118 FLYPAST May 2018
MANUFACTURERS DE HAVILLAND
W
hen Britain declared war
on Germany in September
1939 the de Havilland
factory at Hatfield, Hertfordshire,
was busy building Flamingo twin-
engined airliners, Dragon Rapide
transports and the military crew
trainer version, the Dominie,
and Moth Minor and Tiger Moth
trainers.
This was a good product line
but de Havilland (DH) was small
beer compared with Hawker and
the other members of the Hawker
Siddeley conglomerate or Vickers
and its subsidiary, Supermarine.
By the end of 1945 DH had
evolved beyond the wildest
dreams of its founder, the pioneer
aviator and designer Sir Geoffrey
de Havilland, and had acquired
Airspeed in 1940 – largely for
its factory and workforceat Christchurch, Dorset. (See the
panel on page 123.)
Not far from Hatfield, the
company was running a ‘shadow’
factory at Leavesden, and from
1948 took over the massive
assembly plant at Hawarden, near
Chester, previously run by Vickers,
as new designs moved from the
drawing board to the production
line.
Prior to 1939, DH had created the
popular Gipsy family of engines,
manufacture of larger versions of
which continued into the 1960s, and
since 1943 had become a master
of turbojet technology, thanks to
Frank Halford’s Goblin and later the
Ghost.
The company had also established
a propeller division in the 1930s
which flourished into
the 1950s. Thisenterprise went on to develop
guided missiles, including the
Firestreak heat-seeker.Mosquito effect
This corporate metamorphosis
was down to a daring private
venture innovation that took to
the skies for the first time in the
hands of Geoffrey de Havilland’s
eldest son, Geoffrey Junior,
on November 25, 1940 – the
prototype Mosquito, which is
now the flagship exhibit at the
de Havilland Aircraft Museum at
London Colney, a stone’s throw
from Hatfield.
One of the most important
aircraft of World War Two, the
Mosquito turned DH into an
industrial giant. To clear the
production lines at Hatfield,
Morris Motors at Cowleymanufactured Tiger Moths
through to 1944 and Brush
Electrical at Loughborough built
Dominies until 1946.
British Mosquitos were also
made by Airspeed, Percival at
Luton and Standard Motors in
Coventry, while in Australia and
Canada, DH-owned subsidiary
organisations produced the
‘Wooden Wonder’ under licence.
In November 1950 the last of
6,439 British-built Mosquitos- radar-equipped night-
fighter
Dynasty
Right
Sir Geoffrey de Havilland in the
1950s. HAWKER SIDDELEYMosquito PF606 was built by Percival as a
Mk.XVI and converted to the ugly looking
TT.39 by General Aircraft at Feltham in- It served with the Fleet Air Arm’s 728
Squadron at Hal Far, Malta, from 1949.