Supermarine Channel

The Supermarine Channel, first called the Channel Type, was a small civil flying boat that Supermarine made by buying ten AD Flying Boats from the British Air Ministry and modifying them for the civil market in 1919, hoping to begin regular flights across the English Channel. The Channel I used a 160 horsepower Beardmore engine and the Channel II a 240 horsepower Armstrong Siddeley Puma, and the cabin could carry up to four passengers, or three if amphibian landing gear was fitted. Interchangeable interiors let the same boat be used as a fighter or a trainer. It first carried passengers across the Solent to the Isle of Wight in August 1919, and was sold to Norway's first airline and its armed forces, to a flying school in New Zealand and to the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, which received three in 1921.