Short Sturgeon

The Short Sturgeon was a planned British carrier-borne reconnaissance bomber whose development began in the Second World War with the S.6/43 requirement for a high-performance torpedo bomber, later refined into the S.11/43 requirement that Shorts won with the twin-Merlin S.38 Sturgeon. When the war in the Pacific ended, production of the carriers it was meant to fly from was suspended and the reconnaissance bomber requirement was cancelled, so the Sturgeon was redesigned as a target tug that served with the fleet for a number of years. The first Sturgeon I flew at Rochester Airport on 7 June 1946. The basic design was later reworked as a prototype anti-submarine aircraft, and the many modifications produced what one account calls a hapless and grotesque-looking hybrid.