Short Type 827

Design and development

The Short Type 827 was a two-bay biplane with unswept equal 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,) and also produced by different contractors around the United Kingdom, i.e. Brush Electrical (20), Parnall (20), Fairey (12) and Sunbeam (20).

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 18 built.

S.301

A batch of ten tractor seaplanes officially listed as Type 830s 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.

Operators

 Belgium

Belgian Air Force

 United Kingdom

Royal Naval Air Service

Specifications (Type 827)

Data from Orbis 1985

General characteristics

Crew: 2 (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 ft² (47.01 m²)

Empty weight: 2,700 lb (1,225 kg)

Gross weight: 3,400 lb (1,542 kg)

Powerplant: 1 × Sunbeam Nubian V-engine, 150 hp (112 kW)

Performance

Maximum speed: 62 mph (100 km/h)

Endurance: 3 hours  30 min

Armament

1 x .303 Lewis Gun on flexible mount in rear cockpit

Provision for light bombs on underwing racks