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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0246.PDF
\<\ FLIGHT,^-^ 2 March 1956 The most remarkable airscrew story of the war was D.H.'s emergency conversion—in 52 days—of 1JD51 Spitfires, Hurricanes and Defiants to constant-speeding just before the Battle of Britain. When a contracts clerk seemed worried about payment arrangements, a DM. engineer replied: "If it isn't done we may never live to be paid for anything." Below, one of the Mosquito's 40 variants which had DM. airscrews. ENTERPRISE IN AIRSCREWS . . . tant with engines positioned well away from the windscreen. Commercial business also became brisk. The small two- blader "1,000-size" bracket-type, forerunner of today's Heron airscrew, was in demand for Percival's DJH. Gipsy-Six- powercd types such as the Vega Gull, Mew Gull, Proctor, twin-engined Q-6, and also for the four-engined D.H. 86 Express airliner. In 1936 the first export order was received—from Poland for the Jakimuik-designed P.Z.L.37 bomber (two Bristol Pegasus). There followed orders from Holland for the simi- larly powered Fokker T.5 bomber and D.21 fighter (Bristol Mercury), and deliveries were made also to Turkey, Sweden, Belgium and Yugoslavia. It was the beginning of a demand which to date has established D.H. airscrews in 71 countries. By September 1939 the D.H. airscrew division had in its first four years delivered 10,000 propellers, and it was ready for an immediate expansion to meet the demands of war. The subsequent effort speaks for itself: the output up to 1945 accounted for more than 100,000 new airscrews manufactured, nearly 38,000 assembled from American pans, and more than 40,000 repaired after war damage. The peak was reached in June, 1944—around D-Day—when about 1,300 units a week were leaving D.H. factories, including DJH. Australia, who had started production a year before Pearl Harbour and, like the parent company, had found themselves prepared for war. But the greatest wartime accomplishment of all, without which the result of the Battle of Britain might have been reversed, was the conversion to constant-speeding of Fighter The "ljOOO-size" D.H. airscrew, seen here on a Perc'nal Vega Gull in 1936, has remained virtually the same for 20 years: it is to be seen today on the Heron. (Right) Not for the graveyard: thanks to the ductility of the Dural blade, more than 40J000 war-wounded airscrews were repaired by de Havilland between 7939 and 1945. "Flight" photograph
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