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Aviation History
1925
1925 - 0389.PDF
JUNE 25, 1925 NEW DE HAVILLAND PASSENGER MACHINE ON Thursday of last week we were privileged to witness thefirst flying tests of the new De Havilland passenger biplane, the D.H. 54, which has now been finished as regards itsmain structure, although the cabin is not entirely finished internally in the matter of seats and other equipment. Inthe tests at Stag Lane Aerodrome the D.H.54 was piloted by Capt. Broad, who first took the machine up withoutpassengers for a few trial flights, and later on went up again will be even better. As the flights were in the nature ofpreliminary flying tests, no attempt was made at obtaining other than very rough performance figures and it wouldscarcely be fair to the company to give these at the present time, since they may be subject to considerable alterationafter properly conducted tests. There is, however, reason to believe that the new De Havilland D.H.54 will have agreater top speed than the famous '34 and a considerably H 0 a H H m H H H H m m H H E IS H H m m m H H The D.H. 54 is a very large'single- engined machine, and in this photo- graph the Rolls- Royce car stand- ing under jthe nose gives an excellent idea of the relative size. HHHEHH H with several passengers in the cabin and one in the engineer's seat in front. The machine appeared to get off very well indeed and to have a very good climb, not only as regards rate of climb, but even more so in the way of climbing angle. Even so it should be remembered that the machine is as yet untried and that the pilot is not yet quite used to handling it, so that there is every reason to believe that later on the climb lower stalling speed. This is mainly due to the fact thatthough the power loading is approximately the same as that of the D.H. 34, i.e., about 17 lbs. per h.p., the wing loadingis a good deal less than that of the '34, while the use of the De Havilland automatic flap gear should give a considerablygreater maximum unit lift. Apart from the reduction in stalling speed, another advantage of the lighter wing loadingshould be a considerably better angle of climb, an assump- The D.H.54 with Rolls-Royce " Condor engine has seating accommodation for 14 passengers. 33d
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