Type History
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The Sea Prince first flew on the 24th of March 1948. Two variants were ordered by the Fleet Air Arm - one version was to be used for communication and the other as a training aircraft. The first Sea Prince C1 entered service in February 1953. It was soon followed into service by the trainer version which was given the annotation of Sea Prince T1. Sea Prince aircraft were based upon the civilian Percival Prince. The first order for the Sea Prince was placed in 1949 and consisted of twenty one aircraft, three for communications and eighteen to be used in the training role. An improved version of the C1 was produced as the Sea Prince C.2. This first flew on the 1st of April 1953 with the final aircraft being delivered in September 1953.
The Sea Prince C.1. continued in service until 1965 when it was replaced by the Sea Devon and Sea Dove aircraft. However it wasn't until 1970 that the Sea Prince C.2. was retired from service. A further two orders for the T.1. were placed, one order in early 1951 for an additional eight aircraft followed later that year by a second order for another fifteen.
Some Sea Prince T.1.'s were scrapped in the 1960's when the RNVR (Air Divisions) were disbanded, but other Sea Prince T.1.'s continued in service for many years. For those that continued, their airframe fatigue life was enhanced by being re-sparred in the early 1970's. They were finally retired from service in 1979 when the Jetstream was introduced to replace them. |
Role
The Sea Prince was used in two roles. The first was as a communications aircraft. In this role one flew the Atlantic ocean to Washington D.C. for use by the Joint Services Mission. Another was fitted out as an "Admirals barge". The second role was to train navigators and radar operators. For this role the Sea Prince T.1. was fitted with ASV 19a as its primary search radar for training radar operators and observers. |
