AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 26 / 72

Plate 26 of 72 · Second World War · Maritime patrol flying boat

Short Sunderland

Sunderland MR.5, painted as ML824, the RAF Museum’s Short Sunderland MR.5, built by Short & Harland at Belfast in 1944, flown by No. 201 Squadron from Castle Archdale and then by No. 330 (Norwegian) Squadron, whose crews took out its mid-upper turret in 1945, later by the French Aéronavale until 1961, and on display at Hendon since 1971, with its four 1,200 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830-90B Twin Wasp radials, painted as ‘NS-Z’ of No. 201 Squadron as it is shown today: gloss white overall, Type C1 fuselage roundels with dark green ‘NS’ and ‘Z’ either side, a small black ‘ML824’ on the rear hull, a red, white and blue fin flash, the FN11 nose turret and four-gun FN4A tail turret, the wing floats, black three-blade propellers with yellow tips, and the bomb racks run out under the wing roots with four depth charges each side.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as ML824, the RAF Museum’s Short Sunderland MR.5, built by Short & Harland at Belfast in 1944, flown by No. 201 Squadron from Castle Archdale and then by No. 330 (Norwegian) Squadron, whose crews took out its mid-upper turret in 1945, later by the French Aéronavale until 1961, and on display at Hendon since 1971, with its four 1,200 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830-90B Twin Wasp radials, painted as ‘NS-Z’ of No. 201 Squadron as it is shown today: gloss white overall, Type C1 fuselage roundels with dark green ‘NS’ and ‘Z’ either side, a small black ‘ML824’ on the rear hull, a red, white and blue fin flash, the FN11 nose turret and four-gun FN4A tail turret, the wing floats, black three-blade propellers with yellow tips, and the bomb racks run out under the wing roots with four depth charges each side. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.7 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (MR.5 + Sandringham); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Sunderland MR.5 modelled here.

History

The Sunderland

The Sunderland grew out of the Short S.23 Empire flying boats that Imperial Airways ordered in 1934 for its mail routes across the Empire. Air Ministry specification R.2/33 called for a four-engined general reconnaissance flying boat, and Arthur Gouge’s team at Rochester gave the RAF a deeper, armed version of the Empire boat’s hull, with a gun turret in the bow and another in the tail. John Lankester Parker flew the prototype, K4774, from the River Medway on 16 October 1937, and No. 230 Squadron in Singapore received the first production boats in June 1938.

At the outbreak of war the Sunderland was Coastal Command’s only modern long-range flying boat. On 18 September 1939 two Sunderlands landed on the open sea to rescue the 34 crew of the torpedoed merchant ship Kensington Court, and for the rest of the war the type escorted convoys and hunted U-boats over the Atlantic, the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean. More guns were added until it carried as many as sixteen, and radar was fitted from 1941. The Mk III of 1941 was the main production version. The final Mk V, or MR.5, of 1945 replaced the Bristol Pegasus engines with Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasps, carried centimetric ASV Mk VI radar in fairings under the outer wings, and could stay in the air on two engines.

Shorts, Short & Harland at Belfast and Blackburn at Dumbarton built 749 Sunderlands. After the war they flew coal and salt into Berlin during the 1948–49 airlift, landing on the Havel lake, and patrolled during the Korean War from Japan. The RAF retired its last Sunderland at Seletar, Singapore, in May 1959, and New Zealand flew the type until 1967. Converted Sunderlands also flew as civil airliners, the Hythe and the Sandringham. The RAF Museum London displays ML824, IWM Duxford has ML796, and Solent Sky in Southampton keeps the Sandringham “Beachcomber”.

This airframe

Sunderland MR.5 ML824 “NS-Z”

ML824The airframe modelled

ML824 was built by Short & Harland at Belfast in 1944 and completed as a Mk V. In February 1945 it joined No. 201 Squadron at Castle Archdale on Lough Erne as NS-Z, and it then served with No. 330 (Norwegian) Squadron, whose crews removed its mid-upper turret in June 1945. In 1951 it went to the French Aéronavale, which flew it for ten years. In 1961 it was given to the Sunderland Trust and flown to Pembroke Dock, where it stood on display, and in 1971 it moved to the RAF Museum at Hendon, where it has been displayed indoors since 1978. The model shows it as displayed today, in No. 201 Squadron markings as “NS-Z”: gloss white overall, Type C1 fuselage roundels with dark green “NS” and “Z” either side, a small black “ML824” on the rear hull and a red, white and blue fin flash, with the nose and tail turrets, the wing floats and the bomb racks run out under the wing roots with four depth charges each side.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Sunderland in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 72 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.