Short Type 827

Short 827 and 830
	Short Type 827 (8237), at Lee-on-Solent, 1918, drastically altered with equal-span constant-chord three-bay wings
Role	Reconnaissance
National origin	United Kingdom
Manufacturer	Short Brothers
First flight	1914
Primary user	Royal Naval Air Service
Number built	108 (Type 827); 18 (Type 830)

The Short Type 827 was a 1910s British two-seat reconnaissance floatplane. It was also known as the Short Admiralty Type 827.

Design and development

The Short Type 827 was a two-bay biplane with unswept unequal-span wings, a slightly smaller development of the Short Type 166. It had a box-section fuselage mounted on the lower wing. It had twin floats under the forward fuselage, plus small floats fitted at the wingtips and tail. It was powered by a nose-mounted 155 hp (116 kW) Sunbeam Nubian engine, with a two-bladed tractor propeller. The crew of two sat in open cockpits in tandem.

The aircraft was built by Short Brothers (36 aircraft,^[1]) and also produced by different contractors around the United Kingdom, i.e. Brush Electrical (20), Parnall (20), Fairey (12) and Sunbeam (20).^[2]

The Short Type 830 was a variant, powered by a 135 hp (101 kW) Salmson water-cooled radial engine.

Variants

Type 827: Production aircraft with a Sunbeam Nubian engine, 108 built.
Type 830: Variant powered by a 135 hp (100 kW) Salmson^[3] 18 built.^[1]
S.301: A batch of ten tractor seaplanes, officially listed as Type 830s,^[where?] with a 140 hp (104 kW) Salmson-Canton-Unné engine, are sometimes described as Short S.301s after the sequence/construction number of the first aircraft. It was a hybrid design, with the wings and fuselage of the Short Type 166, and the straight-edged ailerons and forward observer's position of the Type 830.^[4]

Operators

Belgium

Belgian Air Force

United Kingdom

Royal Naval Air Service

Specifications (Type 827)

Data from Orbis 1985^[5]

General characteristics

Crew: two (pilot, observer)
Length: 35 ft 3 in (10.74 m)
Wingspan: 53 ft 11 in (16.43 m)
Height: 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
Wing area: 506 sq ft (47.0 m²)
Empty weight: 2,700 lb (1,225 kg)
Gross weight: 3,400 lb (1,542 kg)
Powerplant: 1 × Sunbeam Nubian water-cooled V-8 engine, 150 hp (110 kW)

Performance

Maximum speed: 62 mph (100 km/h, 54 kn)
Endurance: 3 hr 30 min

Armament

Guns: 1 x .303 Lewis Gun on flexible mount in rear cockpit
Bombs: Provision for light bombs on underwing racks

Notes

^ ^a ^b Barnes & James, p. 527
^ Barnes & James, p. 541
^ Barnes & James, p.97
^ Barnes & James, p.108
^ Orbis 1985, page 2914

Bibliography

Barnes C.H. & James D.N (1989). Shorts Aircraft since 1900. London: Putnam. p. 560. ISBN 0-85177-819-4.
Bruce, J.M (1956). "The Short Seaplanes: Historic Military Aircraft No 14: Part II". Flight. No. 21 December 1956. pp. 965–968.
Bruce, J.M (1957). "The Short Seaplanes: Historic Military Aircraft No 14: Part IV". Flight. No. 4 January 1957. pp. 23–24.
Klaauw, Bart van der (March–April 1999). "Unexpected Windfalls: Accidentally or Deliberately, More than 100 Aircraft 'arrived' in Dutch Territory During the Great War". Air Enthusiast (80): 54–59. ISSN 0143-5450.

External links

Short 827 – British Aircraft Directory

[BJ527-1] Barnes & James, p. 527

[2] Barnes & James, p. 541

[3] Barnes & James, p.97

[4] Barnes & James, p.108

[5] Orbis 1985, page 2914

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