The Graceful Princess

Three prototypes of this gigantic flying boat intended for commercial service were constructed in Britain between 1943 and 1953. The Saunders Roe Princess was almost as large as the Hughes H.2 Hercules (Spruce Goose) with a 215ft span and a 330,000lb take-off weight. It had the largest pressureized hull ever built, fly-by-wire controls and designed to carry a 40,000lb payload at a cruising speed of 360mph. Power plants were ten 3,780hp Proteus Prop-turbine engines, eight of them coupled in pairs and driving contra-rotating propellers. Only one flew - G-ALUN - before the programme was scrapped. This painting in oils on a 50cm x 70cm canvas shows the Princess flying over the White Cliffs near Dover. It was exhibited at the 2010 Guild of Aviation Artists exhibition, London.