page_title: Short Mayo Composite
section_title: Operations
hierarchical_section_title: Short Mayo Composite / Operations
caption_attribution_description: Imperial Airways seaplanes at Foynes, Limerick. On the bottom is Maia, with Mercury above. These planes were made by Short Brothers, and were aimed at solving the problem of getting heavily loaded aircraft into the air with a reasonably short take-off run. On 20 July 1938, the Irish Independent reported: "The Mercury will carry across the Atlantic copies of tomorrow's "Irish Independent", which, if the flight proceeds as scheduled, will be on sale in New York at mid-day on Thursday. She will also carry half a ton of newspapers and pictures of the King's visit to Paris. ... The Mercury will be catapulated [sic] from the back of the mother plane, Maia, and it is hoped to make the crossing in about 12 hours [to Montreal] and to be in New York in under 20 hours." Date: 20 July 1938 NLI Ref.: &lt;a href="http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000249986" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"&gt;INDH962&lt;/a&gt;
context_page_description: The Short Mayo Composite was a piggy-back long-range seaplane/flying boat combination produced by Short Brothers to provide a reliable long-range air transport service to North America and, potentially, to other distant places in the British Empire and the Commonwealth.
context_section_description: The first successful in-flight separation was carried out from the Shorts works at Borstal, near Rochester, Medway, on 6 February 1938, Maia piloted by Parker and Mercury by Harold Piper. Following further successful tests, the first transatlantic flight was made on 21 July 1938 from Foynes, on the Shannon Estuary, west coast of Ireland, to Boucherville, near Montreal, Quebec, Canada, a flight of 2,930 miles (4,720 km). Maia, flown by Captain A.S. Wilcockson, took off from Southampton carrying Mercury piloted by Captain Don Bennett. As well as Mercury, the launch aircraft Maia was also carrying 10 passengers and luggage. Mercury separated from her carrier at 8 pm to continue what was to become the first commercial  non-stop East-to-West transatlantic flight by a heavier-than-air machine. This initial journey took 20 hrs 21 min at an average ground speed of 144 miles per hour (232 km/h).
  The Maia-Mercury composite continued in use with Imperial Airways, including Mercury flying to Alexandria, Egypt, in December 1938. After modifications to extend Mercury's range, it established a record flight for a seaplane of 6,045 miles (9,728 km) from Dundee in Scotland to Alexander Bay, in South Africa between 6 and 8 October 1938.
  Only one example of the Short-Mayo composite was built, the S.21 Maia with the registration G-ADHK and the S.20 Mercury G-ADHJ. The development of a more powerful and longer-range Empire boat (the Short S.26), the increase in allowable all-up weights with the standard "C-Class", the further development of in-flight refuelling and the outbreak of the Second World War combined to render the approach obsolete. Maia was destroyed in Poole Harbour by German bombers on 11 May 1941. Mercury was flown to Felixstowe for use by 320 (Netherlands) Squadron RAF a unit of the Royal Air Force formed from the personnel of the Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service. This squadron was based at the time at RAF Pembroke Dock. When this squadron was re-equipped with Lockheed Hudsons, Mercury was returned to Shorts at Rochester on 9 August 1941 and broken up so that its aluminium could be recycled for use in the war effort.
caption: The pair in Ireland.
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