Short Type 827

Short Brothers · United Kingdom · first flew 1914 · reconnaissance aircraft

The Short Type 827 was a 1910s British two-seat reconnaissance floatplane, also known as the Short Admiralty Type 827.

Recognition (WEFT)

W — Wings	Mid-mounted, straight
E — Engines	1 × piston, nose-mounted
F — Fuselage	twin floats under the forward fuselage plus small floats at the wingtips and tail
T — Tail	Conventional

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Spot it by:

two-bay biplane with unswept unequal-span wings
twin floats under the forward fuselage plus small floats at the wingtips and tail
nose-mounted engine driving a two-bladed tractor propeller

The two crew sat in open cockpits in tandem. Production aircraft carried a .303 Lewis gun on a flexible mount in the rear cockpit, with provision for light bombs on underwing racks.

Specifications

The Short Type 827 has a length of 10.74 m (35 ft).
It has a wingspan of 16.43 m (54 ft).
Its maximum speed is 100 km/h (62 mph).
Typical crew: 2.

Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.

History

It was a slightly smaller development of the Short Type 166, with a box-section fuselage mounted on the lower wing. It was powered by a nose-mounted 155 hp Sunbeam Nubian engine.

Variants

The Type 830 was a variant with a 135 hp Salmson water-cooled radial, and 18 were built. A batch of ten tractor seaplanes with a 140 hp Salmson-Canton-Unne engine are sometimes described as Short S.301s.

Where you'll see it

Short Brothers built 36 aircraft, and others were built by Brush Electrical (20), Parnall (20), Fairey (12) and Sunbeam (20). It was operated by the Royal Naval Air Service and the Belgian Air Force.

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