AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 43 / 219

Plate 43 of 219 · Between the wars · Three-seat touring biplane

de Havilland DH.51

DH.51 (1924), painted as G-EBIR, the Shuttleworth Collection’s de Havilland DH.51, the only survivor of three built and the oldest airworthy de Havilland: a wooden, fabric-covered three-seat touring biplane of 37 ft span with two pairs of interplane struts each side, ailerons on the lower wings only, a gravity tank faired into the top of the centre section, open front and rear cockpits and an exposed 120 hp ADC Airdisco air-cooled V8 in the nose, flown in Kenya as VP-KAA ‘Miss Kenya’ and shown standing tail-down on its oleo undercarriage and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden since 2011: dark chocolate fuselage with white ‘AIRCRAFT TRANSPORT & TRAVEL LTD’ titles and ‘G-EBIR’ on both sides, silver wings and tailplane, a white fin and rudder with a black ‘G’, navy registration across the top of the upper wing, a copper starboard exhaust and a two-bladed cream propeller with a polished spinner (shape from the Flight three-view of July 1924, with engine, propeller, undercarriage and markings following photographs of G-EBIR).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-EBIR, the Shuttleworth Collection’s de Havilland DH.51, the only survivor of three built and the oldest airworthy de Havilland: a wooden, fabric-covered three-seat touring biplane of 37 ft span with two pairs of interplane struts each side, ailerons on the lower wings only, a gravity tank faired into the top of the centre section, open front and rear cockpits and an exposed 120 hp ADC Airdisco air-cooled V8 in the nose, flown in Kenya as VP-KAA ‘Miss Kenya’ and shown standing tail-down on its oleo undercarriage and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden since 2011: dark chocolate fuselage with white ‘AIRCRAFT TRANSPORT & TRAVEL LTD’ titles and ‘G-EBIR’ on both sides, silver wings and tailplane, a white fin and rudder with a black ‘G’, navy registration across the top of the upper wing, a copper starboard exhaust and a two-bladed cream propeller with a polished spinner (shape from the Flight three-view of July 1924, with engine, propeller, undercarriage and markings following photographs of G-EBIR). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.2 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the DH.51 (1924) modelled here.

History

The DH.51

After the two-seat DH.37 of 1922, de Havilland turned to the private owner, and in 1924 the company designed the DH.51 at Stag Lane as an economical three-seat touring biplane. It was a wooden aeroplane, mostly fabric-covered, with a pilot behind two passengers, and it was meant to run on the 90 hp RAF 1A, a wartime engine then to be had cheaply from surplus stocks. A fairing could cover the front cockpit so that it carried luggage instead of a third person.

Geoffrey de Havilland flew the first DH.51 in July 1924, and it handled well. But the RAF 1A had only single ignition, and the authorities would not grant a certificate of airworthiness without dual ignition unless the engine first passed lengthy flight tests. Rather than pay for them, de Havilland fitted the 120 hp ADC Airdisco air-cooled V8. Performance improved, but the bigger engine made the DH.51 dearer to run than its buyers wanted, and only three were built.

The first, given single-bay wings as the DH.51A, went to Australia, became a floatplane and capsized in Sydney Harbour in 1931; the second was scrapped in England in 1933. The third, G-EBIR, was finished in 1925. The lesson was not wasted: de Havilland went on to design the smaller, cheaper DH.60 Moth, which flew in 1925 and put private flying within reach of clubs and owners across the world.

This airframe

de Havilland DH.51 G-EBIR

G-EBIRThe airframe modelled

G-EBIR is the only DH.51 left and the oldest de Havilland design still flying. It went to Kenya in 1929 as VP-KAA ‘Miss Kenya’, was air-freighted from Nairobi to Hatfield in 1965, restored by Hawker Siddeley at Hawarden and flown to Old Warden in 1972, where the Shuttleworth Collection flies it at summer displays. In 2011 it was repainted for filming in the style of Aircraft Transport and Travel, the pioneering airline of 1919, and the model shows it in that scheme as photographed at Old Warden, standing tail-down on its undercarriage and tail skid: a dark chocolate fuselage with white ‘AIRCRAFT TRANSPORT & TRAVEL LTD’ titles and ‘G-EBIR’ on both sides, silver wings and tailplane, a white fin and rudder with a black ‘G’, the registration in navy across the top of the upper wing, the Airdisco V8’s cylinders standing above the cowling with a copper exhaust along the starboard side, and a two-bladed cream propeller. The shape follows the three-view published in Flight in July 1924, with the engine, propeller, undercarriage and markings taken from photographs of G-EBIR.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the DH.51 in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 219 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.