SHORTS Aircraft For Sale

Also known as Short Brothers, Shorts may lack the name recognition other pioneering aviation companies possess but the company that brothers Horace, Eustace, and Oswald Short helped launch in the early 1900s made numerous contributions to the aviation sector. For starters, it was the first company the world over to manufacture production-grade aircraft. The company also secured licensing rights to produce Wright brothers’ designs in Great Britain, designed Great Britain’s first all-metal aircraft (the Short Silver Streak), and produced the 19-seat SC.7 Skyvan turboprop, aka “the flying Shoebox,” aka “the shed.” Although production of Shorts aircraft ended around 1990, you can still find numerous Shorts models for sale today, including the Skyvan, SD3-60-300, SD3060-100, Tucano MK1, and SD3-30.

The Short brothers got their start in aviation making gas balloons in 1902, an endeavor that led them to meet Charles Rolls of Rolls-Royce fame. Rolls in turn introduced the Shorts to the Wright brothers. Later, the shorts would form Short Brothers in 1908, first establishing operations on the Isle of Sheppey and then in Rochester, where the company could test the seaplanes it was developing on the River Medway. Following the British government taking control of the company in 1943 via a nationalization effort, operations moved in 1948 to Belfast, Ireland, where a factory was previously established. In 1989, global train and plane manufacturer Bombardier acquired the company and now runs its UK operations out of Belfast.

During its early years, Shorts produced more than 900 Short S.184 models as part of the World War I effort. Later, it created the heralded Short Sunderland bomber for World War II. Visually, however, the SC.7 Skyvan, with its boxy, high-wing, twin-rudder design is arguably Shorts’ most instantly recognizable aircraft. Debuting in 1963, the twin-turboprop short-haul commuter/freighter gave way to the 1974-introduced Shorts 330 and later the Shorts 360 that first flew in 1982. Shorts designed both longer variations of the Skyvan for use as regional airliners.