de Havilland Albatross
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| DH.91 Albatross | |
|---|---|
 The Imperial Airways DH.91 Albatross Fortuna alongside the Control Tower at Croydon Airport in 1939. |
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| Type | Mail plane and transport aircraft |
| Manufacturer | de Havilland |
| Designed by | A. E. Hagg |
| Maiden flight | 1937-05-20 |
| Introduced | October 1938 |
| Retired | 1943 |
| Primary users | Imperial Airways/British Overseas Airways Corporation Royal Air Force |
| Number built | 7 (including two prototypes) |
The de Havilland DH.91 Albatross was a four-engine British transport aircraft in the 1930s. A total of seven aircraft were built in 1938-1939.
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[edit] Development
The DH.91 was designed in 1936 by A. E. Hagg to Air Ministry specification 36/35 for a trans-Atlantic mail plane.
The aircraft was remarkable for the ply-balsa-ply sandwich construction of its fuselage which was later made famous in the de Havilland Mosquito bomber. The first Albatross flew on May 20 1937. The second prototype broke in two during overload tests but was rebuilt and it and the first prototype were used by Imperial Airways.
Although designed as a mailplane, a version to carry 22 passengers was developed; the main differences were extra windows and the presence of slotted flaps in place of the split type. Five of these made up the production order delivered in 1938/1939.
[edit] Operational history
The first delivery to Imperial Airways was the 22-passenger DH.91 Frobisher in October 1938. The five passenger carrying aircraft were operated on routes from Croydon to Paris, Brussels and Zurich. After test flying was completed the two prototypes were delivered to Imperial Airways as long-range mail-carriers.
With the onset of World War II, the Royal Air Force considered their range and speed useful for courier flights between Great Britain and Iceland and the two mailplanes were pressed into service with the 271 Squadron in September 1940. Both aircraft were destroyed in landing accidents in Reykjavík, one (Faraday) in 1941 and one (Franklin) in 1942.
The five passenger aircraft were used by Imperial Airways (later BOAC) on Bristol-Lisbon and Bristol-Shannon routes. One aircraft Frobisher was destroyed during a Germany air raid on Bristol in 1940, and two in landing accidents, one (Fingal) in 1940 at Pucklechurch and the other (Fortuna) in 1943 at Shannon Airport. With only two aircraft surviving Falcon and Fiona were scrapped in September 1943.
[edit] Operators
[edit] Specifications (DH.91)
Data from British Aircraft Directory
General characteristics
- Crew: 4 (pilot, copilot, radio operator and steward)
- Capacity: 22 passengers
- Length: 71 ft 6 in (21.8 m)
- Wingspan: 105 ft (32.0 m)
- Height: 22 ft 4 in (6.8 m)
- Wing area: 1,078 ft² (100.15 m²)
- Empty weight: 21,200 lb (9,630 kg)
- Loaded weight: 29,500 lb (13,380 kg)
- Powerplant: 4× de Havilland Gipsy Twelve 12 cylinder inverted V piston engine, 525 hp[1] (392 kW) each
Performance
- Maximum speed: 195 knots (225 mph, 362 km/h)
- Cruise speed: 183 knots[2] (210 mph, 338 km/h)
- Range: 904 nm, (1,040 mi, 1,675 km)
- Service ceiling 17,900 ft (5,455 m)
- Rate of climb: 700 ft/min (3.5 m/s)
- Wing loading: 27 lb/ft² (134 kg/m²)
- Power/mass: 0.07 hp/lb (120 W/kg)
[edit] See also
Related development
[edit] References
- Kopenhagen, Wolfgang (editor) (1987). Das große Flugzeug-Typenbuch. Transpress. ISBN 3-344-00162-0.
- Jackson, A. J. (1987). De Havilland aircraft since 1909. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-896-4.
- Jackson, A. J. (1973). British Civil Aircraft since 1919, Volume 2, 2nd edition, Putnam. ISBN 0-370-10010-7.
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