Belfast: The Story of Short's Big Lifter

The Short SC.5 Belfast freighters were unique. Only ten aircraft were manufactured, and they were the only aircraft type wholly allotted to one squadron. They spent their ten years military service operated by No 53 Squadron and during that time broke numerous weight/size load records and made their own successful mark in the annals of the Royal Air Force. In many ways eccentric, they evoked admiration, affection and humour, and after initial problems were ironed out they earned the respect of those who flew them and the many who called on their services to shift enormous, heavy or bulky cargo. Axed in the 1975 defence cuts, the Belfasts fell on hard times, were almost forgotten in the aviation world. But six were 'rescued', five of them by the commercial firm which operates them today. Initiative and determination by the people who believed in them and their own versatility have made them a fleet to be reckoned with where humping enormous loads is concerned, and a success story while other cargo airlines have gone to the wall in the worst recession the world has ever known. Molly O'Louglin White tells the Belfast's fascinating story, including the special affection and loyalty of the men who flew and crewed one of the RAF's largest and least known types. The book is full of its exploits with many amusing anecdotes and little known facts about the loads it carried and the journeys it made. She takes the reader flight-deckclose, into its gargantuan hold, among its strange cargoes to airfields and outposts all over the world. With the help of its operators, flyers and ground crews, she draws on a hitherto untapped absorbing and entertaining folklore all its own.


by Molly O'Loughlin White
Published by Midland Counties 1984 1st edition. 124pp profusely illustrated. 17x24 very good including d/j







Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.

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