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de Havilland Giant Moth

From PlaneSpottingWorld, for aviation fans everywhere

The de Havilland DH.61 Giant Moth was a 1920s British large single-engined biplane transport built by de Havilland at Stag Lane Aerodrome, Edgware.

History

Following the success of the de Havilland DH.50 in Australia, the company was asked to design a larger replacement using a Bristol Jupiter engine. The cabin had room for up to eight passengers with the pilot in an open cockpit behind the wings. The aircraft took only ten weeks to design and the prototype first flew in December 1927. Following test flights in England the aircraft was sent to de Havilland Australia in Melbourne. It first flew after reassembly on 2 March 1928 and was used on scheduled services between Adelaide and Broken Hill by MacRobertson Miller Aviation. The prototype was originally called Canberra which was used as a type name until changed to Giant Moth.

Ten aircraft were built (including one in Canada built from components). Two aircraft for Canada were fitted with Short Brothers floats at Rochester before delivery to Western Canada Airlines Ltd. Three aircraft were used in Australia on air mail services by Australian Aerial Services Ltd and QANTAS. Another aircraft G-AAAN was bought by the Daily Mail to carry a photographer and his motorcycle around the United Kingdom, the aircraft would land at the nearest airfield to the story. This aircraft was also equipped with a dark room to enable the photographs to be developed on the return journey. One aircraft G-AAEV named Youth of Britain was used by Alan Cobham in an aviation promotional tour of the United Kingdom in 1929. During the tour the aircraft carried 10,000 schoolchildren free of charge.

Operators

Specifications

Template:Aircraft specification

See also

References

  • The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985). Orbis Publishing. 
  • Jackson, A.J. (1973). British Civil Aircraft since 1919 Volume 2. London: Putnam. ISBN 0 370 10107 X. 

External links

Template:De Havilland aircraft

de:De Havilland D.H.61 it:De Havilland DH.61 Giant Moth

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "De Havilland Giant Moth".