AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 57 / 274

Plate 57 of 274 · Between the wars · Three-seat cabin monoplane and tourer

de Havilland DH.80A Puss Moth

DH.80A Puss Moth, VH-UQB (ex G-ABDW), painted as VH-UQB, constructor’s number 2051, a de Havilland DH.80A Puss Moth built at Stag Lane in 1930 as G-ABDW and flown from Croydon to Darwin by Captain F. R. Matthews that autumn, the first Puss Moth to reach Australia, where it later flew joyrides as VH-UQB before returning to Britain for the Strathallan Collection in 1974; it has been at the National Museum of Flight, East Fortune, since 1981: the three-seat high-wing cabin monoplane of 1929, with a fabric-covered steel-tube fuselage, an inverted 120 hp de Havilland Gipsy III under a slim cowling, a two-bladed wooden airscrew, a glazed cabin for a pilot and two passengers in tandem, a folding wooden wing braced by V lift struts, and faired main undercarriage legs that turn to act as air brakes, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail wheel with the wings spread (the museum displays it with them folded): aluminium-doped silver overall, with crimson on the nose rim and upper cowling, a crimson band along the cowling that narrows to a cheat line under the cabin windows, crimson lift struts, undercarriage legs and wheel hubs, a broad and a narrow red stripe on the rudder over ‘Marshall Airways’ in red seriffed capitals, and red ‘VH-UQB’ on the fin, as photographed at East Fortune from 2009 to 2016 (shape from the NACA Aircraft Circular No. 117 three-view of 1930, scaled to the 36 ft 9 in span and 25 ft length; no fuselage or wing registration is painted, since no photograph of the museum airframe shows one); it stands for the Puss Moth and its successor the DH.87B Hornet Moth, of which G-ADOT is at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as VH-UQB, constructor’s number 2051, a de Havilland DH.80A Puss Moth built at Stag Lane in 1930 as G-ABDW and flown from Croydon to Darwin by Captain F. R. Matthews that autumn, the first Puss Moth to reach Australia, where it later flew joyrides as VH-UQB before returning to Britain for the Strathallan Collection in 1974; it has been at the National Museum of Flight, East Fortune, since 1981: the three-seat high-wing cabin monoplane of 1929, with a fabric-covered steel-tube fuselage, an inverted 120 hp de Havilland Gipsy III under a slim cowling, a two-bladed wooden airscrew, a glazed cabin for a pilot and two passengers in tandem, a folding wooden wing braced by V lift struts, and faired main undercarriage legs that turn to act as air brakes, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail wheel with the wings spread (the museum displays it with them folded): aluminium-doped silver overall, with crimson on the nose rim and upper cowling, a crimson band along the cowling that narrows to a cheat line under the cabin windows, crimson lift struts, undercarriage legs and wheel hubs, a broad and a narrow red stripe on the rudder over ‘Marshall Airways’ in red seriffed capitals, and red ‘VH-UQB’ on the fin, as photographed at East Fortune from 2009 to 2016 (shape from the NACA Aircraft Circular No. 117 three-view of 1930, scaled to the 36 ft 9 in span and 25 ft length; no fuselage or wing registration is painted, since no photograph of the museum airframe shows one); it stands for the Puss Moth and its successor the DH.87B Hornet Moth, of which G-ADOT is at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (663 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (DH.80A Puss Moth, DH.87B Hornet Moth); engine, crew and dimensions are for the DH.80A Puss Moth, VH-UQB (ex G-ABDW) modelled here.

History

The Puss Moth

By the end of the 1920s the Moth had made private flying popular in Britain, and de Havilland set out to give the owner who could afford more an aeroplane with a closed cabin. The Puss Moth was a high-wing monoplane with a fabric-covered welded steel-tube fuselage and a wooden wing, seating a pilot and two passengers in tandem behind a windscreen and side windows. It was built round the company’s new Gipsy III, an inverted four-cylinder engine that hung its cylinders below the crankshaft so that the pilot could see over a slim nose. The prototype first flew at Stag Lane on 9 September 1929, and production began the next year as the DH.80A.

The wings folded back alongside the fuselage for storage, and the faired main undercarriage legs could be turned broadside to act as air brakes on the approach. The Puss Moth cruised at about 100 mph and had a range of about 300 miles, and it was soon used for long-distance flights. Jim Mollison flew one, The Heart’s Content, across the Atlantic from Ireland to New Brunswick in August 1932, the first solo east-to-west crossing; Bert Hinkler flew a Canadian-built Puss Moth across the South Atlantic in 1931, and Amy Johnson set a record from London to Cape Town in another in 1932.

There was a darker side. Between 1930 and 1932 several Puss Moths broke up in the air, and investigation pointed to wing flutter in rough air; de Havilland modified the wing and its bracing in response. Hinkler was killed in his Puss Moth in the Italian Apennines in January 1933. Production ended that year after 284 had been built, and in 1934 de Havilland followed it with the DH.87 Hornet Moth, a cabin biplane with side-by-side seats, of which 165 were built. The gazetteer’s museums hold one of each: VH-UQB at East Fortune and the Hornet Moth G-ADOT at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum.

This airframe

de Havilland DH.80A Puss Moth VH-UQB (ex G-ABDW)

VH-UQBThe airframe modelled

VH-UQB, constructor’s number 2051, was built at Stag Lane in 1930 as G-ABDW. Captain F. R. Matthews flew it from Croydon to Darwin that autumn, arriving on 18 October 1930 after 32 days: it was the first Puss Moth to reach Australia. It stayed there, registered VH-UQB, and spent many years giving joyrides from Bankstown, Sydney, latterly in the colours of Marshall Airways. In 1973 it was bought for the Strathallan Collection in Perthshire and returned to Britain in 1974, and when that collection was sold in 1981 it was bought for the Royal Scottish Museum’s aviation collection at East Fortune, now the National Museum of Flight. It is displayed there with its wings folded. The model shows it with the wings spread, standing tail-down on its wheels and small tail wheel: aluminium-doped silver overall, with crimson on the nose rim and upper cowling, a crimson band along the cowling that narrows to a cheat line under the cabin windows, crimson lift struts, undercarriage legs and wheel hubs, a broad and a narrow red stripe on the rudder over ‘Marshall Airways’ in red, red ‘VH-UQB’ on the fin and a varnished wooden airscrew. The shape follows the NACA three-view of 1930, scaled to the 36 ft 9 in span and 25 ft length, with the markings taken from photographs of VH-UQB at East Fortune.

See it at National Museum Of Flight

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Puss Moth in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 274 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.