Aviation History > Aircraft Factories and manufacturers

Short brothers. Seaplane Works !

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AlanTH:
"I well remember "flimsies", without them you couldn't start or finish a job & they needed the charge hand's signature. And, with luck, if you were quick enough you got a bonus."
Those flimsies and the piece work bonus system at BK enabled me to become what they reckoned was one of the highest paid apprentices in the county. :)
In my last 2 years there I built gearboxes for the graders, pavers and mixers etc and was good at it. I enjoyed my over 5 years there but left 3 weeks after finishing my "time" and went to work at the IPM paper mill at Gravesend along with another ex-apprentice, Brian Butler.
Anyone else work there at the No. 18 shop or the new building BK put up for the final assembly work?
AlanTH.

Dave Smith:
Castle. The masts were an early form of radar & those Sunderlands were then called "porcupines" for obvious reasons. As an Apprentice, I worked in 18 shop for 6 months when I first started.We made all the early parts necessary to convert Mk. V's built at Short & Harland in Belfast into Sandringhams. My job was the front door in the streamline nose for a crew member to open, lean out & hook up the flying boat  to the mooring buoy. On Sunderlands, the front turret slid back to make a gap to do the same. Blaw knox took over 18 shop when they first arrived in 1947, as it was large enough to accept their " earth movers" etc. I well remember "flimsies", without them you couldn't start or finish a job & they needed the charge hand's signature. And, with luck, if you were quick enough you got a bonus.

castle261:
The No 18 shop at Shorts Seaplane Works - was a place where they implemented new innovations.
Once while delivering `Flimsies`- I stopped to look at the Sunderland on the slipway there. (1941)
At 14 - I was interested in all aircraft - ours & theirs - this Sunderland was bristling with aerials
along the top of it - four of them - After a while I moved on.

` Flimsies`- work cards to draw `stores`with - I worked for the Production Office by the Main Gate.

AlanTH:
How strange! I see my reply to this thread earlier has got nothing in it. Probably makes more sense than some of the other replies I make on other threads. :)
Anyway, my father worked at Shorts in the old No 18 shop which became Blaw Knox who I did an apprenticeship with, but he never worked at BK.
From memory and it is a long time ago, he travelled to Guildford I think and somewhere else to work but I'm unsure if that was still when in the employ of Shorts.
AlanTH


PS. No the TH is nothing to do with any Thomas.

Cosmo Smallpiece:
It's a Short Shetland.


Looks like the first prototype of only two. This one intended as military but without the turrets fitted. Regrettably caught fire soon afterwards.

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