info@pooleflyingboats.com
	History On 31st March 1948 BOAC moved its operations from Poole Harbour in Dorset to Hythe in Hampshire, ending 8 inspiring and exciting years of flying boat services that had survived the difficulties of war and weather with understandable pride for all those involved. Imperial Airways had begun commercial services from Hythe using two Supermarine Sea Eagles, their boat like hulls supporting just six passengers.   Before, Short's Calcutta class were first to use a stressed skin, all metal hull and first to offer in-flight meals with a steward in attendance.   In 1934, the government announcement that all mail for the British Empire would be without surcharge, enabling a half ounce letter to be flown for no more than the familiar one and a half pence postage stamp seen on internal mail, caused Imperial to order twenty eight radically new flying boats from Short Brothers of Rochester for a record sum of one and threequarter million pounds. Expected to carry mail or freight and 24 passengers in comfort for some 700 miles about the British Empire, they were ordered straight from the drawing board, with largely unskilled labour needing to be trained in the new metal process.   There was no prototype and Canopus, the first C -class took off from the Medway on July 4th 1936.   By 1938 these graceful, four engined aircraft were leaving Hythe on their way to the Mediterranean, Egypt, India, East Africa, South Africa, Malaya and Australia.   Patronised by the wealthy and privileged, film stars and politicians the services remained the elite, though heavily subsidised, mode of air travel. Other crews investigated the North Atlantic crossing, a 'composite' trial successfully launched a graceful, four engined, mail carrying sea plane from the back of a four engined flying boat, while Sir Alan Cobham's Flight refueling Ltd won the fueling contract for a scheduled mail service from Southampton to New York-a service which continued until September 1939, by which time war had been declared with Germany. The amalgamation of Imperial Airways and British Airlines and the need to move from Southampton, an obvious target for Luftwaffe bombers, resulted in Poole Harbour becoming the birthplace of the new British Oveseas Airways Corporation.   Operations commenced on January 1st 1940.   Poole Harbour Yacht Club premises were requisitioned to provide the marine terminal to service the five water runways laid across the harbour.   Airways House opened in Poole High Street (today's Waterfront Museum), Poole Pottery premises provided passenger reception and customs, while the quayside supported cargo and marine departments, with young, local, women in their twenties manning the passenger launches.   The Harbour Heights Hotel provided the overnight accommodation for passengers taking the early morning flights who were then taken to the blue carpeted waiting lounge at Salterns.   Royal Naval Air Station Sandbanks opened for seaplane training in June, utilising the boatshed of Sandbanks Yacht Company, with officers billeted within the Royal Motor Yacht Club. Two years later Sunderland Military flying boats commenced operations from RAF Hamworthy, with Lake Estate bungalows requisitioned as offices and workshops and three WAAF hostels in Lower Parkstone.   The confines of the harbour proved difficult for those overloaded military aircraft and the Sunderlands were replaced by the long range, American built Catalina flying boats of 210 Squadron. Throughout the war the unarmed flying boats of BOAC kept open the 'horseshoe route' to the Far-East and Australia, but post war, land planes were flying faster and did not require costly launches to clear runways and deliver passengers.   The last scheduled flight of a surviving C-class ended in December 1947 and in 1948 services returned to Southampton to use the flying pontoons of Berth 50 at Hythe.   All commercial UK flyingboat services ended in 1958. In 1976 the converted former Sunderland 'Southern Cross' made a nostalgic visit to Poole and many were reminded of eight wonderful years when BOAC maintained an unblemished passenger safety record flying from the harbour.   Thanks to squadron Leader Alan Jones MBE and his staff, this lovely flying boat is maintained for public inspection within the Solent Sky aviation museum (http://www.spitfireonline.co.uk/) at Southampton, but neither Poole Quay, where young seawomen brightened the procedings, Salterns Marina, the centre for flyingboat operations, nor the Harbour Heights Hotel, where all BOAC crews assembled, have any form of acknowledgment to those days. Some of us feel different, however. Leslie Dawson.   Charity No: 1123274 Website Design by Graham New at www.grahamsphotos.co.uk Colour photos courtesy of Solent Sky.