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Maia and Mercury Limerick, Ireland

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Summary

Imperial Airways seaplanes at Foynes, Limerick...On the bottom is Maia, with Mercury above. These planes were made by Short Brothers, and were aimed at solving the problem of getting heavily loaded aircraft into the air with a reasonably short take-off run...On 20 July 1938, the Irish Independent reported:."The Mercury will carry across the Atlantic copies of tomorrow's "Irish Independent", which, if the flight proceeds as scheduled, will be on sale in New York at mid-day on Thursday. She will also carry half a ton of newspapers and pictures of the King's visit to Paris. ... The Mercury will be catapulated [sic] from the back of the mother plane, Maia, and it is hoped to make the crossing in about 12 hours [to Montreal] and to be in New York in under 20 hours."..Didn't realise that these two craft were part of a quite short-lived enterprise, but according to Bob Montgomery 2012 ( http://75421485@N08/ ) :."the British Air Ministry, who had partially funded the experiments, decided there was no future in the project, and although Mercury was launched by Maia late in 1938 on two flights to Alexandria carrying Christmas mail, that was the end of the experiment."..And thanks to guliolopez for the rather sad news that neither plane survived WWII:."The S20 (smaller one - Mercury) was broken up at Rochester during WWII for its aluminium..The S21 (bigger one - Maia) was destroyed in an air raid at Poole also during WWII."..O Mac ( /photos/91549360@N03/ ) also shared some interesting newsreel style footage ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYtazEBQ1K8 ) of the aircraft......Date: 20 July 1938..NLI Ref.: INDH962 ( vtls000249986 )

Images from our photo collections that show those magnificent men (and women) in their flying, choo choo-ing, and driving machines... Oh, and we've cheated, we're adding boats and ships, jaunting cars and carriages, trams too and bicycles - we're completely shameless. So, basically any form of transport - air, sea, land - with the exception of two human feet...

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Tags

short brothers mercury maia imperial airways seaplanes shannon foynes limerick ireland 1938 1930s aviation independent newspapers collection aircraft airplane airplanes airlines flying boat seaplane floatplane short mayo composite g adhk short s21 maia short s21 short maia bristol aeroplane company bristol bristol pegasus pegasus bristol pegasus xc pegasus xc short s20 mercury short s20 short mercury napier and son napier rapier rapier napier rapier vi rapier vi h block engine h block airliners g adhj aluminium aluminum national library of ireland history of ireland 1940s 30s 40s civil aviation passenger aircraft quebec propeller driven aircraft military aircraft 1940 s 1930 s canada northern ireland
date_range

Date

1930 - 1940
collections

in collections

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Planes, Trains & Automobiles from National Library of Ireland
place

Location

Unnamed Road, Co. Limerick, Ireland ,  52.61636, -9.09756
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Source

National Library of Ireland
link

Link

https://www.flickr.com/
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Copyright info

No known copyright restrictions

label_outline Explore Foynes, Bristol Aeroplane Company, Independent Newspapers Collection

Topics

short brothers mercury maia imperial airways seaplanes shannon foynes limerick ireland 1938 1930s aviation independent newspapers collection aircraft airplane airplanes airlines flying boat seaplane floatplane short mayo composite g adhk short s21 maia short s21 short maia bristol aeroplane company bristol bristol pegasus pegasus bristol pegasus xc pegasus xc short s20 mercury short s20 short mercury napier and son napier rapier rapier napier rapier vi rapier vi h block engine h block airliners g adhj aluminium aluminum national library of ireland history of ireland 1940s 30s 40s civil aviation passenger aircraft quebec propeller driven aircraft military aircraft 1940 s 1930 s canada northern ireland