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Home > De Havilland DH.88

The de Havilland DH.88 Comet was an aircraft designed for one very specific purpose - to win the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race for Britain. It set many aviation records during the race and afterwards as a pioneer mail-plane.

1 Development

Despite previous British air racing successes, culminating in 1931 in the outright win of the Schneider Trophy, there was no British plane capable of putting up a challenge over the MacPherson course with its long overland stages. The de Havilland company stepped into the breach by offering to produce a limited run of 200 mph (320 km/h) racers if three were ordered by February, 1934. The sale price of £5,000 each would by no means cover the development costs - de Havilland seem to have been motivated by a mixture of patriotism and an eye to the obvious publicity benefits to the company if one of their planes should win the event.

3 orders were indeed received, and de Havillands set to work. The airframe consisted of a wooden skeleton clad with spruce plywood, with a final fabric covering on the wings. A long streamlined nose held the main fuel tanks, with the low set central two-seat cockpit forming an unbroken line to the tail. The engines were essentially the standard Gipsy Six used on the Express and Dragon Rapide passenger planes, tuned for best performance with a higher compression ratio. The propellors were two-position variable pitch, manually set to fine before takeoff and changed automatically to coarse by a pressure sensor. The main undercarriage retracted upwards and backwards into the engine nacelles. The DH.88 could maintain altitude up to 4,000 ft (1,200 m) on one engine.

De Havillands managed to meet their challenging schedule and testing of the DH.88 began six weeks before the start date of the race. On the day of the race, the three distinctively coloured planes took their places among 17 other entrants ranging from a new Douglas DC-2 airliner to two converted Fairey FoxThe Fairey Fox was a light bomber and fighter biplane of the 1920s and 1930s. It was originally produced in Britain for the RAF, but continued in production and use in Belgium long after after it was retired in Britain. The Fox Mk. I had equal chord upper bombers.

2 The MacRobertson Race

2.1 Black Magic

First to take off at 6.30am on October 20 were JimJames Allan ("Jim") Mollison ( 1905- 1959) was a famous Scottish pioneer airplane pilot. Born April 19, 1905 in Glasgow, Mollison was to set many records during the rapid development of aviation in the 1930s. In July-August 1931 Jim Mollison set a record and AmyAmy Johnson ( July 1, 1903 January 5, 1941) was a famous English aviatrix who was born in Kingston upon Hull. Having graduated with a BA Economics from the University of Sheffield, Johnson went to work in London as secretary to a solicitor. She was introd Mollison in their own G-ACSP Black Magic. They made a faultless journey to BaghdadCapitals in Asia Baghdad is the capital of Iraq and the Baghdad Province. It is the second largest city in Southwest Asia after Tehran, with the 2003 population estimated at 5,772,000. Situated on the Tigris River at 33°20 north and 44°26 east, the city w, and reached KarachiKarachi is the largest city of Pakistan and the capital of the province of Sindh. It is the financial and commercial hub of Pakistan. The city is located on the Arabian Sea north west of the mouths of the Indus River. With a population of around 14 millio at around 10am on the second race day, setting a new England- India record. Problems began for the Mollisons when their landing gear failed to retract, and after returning Karachi for repairs they were again delayed by an inability to navigate at night.

Further problems followed when they made an unscheduled refuelling stop at Jobbolpore but found no aviation fuel. Running instead on fuel used by the local bus company, a engine piston seized and an oil line ruptured. They flew on to Allahabad and retired.

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