De Havilland

De Havilland Aircraft Company was founded in 1920 by Geoffrey de Havilland, who renamed the company, Airco, at which he had previously been chief designer, and which he now controlled.

The de Havilland company was based at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, England.

Initially the company concentrated on single and two seat biplanes, essentially continuing the DH line of aircraft built by Airco, but engined with de Havillands own engines, the Gypsy line of engines. These include the Gypsy and Tiger Moths. These aircraft set many aviation records in their time, many piloted by de Havilland himself. Amy Johnson flew solo from England to Australia in a Gypsy Moth in 1930, the flight taking 19.5 days.

The Moth line of aircraft contiued with the more refined (and enclosed) Hornet Moth and Moth Minor, the later being a low wing monoplane constructed of wood.

De Havilland also continued to produce high performance aircraft including the high speed twin piston engine DH88 Comet mailplane, made famous in its red livery in the Victorian Centenary Air Race from England to Australia.

The high performance designs and wooden construction methods culminated in perhaps the most famous de Havilland aircraft - the Mosquito, constructed primarily of wood because of the shortage of aluminium during the war.

After the Second World War de Havilland continued with leading edge designs in both the military and civil field, but several public disasters doomed the company as an independent entity.

The most famous of these were the loss of several Comet jetliners. Less well known, but equally disastrous, was the explosion of the Sea Vixen prototype during the 1952 Farnborough Airshow, which killed many members of the public.

De Havillands was was bought by Hawker Siddeley, before ultimately being incorporated into British Aerospace. In this period many designs started by de Havilland came to fruition including the Trident, HS-146 (later BAe-146), HS-125, (later BAe-125).

De Havilland Aircraft:

• Biplanes
  • Gypsy Moth, DH82 Tiger Moth
• Piston Monoplanes
  • DH88 Comet, Dove, Heron, Mosquito,
• Civil Jets
  • Comet
• Military Jets
  • Sea Venom, DH110 Sea Vixen, Vampire, Venom

De Havilland (Canada) was formed in 1928 to build Moth aircraft in which to train Canadian airmen, continued after the war to build its own designs suited to the harsh Canadian operating environment. These are listed below and the DHC-2 through DHC-7 designs were all notable STOL designs. De Havilland (Canada) was eventually incorporated into the Bombardier group of companies and the Dash Eight remains in production with a particular emphasis being placed on its quiet operational character in comparison to other aircraft of a similar size.

De Havilland (Canada) Aircraft (chronologically):

• DHC-1 Chipmunk nicknamed the Chippy
• DHC-2 Beaver
• DHC-3 Otter
• DHC-4 Caribou
• DHC-5 Buffalo
• DHC-6 Twin Otter
• DHC-7
• DHC-8

External Links

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Aerospace/DeHavilland/Aero49.htm