Originally Posted by
V2-OMG!
...an Empire class flying boat? That must have been Pan Am. What a shame none of those great Clippers are here today.
Goodness this one caused me to choke on my cereal this morning. Mrs WHBM
wondered what was going on.
S'land is a corruption of
Sunderland which was none other than the military version of the Empire, by the same manufacturer, so on reading this he has been very kind not to have blown a cylinder - whoops, that was another feature of US aircraft (especially with Wright engines) which was far less common in those built in the UK.
All in jest. If you want to see a real big flying boat in the US, Kermit Weeks' museum near Orlando, Florida has one, a post-WW2 Short Solent, just a refined Empire really, which you can walk all through, and there's another in Oakland, California.