Short Brothers Aircraft

[Guitar Guy]

The first Part 121 aircraft I ever boarded was an American Eagle SD360 from LAF to ORD, back in 1989. I think Eagle got rid of their last Shorts products around the mid '90's.

 

[turning2]

The Irish Concorde

There's also a 360 pax operator here in North America... link.

Though if I had my choice, I'm thinking I'd prefer a ride in that goose

 

[Philso]

She's not a bad old bus to fly, but it is getting harder to maintain due to shortage of spares.

Shorts have storage locations all over the place, I remember going out to one at an old WW2 RAF base about 30 miles from the factory, no electric, no water, just layers of dust.

When the main facility ( actually beside the dock where the Titanic [font=&quot]and her two sisters were build ) ran out of storage room, parts were shipped to all these various old bases for storage. 99% of what went there never came back.

I remember seeing 16 large boxes in the corner of one of the hangers and asked what they were ? 16 Garrett engines for the 330/360. Beside them were parts from [/font]Sunderlands that were never completed, wings from Canberra's, Stirlings and to my favorite , the SC1.

Sad really to see all that history just sitting there. Their inventory management system sucked , they probably have tons of spares for their old aircraft but their just don't know where it all is !!!

When I left them, they were making the barrel for the Lear 45 and various Canadair RJ's as well as Nacelles for Rolls, as well as wing sets for the F-100.

My favorite of their more recent aircraft was the Tucano powered by a Garrett TPE331 engine. I saw the test pilot one day takeoff, flip the aircraft over when he had enought clearance and continue inverted down the centerline and then just climb.. awesome to watch up close.