AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 52 / 224

Plate 52 of 224 · Between the wars · Three-seat cabin monoplane and air taxi

Desoutter I

Desoutter I (1929), painted as G-AAPZ, the Shuttleworth Collection’s Desoutter I, flown as an air taxi by National Flying Services at Hanworth, bought by Richard Shuttleworth in 1935 and flying again from Old Warden since 1998: Marcel Desoutter’s Croydon-built development of the Koolhoven F.K.41, a three-seat high-wing cabin monoplane of 35 ft 9 in span with a thick, flat-topped braced wing, a slab-sided plywood fuselage, a wide split-axle undercarriage and a cowled 115 hp Cirrus Hermes II, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden in National Flying Services colours: orange lower fuselage and nose, black decking, cowling top, fin, rudder, tailplane, struts and undercarriage legs, white ‘G-AAPZ’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, the NFS griffin badge on both sides of the nose, doped silver wings with dark grey ‘G-’ and ‘AAPZ’ beneath them, silver wheel discs and a wooden airscrew with cream blades (shape from Phil Kent’s 1/8 scale plan in RC Model World, July 1985, cross-checked against the Aero Digest three-view of January 1930, with the wing, cabin, undercarriage and markings following photographs of G-AAPZ).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-AAPZ, the Shuttleworth Collection’s Desoutter I, flown as an air taxi by National Flying Services at Hanworth, bought by Richard Shuttleworth in 1935 and flying again from Old Warden since 1998: Marcel Desoutter’s Croydon-built development of the Koolhoven F.K.41, a three-seat high-wing cabin monoplane of 35 ft 9 in span with a thick, flat-topped braced wing, a slab-sided plywood fuselage, a wide split-axle undercarriage and a cowled 115 hp Cirrus Hermes II, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden in National Flying Services colours: orange lower fuselage and nose, black decking, cowling top, fin, rudder, tailplane, struts and undercarriage legs, white ‘G-AAPZ’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, the NFS griffin badge on both sides of the nose, doped silver wings with dark grey ‘G-’ and ‘AAPZ’ beneath them, silver wheel discs and a wooden airscrew with cream blades (shape from Phil Kent’s 1/8 scale plan in RC Model World, July 1985, cross-checked against the Aero Digest three-view of January 1930, with the wing, cabin, undercarriage and markings following photographs of G-AAPZ). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (687 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Desoutter I (1929) modelled here.

History

The Desoutter

Marcel Desoutter learnt to fly before the First World War and lost a leg in a crash at Hendon in 1913. His brother Charles made him a new leg from aircraft materials, light aluminium in place of wood, and the two brothers went on to build artificial limbs for a living. In 1928 Marcel left the limb business to go back to aeroplanes, and in 1929 his new Desoutter Aircraft Company took a licence to build the Koolhoven F.K.41, a Dutch high-wing cabin monoplane, in the former ADC Aircraft works at Croydon Aerodrome.

The Desoutter kept the Dutch design’s thick, braced wing, set on top of a slab-sided plywood fuselage, with a cabin for a pilot and two passengers and a wide split-axle undercarriage. It was a modern-looking aeroplane for 1929, roomy and easy to fly, and it arrived just as air taxis and joyriding were booming. National Flying Services, which was setting up flying clubs and an air-taxi network from Hanworth, ordered 19, painted in its black and bright orange, for instruction, pleasure flights and taxi work.

An improved Desoutter II followed in 1930, with an inverted de Havilland Gipsy III, a new rudder and windscreen, and wheel brakes, and the first type became the Desoutter I. Desoutters went to Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Denmark; one flew a regular service to Flinders Island from Launceston, and a Danish Mk II flew in the 1934 MacRobertson race to Melbourne. The Depression ended the boom, and production stopped after 41 had been built. Three survive: two in Australia and G-AAPZ, the only one still flying in Britain.

This airframe

Desoutter I G-AAPZ

G-AAPZThe airframe modelled

G-AAPZ was completed at Hanworth in 1931 and flown as an air taxi by National Flying Services. In late 1932 it was bought by William ‘Sam’ Stephenson, also at Hanworth, who entered it in the King’s Cup air races of 1933 and 1934. Richard Shuttleworth bought it in January 1935 and flew it home to Old Warden, where he had it rebuilt with a Menasco Pirate engine, new tail surfaces and brakes; it flew in camouflage early in the Second World War. After years on display, including a loan to the Torbay Aircraft Museum from 1971, a long restoration to Mk I standard began in 1985, and it flew again on 26 January 1998, for the first time in 56 years. The model shows it as displayed and flown today, standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid, in National Flying Services colours: orange lower fuselage and nose, black decking, cowling top, fin, rudder, tailplane, struts and undercarriage legs, white ‘G-AAPZ’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, the NFS griffin badge on each side of the nose, doped silver wings with dark grey ‘G-’ and ‘AAPZ’ beneath them, and a wooden propeller with cream blades. The shape follows Phil Kent’s 1/8 scale plan of the Desoutter in RC Model World (July 1985), checked against the Aero Digest three-view of January 1930, with the wing, cabin, undercarriage and markings taken from photographs of G-AAPZ.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

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

Every airframe and serial All 224 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.