MEDWAY AIRCRAFT PRESERVATION SOCIETY Ltd
We restore and preserve historic aircraft and artefacts for public display.
Patron: Her Majesty The Queen
Short Stirling
The Short Stirling was the first of Britain’s four-engine heavy bombers during WWII. It was designed during the period immediately before the War and first flow at Rochester Airport, although the majority of the 400+ aeroplanes were built at Long Marsden near Swindon and later at Belfast following bombing raids on the factory at Rochester in August and September 1940. A half-scale version of the Stirling, based very much on the Scion Senior wing with its four Pobjoy Niagara engines was used to prove the concept before the first prototype aircraft was built.
Short Stirling Fuselage Section
Gordon Williams discovered on closer inspection what first appeared to be some metal forming a make-shift garden shed in an area that had once been given over to an allotment in Wiltshire was, in fact, a section from a Short Stirling bomber aircraft. There were still traces of matt black and dark green paint and even part of a roundel, plus the internal structure showed that it was not a normal shed. Unfortunately there is nothing to suggest its identity, but it more than likely originated from either RAF Kemble or RAF Lyneham, both of which were not too far away. .
Short Stirling Reduction Gear Box
The Short Stirling was powered by four Bristol Hercules radial engines. The each engine required a gearbox at the front to reduce the speed of the engine to match the propeller. The engines ran at about 2400 rpm for optimum performance whereas the propeller efficiency was best at about 1000 rpm.
In-line engines such as the Rolls-Royce Merlin had simple spur gears with the propeller shaft above the line of the crankshaft and were also liquid-cooled. With the radial engine, cooling could be achieved by airflow across the cylinders, so it was very important that the gearbox minimised disruption to the airflow and this was achieved by using an epicyclic gearbox. The engine drives a bevel gear and the propeller shaft carries a spider carrying three bevel gears which mesh with it. At the front is a further bevel gear also in mesh with the three bevel gears, and this gear is fixed to the casing. As the engine rotates, the spider on the propeller shaft also rotates, but at a lower speed
Short Stirling Tail Wheel Assembly
MAPSL restored a twin tail wheel assembly from a Short Stirling 4-engined bomber which crashed into a Dutch polder during the Second World War. The aircraft was retrieved by a Dutch recovery team and most of the mangled remains are in store at the RAF Museum’s storage facility in Stafford. Sadly, the RAF Museum has been unable to find the restoration which would in itself be a major project in terms of time and labour – eatimated aat 20 men over 10 years.
MAPSL undertook to restore the tail wheel assembly as a tribute to the men who flew the Stirling in wartime – and who sadly lost their lives. The cockpit section is being recreated at Malmesbury in Wiltshire.
