Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/death-sir-geoffrey...

The man who created the Tiger Moth, the Mosquito and the Comet taught himself to fly and started building his first airplane in 1908. He took off in it for the first and only time the following year after many hours vainly taxiing it around. Going downhill, the machine bumped about on the grass as he increased its speed till it suddenly rose into the air and shot straight upwards until the wings splintered and it fell to the ground in a shattered heap.

Geoffrey de Havilland was 27 and far too determined a character to be deterred. Born in 1882, the son of a clergyman, he had trained as an engineer and worked at first for various car manufacturers, designing buses before borrowing money from his affluent grandfather to set up on his own, designing and building aircraft. He made his first successful flight in his second plane in 1910 in a field in Hampshire, where he flew three or four inches above the ground for about 20 yards. He managed to sell the machine to the War Office factory at Farnborough, which took him on as a designer. In 1912, in a plane he designed, he set a new British altitude record of 10,500 feet.

After service in the RAF in the First World War, Geoffrey set up the de Havilland Aircraft Company in 1920 and started producing a light airplane called the Moth, which helped to foster a growing civilian enthusiasm for flying. The Tiger Moth biplane, which the RAF used as a trainer, appeared in 1931 and the company did a profitable business in airliners. In 1933 it settled at Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire and went on to make a crucial contribution to victory in the Second World War, most notably with the Mosquito fighter-bomber, probably the most versatile warplane of its time. He was knighted in 1944.

Returning to the civilian flying business after 1945, de Havilland’s produced a pioneer jet-engined airliner, the Comet, in 1949. Sir Geoffrey stopped taking any active part in the business in 1954 and it was bought by Hawker Siddeley in 1960. His life was not all glory. Two of his three sons, taking to the air like fledgling eagles, were killed flying. In his autobiography, Sky Fever (1961), he said: ‘Words are utterly inadequate to describe the sense of loss and shock from such tragedies.’ He also felt guilty for the Comet crashes of 1954. Awarded the Order of Merit in 1962, he was 82 when a cerebral haemorrhage carried him off in a hospital in Watford.

'Early life'

Born on 27 July 1882 at Magdala House, Terriers, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, de Havilland was the second son of the Revd Charles de Havilland and his first wife, Alice Jeannette (née Saunders). He was educated at Nuneaton Grammar School, St Edward's School, Oxford and the Crystal Palace School of Engineering (from 1900 to 1903).

After engineering school, his first interest was in automotive engineering, building cars and motorcycles. He took an apprenticeship with engine manufacturers Willans & Robinson of Rugby, after which he worked as a draughtsman for the Wolseley Motor Company in Birmingham, a job from which he resigned after only a year. He subsequently spent two years working in the design office of an omnibus company in Walthamstow.

He married in 1909 and almost immediately embarked on the career of designing, building and flying aircraft to which he devoted the rest of his life.

'Aviation career'

Built with money borrowed from his maternal grandfather, de Havilland's first aircraft took two years to build before he crashed it during its first very short flight near Litchfield, Hampshire. A memorial today marks the event. Subsequent designs were more successful: in 1912 he established a new British altitude record of 10,500 feet (3.2 km) in an aircraft of his design. Geoffrey would be the designer and his brother Hereward the test pilot.

In December 1910, de Havilland joined HM Balloon Factory at Farnborough, which was to become the Royal Aircraft Factory. He sold his second aeroplane (which he had used to teach himself to fly) to his new employer for 400 pounds - it became the F.E.1 - the first aircraft to bear an official Royal Aircraft Factory designation. For the next three years de Havilland designed, or participated in the design of, a number of experimental types at the "Factory".

In January 1914, he was appointed an inspector of aircraft in the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate. Unhappy at leaving design work, in May he was recruited to become the Chief Designer at Airco, in Hendon. He designed many aircraft for Airco all designated using his initials DH. Large numbers of de Havilland designed aircraft were used during the First World War flown by the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force.

'Awards and Honours'

• Air Force Cross (A.F.C.) in 1919
  
• Appointed Fellow, Royal Aeronautical Society (F.R.Ae.S.)
  
• Commander, Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) in 1934
  
• Appointed Knight Bachelor in 1944
  
• Awarded the Order of Merit (O.M.) in 1962
  

In 1972 de Havilland was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.

' In 1979, de Havilland's autobiography, Sky Fever was published by Peter and Anne de Havilland.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/archive-exhibitions/de-havill...

https://www.key.aero/article/manufacturer-de-havilland

https://tigermothworld.com.au/about-us/museum/