Capable of being operated either on wheels or floats, it was successful enough for a further two similar aircraft to be built, with the type remaining in use until the early years of the First World War.

Impressed by the S.36, the Admiralty ordered two similar tractor biplanes, capable of operating on either wheels or floats, the smaller Short S.45, like the S.36, powered by a 70 hp (52 kW) Gnome Lambda, and the larger Short S.41 powered by a 14-cylinder, twin-row 100 hp (75 kW) Gnome double Omega rotary engine.

The folding wing mechanism for shipborne aircraft had been designed by Horace Short, and was the subject of a series of patents[4] The S.41 was flown successfully at the Fleet Review at Weymouth on 8 May, being based on the Battleship HMS Hibernia.

[2][11] A single aircraft, similar in design to the S.41 but slightly smaller, was built by Shorts and exhibited at the 1913 Aero Show at Olympia, London, featuring a number of refinements including manganese-steel tube interplane struts and provision for starting the engine from the cockpit.

It was first flown as a seaplane but later fitted with a wheeled undercarriage: in this form it was one of the aircraft which were sent to Ostend at the outbreak of World War I: it was written off by Samson on 28 September 1914 when it crashed on takeoff due to engine failure.