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Aviation History
1927
1927 - 0970.PDF
DECEMBER 29, 1927 THE DE HAVILLAND 61 A 6-8 Passenger Machine for Australia IN our issue of November 7, 1927, we published a brief descrip- tion and a side elevation of a new commercial aeroplane designed and constructed by the de Havilland Aircraft Com- pany for an Australian firm. The machine has now been com- pleted, and has passed most of its flying tests so that a more detailed description of it has become possible. A few more tests still remain to be carried out, but already it has been performance. For instance, with fuel for nearly 500 miles at a cruising speed of well over 100 m.p.h., the paying load is 4J lb./h.p. For shorter ranges this load is, of course, corre- spondingly greater, and vice versa. As the Bristol " Jupiter " has a reputation for low cost of upkeep, the 61 should be a machine with many applications. The fitting of floats would probably be a comparatively simple matter, so that in districts THE DE HAVILLAND D.H.61 [" FLIGHT " Photograph Front view. The Bristol " Jupiter " engine looks quite small on the large fuselage. Note wide wheel track. definitely established that the D.H.61 has a quite remark- able performance for the paying load it carries. For instance, the paying load is no less than 1,900 lbs. (with a Bristol " Jupiter VI " engine), and with this the machine has a top speed of 126 m.p.h., and will cruise well throttled at 105-110 m.p.h., at which speed it has a still-air range of about 475 miles. In designing the D.H.61, Colonial requirements were kept where the seaplane type is to be preferred the 61 again would seem to meet the case. As a seaplane the paying load, might be slightly smaller, although the difference would probably not be sufficiently great to be really serious. General Design There is little in the general design of the D.H.61 to indicate that its flying qualities are at all out of O O o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o The De Havilland D.H.61 : Three- quarter front view of the machine with wings folded. The top centre- section (the petrol tank) is on a higher level than the wings, so that the corners of the top plane can pass under it when folded. [" FtiGHT " Photograph o o o o o o o in mind, and although the machine has been produced specially to the order of MacRobertsoh & Co., Ltd., of Adelaide, the great Australian fruit preserving company, the 61 should, by very minor alterations, be a suitable type for quite a number of regular air lines where as yet the traffic is not large enough to justify the purchase of a more powerful three-engined type. Its load-carrying capacity is such as to make it an economical machine to operate, especially bearing in mind the high the ordinary. The machine is just a straightforward tractor biplane of typical de Havilland lines, and in a crowd of machines it might easily pass more or less unnoticed. In fact, those who have been beguiled by the success of a number of monoplanes during the past year might be forgiven for thinking that the 61 was merely a result of the designers having got into a rut from which they cither could not, or did not bother to, escape. The monoplane looks an 878
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