Development
The DH.91 was designed in 1936 by A. E. Hagg to Air Ministry specification 36/35 for a trans-Atlantic mail plane.
The aircraft was remarkable for the ply-balsa-ply sandwich construction of its fuselage which was later made famous in the de Havilland Mosquito bomber. Another unique feature was a cooling system for the air-cooled engines that allowed for nearly ideal streamlining of the engine mounting. The first Albatross flew on May 20, 1937. The second prototype broke in two during overload tests but was rebuilt and it and the first prototype were used by Imperial Airways.
Although designed as a mailplane, a version to carry 22 passengers was developed; the main differences were extra windows and the replacement of split flaps with slotted flaps. Five of these made up the production order delivered in 1938/1939.
Read more about this topic: De Havilland Albatross
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)