De Havilland, Jeffrey

Jeffrey de Havilland was born into the family of an Anglican priest in Buckinghamshire . He was educated at a boarding school at Oxford University , Edward VII Preparatory College and the College of Engineering at Crystal Palace . After graduating in 1903 he was engaged in the design of automobiles; He became interested in aviation only after his marriage in 1909.

World War I and the 1920s

In 1910, de Havilland built his first plane, crashed on his first attempt to take off. The second aircraft, more successful, he took to the air and was able to sell to his employer - the royal balloon factory in Farnborough - for 400 pounds ; named FE1, this was the first aircraft to receive the royal aircraft factory identification mark. In the years 1911-1913, de Haviland independently designed at the royal factory, and in January 1914 he moved as chief designer to the private London company Airco . Under his leadership, all Airco combat aircraft carrying his initials were launched, DH - from DH.1 to DH.9A, in total more than 12,800 aircraft, including US-made Airco DH.4 . The most popular were Airco DH.4 and Airco DH.9 (2280 and 4091 vehicles), which became the basis of the Royal Air Force . The release of DN.9, launched in 1917, doubled the size of the Royal Air Force, however, in a battle with German engines, the DN.9 was weak and the British Air Force suffered unreasonably high losses. Despite this, state orders continued until 1920. DH.9A, with more powerful American engines, had the same drawbacks, but in 1918 was elected the main type of fighter for the post-war air force, fought in Russia during the British intervention of 1919, and served in the British colonies until 1931.

De Havilland’s first twin-engine bomber, the Airco DH.10 , took off in May 1918 and was launched in a series of 258 aircraft.

At the end of World War I, Airco's facilities were acquired by another company and redesigned for automobile production. In 1920, de Havilland, collecting 20,000 pounds of seed capital, opened his own company, the Havilland Aircraft Company, at the London Stag Field airfield, which lasted until its merger with Hawker Siddeley in 1960. Founded in 1928, the Canadian branch, de Havilland Canada , continued its independent existence after 1960, until the takeover of Boeing in the 1980s.

The Pre-Decade

The first de Havilland models repeated the military development of the designer, using motors from third-party suppliers. In the mid-1920s, de Havilland engaged Frank Hatford , an independent engine designer, to collaborate with his firm; in 1927, he established his own production of the 120-horsepower Gypsy Hetford motor, replacing them with Curtiss’s purchased engines. In the 1930s, De Havilland produced under the name Gypsy a whole range of motors. In 1941-1942, Hatford developed a turbojet engine, mass-produced since 1944 under the name de Havilland Goblin (a simplified version of Whittle's engine). In the same 1944, de Havilland completely absorbed the company of Hatford.

In 1932, the company produced two successful aircraft lines - the DH.82 Tiger Moth single - engine biplane (a total of 8686 aircraft built) and the twin-engine, 8-seater DH.84 Dragon (including derivatives of the DH.89 Dragon Rapide , DH.89 Dominie and DH. 90 Dragonfly , in England alone 1000 cars were built). The 14-seater, four - engine DH.86 Express was launched in 1934 for Australian airlines with a series of 62 cars, but due to a number of accidents it was soon decommissioned.

In 1934, a record DH.88 Comet took first place in the Macrobertson Prize race on the England – Australia route. The wooden twin-engine Comet with DH Gypsy Six engines was created for the sake of a single race, but it gave the company a great reserve in terms of optimizing the weight and strength of wooden structures, which was later demanded in the mass construction of De Havilland Mosquito . Finally, in 1938-1939 7 four-engine, 26-seater DH.91 Albatrosss were released (production was discontinued with the outbreak of World War II ). Jeffrey de Havilland personally tested all types of his aircraft; since the mid-1930s, the post of chief test pilot of the company was taken by his son, Jeffrey de Haviland (Jr.) (1910-1946).

World War II

By the beginning of World War II, de Havilland had experience in the production of all types of civil aircraft existing then, including the amphibians of the Canadian branch, equipping them with engines of their own production. However, all of these machines, including the Albatross, had a wooden structure; the company had neither design experience nor the experience of building all-metal machines. According to peacetime standards, this ruled out the possibility of independent entry into the military equipment market, however, the shortage of aluminum during the war brought the idea of ​​wooden combat vehicles back to life.

The main products of de Havilland during the Second World War were the twin-engine high-speed bomber de Havilland Mosquito , all-wooden construction. De Havilland came up with the Mosquito concept at a 1938 competition, the task of which required a traditional, well-armed, all-metal heavy bomber, and was rebuffed - the ministry intended to use his company only as a subcontractor in the manufacture of wings for other people's designs. At the sketch stage, it turned out that the flying qualities of an armed wooden bomber would be unsatisfactory, but the same machine in the unarmed version would be fast enough to avoid a fight with fighters due to speed. Thanks to the mediation of Wilfried Freeman , the old Comrade de Havilland of the Ministry of Aviation, the construction of the prototype was allowed after Britain entered the war; the first prototype took off on November 25, 1940, and on September 20, 1941, the serial Mosquito entered the fray. In 1940-1950, 7781 cars of all modifications were produced. Mosquito is the only de Haviland series design to have no DH prefix in its name.

In mid-1942, de Havilland embarked on the Spider Crab project (Spider-Bokhod), a turbojet fighter with a Hatford engine. An experienced wooden plane under the control of Jeffrey Jr. took to the air on September 20, 1943, six months after the first flight of the Gloster Meteor , but was put into production only in the summer of 1945 under the name DH.100 Vampire . In total, 3269 cars were built in the UK, and over a thousand were licensed in other countries.

Jeffrey de Havilland Jr. died in tests of the reactive tailless DH 108 on September 27, 1946. The youngest son of the designer, John de Haviland , also died in a plane crash in 1943; their mother, Louise de Havilland, passed away in 1949.

Post-war projects

In 1943, de Havilland participated in the activities of the Brabazon Committee , which determined the direction of the post-war conversion of the British aircraft industry. Of the four basic types of post-war civilian aircraft developed by the committee, de Havilland accounted for two — the most utilitarian aircraft of local aviation (“type II” - replacing the DH.89 and Douglas DC-3 ), and the most complex - the first generation turbojet airliner (“ type IV "). The concept of a passenger jet, not covered by the committee’s initial plans, was the brainchild of de Haviland.

DH.106 Comet , the first British jet airliner, took to the skies in July 1949 and entered regular lines in May 1952. However, a series of air crashes from 1952-1954 revealed miscalculations in the design and assembly technology of the fuselage; the development of the aircraft took years, during which the second generation aircraft entered the market - Boeing 707 and DC-8 ; the release of "Comets" stopped on 114 cars.

The piston program (“Type II”) developed without much loss - the all-metal DH.104 Dove (1945, 528 aircraft ), DH.114 Heron (1950, 150 aircraft) and other traditionally built aircraft were replaced by the Douglas.

Geoffrey de Havilland owned a controlling stake in de Havilland until his sale of Hawker Siddeley in 1960, but withdrew from business management and practical design back in 1955. The last machine released by independent de Havilland was the DH.110 Sea Vixen , a sea-based fighter that lasted in service with the Royal Navy from 1959 to 1972.

Rewards

• 1918 - Order of the British Empire
• 1919 - Air Force Cross
• 1934 - Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• 1944 - Chivalry
• 1961 - FAI Gold Aviation Medal
• 1962 - Order of Merit

• de Havilland, Geoffrey. Sky Fever: The Autobiography of Sir Geoffrey De Havilland . Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK: Crowood Press Ltd., 1999. ISBN 1-84037-148-X .
• Smith, Ron. British Built Aircraft - Greater London . Stroud, UK: Tempus Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0-7524-2770-9 .

• Jeffrey de Havilland