Casgliadau Arlein

Aerial view of the Saro Princess at Cowes, Isle of Wight. The Saunders - Roe "Princess" was powered by ten Bristol Proteus turboprop engines, powering six propellers. The four inner propellers were double, contra-rotating propellers driven by a twin version of the Proteus, the Bristol Coupled Proteus; each engine drove one of the propellers. The two outer propellers were single and powered by single engines. The rounded, bulbous, 'double-bubble' fuselage contained two passenger decks, with room for 105 passengers in great comfort. The prototype, G-ALUN, first flew on 22 August 1952 and was flown by test pilot Geoffrey Tyson. It was the only one to fly - making 46 test flights in total, about 100 hours flying time. Two others (G-ALUO and G-ALUP) were built, but they never flew. After spending a number of years in mothballs (two at Calshot Spit), NASA considered using them as heavy-duty freight aircraft for transporting Saturn V rocket components. The nascent Airbus consortium thought of using two for transporting A300 fusealage sections, but opted to use Super Guppies instead. All three Princesses were broken up in 1967. They were the last fixed-wing commercial aircraft produced by Saunders-Roe. The company built one more fixed-wing design, the Saunders-Roe SR.53 mixed powered (rocket and turbojet) fighter design; aside from that, the company concentrated on helicopters and hovercraft after this point.