De Havilland Albatross

Infobox Aircraft
name=DH.91 Albatross


caption=The Imperial Airways DH.91 Albatross "Fortuna" alongside the Control Tower at Croydon Airport in 1939.
type=Mail plane and transport aircraft
manufacturer=de Havilland
designer=A. E. Hagg
first flight=1937-05-20
introduced=October 1938
retired=1943
status=
primary user=Imperial Airways/British Overseas Airways Corporation
more users=Royal Air Force
produced=
number built=7 (including two prototypes)
unit cost=
developed from=
variants with their own articles=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.

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.

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.

Operators

* British Overseas Airways Corporation
* Imperial Airways
* Royal Air Force
** No. 271 Squadron RAF

Specifications (DH.91)

aircraft specifications
plane or copter?=plane
jet or prop?=prop

ref= [http://www.britishaircraft.co.uk/aircraftpage.php?ID=90 British Aircraft Directory]

crew=4 (pilot, copilot, radio operator and steward)
capacity=22 passengers
length main=71 ft 6 in
length alt= 21.8 m
span main=105 ft
span alt= 32.0 m
height main=22 ft 4 in
height alt= 6.8 m
area main=1,078 ft²
area alt=100.15 m²
empty weight main=21,200 lb
empty weight alt=9,630 kg
loaded weight main=29,500 lb
loaded weight alt=13,380 kg
max takeoff weight main=
max takeoff weight alt=

engine (prop)=de Havilland Gipsy Twelve
type of prop=12 cylinder inverted V piston engine
number of props=4
power main=525 hp [at 7,500 ft]
power alt= 392 kW

max speed main=195 knots
max speed alt=225 mph, 362 km/h
cruise speed main=183 knots [at 11,000 ft]
cruise speed alt=210 mph, 338 km/h
range main=904 nm,
range alt=1,040 mi, 1,675 km
ceiling main=17,900 ft
ceiling alt= 5,455 m
climb rate main=700 ft/min
climb rate alt= 3.5 m/s
loading main=27 lb/ft²
loading alt=134 kg/m²
power/mass main=0.07 hp/lb
power/mass alt= 120 W/kg

ee also

aircontent

related=
* de Havilland Mosquito

similar aircraft=

lists=

see also=

References

* cite book
last=Kopenhagen
first=Wolfgang (editor)
year=1987
title=Das große Flugzeug-Typenbuch
publisher=Transpress
id=ISBN 3-344-00162-0
* cite book
last=Jackson
first=A. J.
year=1987
title=De Havilland aircraft since 1909
publisher=Naval Institute Press
id=ISBN 0-87021-896-4
* cite book
last=Jackson
first=A. J.
year=1973
title=British Civil Aircraft since 1919, Volume 2
edition=2nd edition
publisher=Putnam
id=ISBN 0-370-10010-7