Short Belfast

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Short Belfast

The Short Belfast G-BEPS Theseus of HeavyLift Cargo Airlines
Type	heavy airfrieghter
Manufacturer	Short Brothers
Maiden flight	5 January 1964
Primary user	RAF
Number built	10

The Short Belfast was a heavy lift turboprop freighter built by Short Brothers at Belfast. Only 10 were built for the British Royal Air Force with the designation Short Belfast C1. When they were retired by the RAF only 5 went into civilian service with the cargo airline HeavyLift.

1 History
2 Service
3 Aircraft
4 Military Operators
5 Civil Operators
6 Specification
- 6.1 General characteristics
- 6.2 Performance
7 Notes
8 Related content

[edit] History

The Belfast was developed to meet a Royal Air Force requirement for a freighter capable of carrying a wide range of military loads over long ranges. The military loads envisaged included including artillery, more than 200 troops, helicopters, and guided missiles. Shorts design was based on studies they had worked on in late 1950s and the project started as the SC.5/10 in February 1959. From that design the prototype Belfast first flight was on 5 January 1964.

The Belfast was unusual in being only the second aircraft type to be built equipped with autoland blind landing equipment.

To meet the demands of the specification the Belfast used a high wing carrying four Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprops. The cargo deck 64 ft long in a fuselage over 18 feet in diameter (roomy enough for two single deck buses) was reached through a "beaver tail" rear loading doors and ramp. The main undercarriage was two 8-wheel bogies and a 2-wheel nose. The Belfast was capable of a maximum takeoff weight of over 220,500 lb (100 tonnes) but still less than the 250 tonne all-up Antonov An-22 and the 128 tonne Douglas C-133 Cargomaster. It could carry 150 troops with full equipment, or a Chieftain tank or two Westland Wessex helicopters.

[edit] Service

Thirty planes had been planned but only 10 were ordered. The Belfast entered service with No. 53 Squadron RAF in January 1966. All ten were retired in 1976. TAC Heavylift then purchased 5 of them for commercial use in 1977, and operated three of them from 1980 after they had received work so they could be certificated to civil standards. Ironically, some of them were later charted during the Falklands war, with some sources suggesting that this cost more than keeping all the aircraft in RAF service until the 1990s.^[1] One aircraft was is still flying in Australia (2005).

[edit] Aircraft

All 10 Belfasts were named:

Samson - RAF Serial XR362 (used registration G-ASKE for overseas test flight), sold as G-BEPE then scrapped
Goliath - RAF Serial XR363, sold as G-OHCA then scrapped
Pallas - RAF Serial XR364, sold as scrap to Rolls-Royce who recovered the Tyne engines
Hector - RAF Serial XR365, sold as G-HLFT then as 9L-LDQ operating with Transpacific\HeavyLift (2005)
Atlas - RAF Serial XR366, sold to RR for engines
Heracles - RAF Serilal XR367 - sold as G-BFYU then scrapped
Theseus - RAF Serial XR368, sold as G-BEPS then in storage at Southend Airport - possibly under restoration to fly
Spartacus - RAF Serial XR369, sold as G-BEPL then scrapped
Ajax - RAF Serial XR370, sold to RR for engines
Enceladus- RAF Serial XR371, preserved as an exhibit at RAF Museum Cosford

[edit] Military Operators

United Kingdom
- Royal Air Force.
  - No. 53 Squadron RAF

[edit] Civil Operators

TAC HeavyLift
HeavyLift Cargo Airlines

[edit] Specification

[edit] General characteristics

Crew: 4 ( two pilots, a flight engineer, navigator) + air quartermaster
Capacity: max payload 75,000 lb (34,000 kg)
Length: 136 ft in (41.58 m)
Wingspan: 158 ft 10 in (48.1 m)
Height: 47 ft 0 in 14.33( m)
Wing area: 2466 ft² ( 229.1 m²)
weight
- Empty: 130,000 lb (59,020 kg)
- Loaded: lb ( kg)
- Maximum takeoff: 230,000 lb (104,325 kg)
Powerplant: 4x Rolls-Royce Tyne , 5,730 hp each