Everything about Airco Dh 2 totally explained
The
Airco DH.2 was a single-seat
biplane "
pusher" aircraft which operated as a
fighter during the
First World War. It was the second pusher design by
Geoffrey de Havilland for
Airco, based on his earlier
DH.1 two-seater. The DH.2 was the first effectively armed British single-seat fighter and enabled
Royal Flying Corps (RFC) pilots to counter the "
Fokker Scourge" that had given the Germans the advantage in the air in late 1915. Until the British developed an
interrupter gear to match the German system, pushers such as the DH.2 and the
F.E.2b carried the burden of fighting and escort duties.
Design and development
Early air combats over the
Western Front indicated the need for a single seat fighter with forward firing armament. As no reliable interrupter gear was available to the British, Geoffrey de Havilland designed the DH.2 as a smaller, single seat development of the earlier two seat DH.1 pusher design. The D.H.2 first flew on
1 June 1915.
The D.H.2 was armed with a single
Lewis gun which was originally able to be positioned on one of three flexible mountings in the cockpit, with the pilot transferring the gun between mountings in flight at the same time as flying the aircraft. Once pilots learned that the best method of achieving a kill was to aim the aircraft rather than the gun, the
machine gun was fixed in the forward-facing centre mount, although this was initially banned by higher authorities until a clip which fixed the gun in place but could be released if required was approved.
The majority of D.H.2s were fitted with the 100 hp (75 kW)
Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine but later models received the 110 hp (82 kW)
Le Rhône 9J.
A total of 453 D.H.2s were produced by Airco.
Operational service
After evaluation at Hendon on
22 June 1915, the first DH.2 arrived in France for operational trials with
No. 5 RFC Squadron but was shot down and its pilot killed (although the DH.2 was recovered and repaired by the Germans). German ace and tactician
Oswald Boelcke was killed during a
dogfight with 24 Squadron D.H.2s, although it should be noted that this was due to a collision with one of his own wingmen.
DH.2s were progressively retired by war's end and no surviving airframes were retained. In 1970, Walter M. Redfern from
Seattle, Washington built a replica DH.2 powered by a
Kinner 125-150 hp engine and subsequently, Redfern sold plans to home builders. Currently a number of the DH.2 replicas are flying worldwide.
Operators
Specifications (DH.2)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Airco Dh 2'.
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