Short S.27

The Short S.27 and its derivative, the Improved S.27 or Short-Sommer biplane, were early British pusher biplanes built by Short Brothers from 1910, based on the Farman III and designed by Horace Short. The original four carried the airframe numbers S.26, S.27, S.28 and S.30 and took the name of the one built for Cecil Grace. Improved versions had extended upper wings, a stronger structure and a 50 or 70 hp Gnome rotary engine. They trained the first Royal Navy pilots at Eastchurch and served in early naval experiments: on 10 January 1912 Charles Samson flew an Improved S.27 off a platform on HMS Africa, the first take-off from a ship in the United Kingdom, and on 9 May 1912 he made the first take-off from a moving ship. Derivatives included the Triple Twin and the Tandem Twin, and Cecil Grace was lost in an S.29 over the Channel in December 1910.