Short Cockle

The Short S.1 Cockle was a single-seat sport monoplane flying boat of 1924, the smallest flying boat built up to that time and the first aircraft given a Short design index number. Oswald Short wanted to prove that watertight, corrosion-resistant hulls could be made of duralumin instead of wood, and the Cockle carried a monocoque duralumin hull with two external steps, a high wing and two small engines on top of the wing driving propellers through extension shafts. It was named Stellite at first, built for an Australian customer and renamed after the Air Ministry objected that the name could be confused with the Short Satellite. With two tiny Blackburne Tomtit engines it was badly underpowered and only left the water on 7 November 1924. The Australian customer declined it, but the hull proved sound and gave Shorts the experience for the Singapore and Calcutta flying boats.