Imagine boarding this flying boat in Southhampton, England for your journey to Johannesburg, South Africa in the late 1940’s! With several stops along the way for overnight rest – as the plane only flew during daylight hours.
According to the museum’s commentary, the flying boat made “overnight stops along the route in such exotic locales as Augusta, Sicily; Luxor, Egypt (landing on the Nile); Lake Victoria and at the head of Victoria Falls in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with the final stop at Vaal Dam outside Johannesburg.” I suspect you got to know your fellow travelers pretty well by the time you arrived in Africa!
This is a Short Brothers Solent Mark III Flying Boat on display at the Oakland Aviation Museum near the Oakland International Airport. The museum offers tours of the flying boat on Saturdays and Sundays – and is also offering a unique dining experience onboard the Solent on the second Saturday of each month.
The image was shot with my Canon 5D Mark II and post-processed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2. A red filter was used to darken the sky and add contrast – and the image was tightly cropped to emphasize the body of the flying boat. I happened to stop at the museum on July 4, 2009 and captured this image as the foggy skies were beginning to breakup over the airport.