Aeroplane Magazine Great British Flying Boats Special Issue

THE THIRD IN our Aeroplane Collectors’ Archive series is devoted to
British monoplane flying-boats – we intend to cover biplane ‘boats in a
future issue, while the Saro SR.A/1 will also feature in another of this
series. One type included here is not a flying-boat – the seaplane upper
component of the Short-Mayo Composite, but the unit had to be considered
as a whole.
As in previous Collectors’ Archives, only basic details for each type are
given, and we concentrate on providing large and interesting illustrations
and cutaway drawings from the Aeroplane and Flight archives,
supplementing these where necessary by quality prints from our wider
archive and from other sources. We are grateful to the Solent Sky Museum
Southampton for their assistance with this volume.
CUTAWAY ARTWORK
Much of the artwork was drawn by James (Jimmy) Clark of The Aeroplane
who started producing cutaways in the mid-1930s, continuing to the early
1960s, initially small and uncomplicated but getting more detailed as aircraft
became more complex. We have also had access to material from Flight’s Max
Millar, for which we are grateful to Flight Global, and we are pleased to
include work by other artists including Roy Cross, who produced cutaways for
The Aeroplane, and also colour illustrations for Air x.
Production of a cutaway could involve hundreds of hours, artists often
spending a great deal of time in factories sketching the necessary details
and referring to engineering drawings to complete an accurate cutaway.
Often the drawings would needing additional finishing work at home or in
the studio. Their work is worthy of detailed study and we hope readers will
find it of interest.