplane called the Short Scion Senior, and although it is powered with four motors, the total horsepower is only 350, for the motors are each of 90 h.p. A cabin is provided with seating accommodation for seven passengers, yet, in spite of the large size of this cabin —it is 45 feet wide and the mean height is 5 feet—and of the relatively low power, the Scion Senior has an observed top speed of over 130 m.p.h. From the operator’s point of view this floatplane possesses many features of importance. In the first place the four engines have electric starting gear and, in the second, provision is made for using the floats as stepping stages from which passengers can climb up the special ladder into the cabin. The ladder is carried in the machine Complete electrical installation is standardly The Scion Senior can be a landplane by substituting a ’"wheel undercarriage for the floats, and it then shows improved performance, the maximum speed going up to about 140 m.p.h. The first machine of this type has been built for operation in Burma. <