The Solent Sky Museum is full of exhibits but there is one that will never be missed by any visitor and that is the Sandringham. This example started out as a Sunderland before being converted post war to a passenger configuration. It spent its time in Australia and New Zealand before it was bought by a famous actress, Maureen O’Hara, for her husband who flew it in the Caribbean. After his death. It was brought back to the UK for preservation.
It is a beast of a plane, and you can only imagine what it was like when it was operational. There was a time when a similar plane made its way to a new owner after spending some time on the water and then the slipway at Calshot when I was a kid. I remember seeing it from the ferry as we passed. It looked small from a distance but get close to one of these things and it is quite something. Even so, the interior has lots of space but does feel pretty enclosed. There are a series of cabins with seating inside. Some are lower in the hull while there is an upper area in the rear fuselage.
The furnishings are pretty plush so it might have been a comfortable ride but that avoids thinking about how much noise and vibration there might have been from the big radial engines mounted up on the wings. I wonder whether they were far enough away to not be hard to deal with. The cockpit is accessible, and it gives you a good view of those engines. They have also mounted a maintenance stand. Because the plane will usually be on water when maintenance is undertaken, the stand hangs from the wing around the engine to allow a technician to have access to work without getting wet!
The cockpit is not quite so luxurious. You don’t want the crew to be getting too comfortable, I guess. The conversion programme focused on the passenger space rather than that of the non-paying people. I wonder whether it was changed much from its wartime configuration. I had seen a Shorts Solent in Oakland at their museum, but it was outside and interior access wasn’t available at the time. This was a far more engaging experience. Quite a plane.
