De Havilland Moth Minor


The de Havilland DH.94 Moth Minor was a 1930s British two-seat tourer/trainer aircraft built by de Havilland at Hatfield Aerodrome, England, and by de Havilland Australia at Bankstown Aerodrome, Australia.

Design and development

The Moth Minor was designed as a low-wing monoplane to replace the biplane Moth series, and was intended to give similar performance with less power, and without the need for rigging of the biplane's tensioners and struts. Its predecessor was the DH.81 Swallow Moth monoplane of 1931, of which only one was built. The wooden prototype of the DH.94 was first flown by Geoffrey de Havilland on 22 June 1937 at Hatfield Aerodrome. Production started and nearly 100 examples had been built by the outbreak of the Second World War. With a selling price of only £575 the Moth Minor was popular with flying clubs keen to acquire modern monoplanes. Nine aircraft were specially built with hinged coupe tops instead of the normally open cockpit.
As the factory at Hatfield was needed for the war effort, the drawings, jigs, components and unfinished aircraft were shipped to the de Havilland factory at Bankstown, Sydney. More than 40 aircraft were produced in Australia.
Civil aircraft operated in the United Kingdom were commandeered for use by the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm, and one example was used by the United States Army Air Corps. A large number of civil aircraft from the UK were sent to Australia, where they and a handful of locally built Australian civil aircraft were commandeered by the Royal Australian Air Force.
After the Second World War several Moth Minors continued to be flown by private owners in the United Kingdom.
During World War two, de Havilland took over the small grass airfield at Witney where they operated as a Civilian Repair Organisation on behalf of the British Government. They carried out complete overhauls to battle-damaged Spitfires and Hurricanes, plus any de Havilland types. An ex-Battle of Britain RAF pilot had been posted in to Witney to carry out the test flights as the aircraft were completed by the factory but he was de-mobbed as the war drew to an end, and test-flights carried out by de Havilland pilots who flew down to Witney from Hatfield. Frequently, Peter de Havilland would fly in to Witney in a DH.94 Moth Minor which was the coupe model and had a variable-pitch airscrew.

Variants

Military operators

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Surviving aircraft

A number of Moth Minors have survived, including:

Australia