The de Havilland DH.92 Dolphin was a 1930s
British
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* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
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* British English, ...
prototype light biplane airliner designed and built by the
de Havilland aircraft company
The de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited () was a British aviation manufacturer established in late 1920 by Geoffrey de Havilland at Stag Lane Aerodrome Edgware on the outskirts of north London. Operations were later moved to Hatfield in H ...
.
[Jackson 1978, p.385-7][Jackson 1973, p 382]
Design and development
The Dolphin was designed as a modernised version of the
de Havilland Dragon Rapide
The de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide is a 1930s short-haul biplane airliner developed and produced by British aircraft company de Havilland. Capable of accommodating 6–8 passengers, it proved an economical and durable craft, despite its rela ...
, incorporating ideas from the company's
DH 86A and
de Havilland Dragonfly
The de Havilland DH.90 Dragonfly is a 1930s British twin-engined luxury touring biplane built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company at Hatfield Aerodrome.
Development
The Dragonfly shares a clear family resemblance with the Dragon Rapide, but ...
but using new main assembly designs. It had
a DH 86A-style nose to accommodate two crew side by side and increased span wings of unequal span, Dragonfly-like. It first appeared with the trousered undercarriage of these earlier biplane transports, but a retractable landing gear, rather like that of the
DH.88 Comet was fitted before flight. Onboard air-stairs were one of the passenger access novelties.
[Hayes 2003 p.152] It was powered by two 204 hp (152 kW)
de Havilland Gipsy Six
The de Havilland Gipsy Six is a British six-cylinder, air-cooled, inverted inline piston engine developed by the de Havilland Engine Company for aircraft use in the 1930s. It was based on the cylinders of the four-cylinder Gipsy Major and ...
piston engines. Fuel tanks were in the wings, as in the Dragonfly, to avoid the fire hazard of the Rapide's engine nacelle tanks.
One prototype was built and first flown on 9 September 1936.
Geoffrey de Havilland
Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, (27 July 1882 – 21 May 1965) was an English aviation pioneer and aerospace engineer. The aircraft company he founded produced the Mosquito, which has been considered the most versatile warplane ever built,D ...
's log shows that
[Jackson 1978, p.386] he flew it only once more. No others were built as it proved to be too heavy structurally and the prototype was scrapped in December 1936.
[Jackson 1978, p.387]
In an edition of Flight magazine dated 10 September 1936, the decision to discontinue the type was published as follows:
Specifications
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
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External links
{{de Havilland aircraft
1930s British civil utility aircraft
Dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
Biplanes
Aircraft first flown in 1936
Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft