Short Mayo Composite

The Short Mayo Composite was a British piggy-back seaplane combination built by Short Brothers in the late 1930s to give Imperial Airways a reliable long-range service to North America. A small four-engined mail seaplane, the Mercury, rode on top of a larger carrier flying boat, the Maia, a development of the Empire flying boat. Both aircraft used their combined power to reach height, then separated so that the carrier returned to base while the Mercury flew on. It was co-designed by Robert Mayo and Arthur Gouge. Only one pair was built, and it made the first commercial non-stop east to west transatlantic flight by a heavier-than-air machine in July 1938 and a long-distance seaplane record that October.