De Havilland

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In 1920 Geoffrey de Havilland changed the name of his company Airco, where he had previously been chief designer, to the De Havilland Aircraft Company.

The new company was based at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, England.

Initially de Havilland concentrated on single and two seat biplanes, essentially continuing the DH line of aircraft built by Airco, but engined with de Havillands own Gypsy engines. These included the Gipsy and Tiger Moths. These aircraft set many aviation records, 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.

de Havilland DH.83 Fox Moth

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

De Havilland continued to produce high performance aircraft including the high speed twin piston engine DH.88 Comet mailplane, one of which became famous in its red livery as the winner of the MacRobertson 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 members of the public.

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

de Havilland Dove

De Havilland Aircraft:

Biplanes
- Gipsy Moth, DH82 Tiger Moth, DH.89 Dragon Rapide
Piston Monoplanes
- DH.88 Comet, DH.98 Mosquito, DH.104 Dove, DH.114 Heron
Civil Jets
- DH106 Comet
Military Jets
- DH.100 Vampire, DH112 Venom & Sea Venom, DH110 Sea Vixen

De Havilland (Canada) was formed in 1928 to build Moth aircraft for the training of Canadian airmen and continued after the war to build its own designs suited to the harsh Canadian operating environment. These are listed below. The DHC-2 through DHC-7 aircraft were all 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 operation in comparison to other aircraft of a similar size.