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Aviation History
1965
1965 - 1563.PDF
fLlCHT International, 3 June 1965 "DH" 859 POSSIBLY more than any other man of our time. Sir Geoffreyde Havilland combined the three qualities most oftenascribed to the British—reserve, defiance, and technical genius. Throughout his long and fascinating life, which ended after 82 years on May 21, these attributes inspired a remarkable dynasty of aeroplanes. Each was characterized by the initials OH, and more than half of the 50-odd DH designs that have flown in the half-century since 1915 have been outstanding, either for their usefulness or for the advanced nature of their design. It was as "DH" that he himself was known to his closest colleagues. His character impressed itself on the company which he founded, and on its people. He was unbelievably reserved, and would go to almost painful lengths to avoid personal publicity. He would watch first nights from his Morris Minor at the far end of the runway. He shrank utterly from the false and glossy world of commerce, cocktails, after-dinner speeches, and indeed avoided public appearances of any kind. Only once was he persuaded to appear on television; this was in 1961, when his memoirs were published. The interview was a disaster. "DH" knew nothing of the world of smart-alec journalism and was speechless when he found himself being baited about the Comet disasters. He absolutely hated publicity, and in particular the popular human-angle stories that were inevitably written about him and his family. It was hard enough for him and the late Lady de Havilland to bear the loss of their two test pilot sons, John and Geoffrey; but harder still to bear the cheap copy that was forever being made out of it. It took 30 years of persuasion by his colleagues before he put pen to paper on an autobiography, which at length he did—every word except the publisher's title, Sky Fever, in his own hand. Withdrawn though he was publicly, the warmth of his nature was readily obvious even to those who knew him only slightly. He was a distinguished naturalist. Entomology, botany and the hunting of wild game in Kenya—with a camera, never with a gun— were among the most cherished of his hobbies. He accumulated a beautiful collection of rare moths and butterflies; he spent endless hours perfecting the technically difficult art of filming the life cycle of flowers; and he excelled as a photographer of wild animals. He was unfailingly considerate and courteous, even to allowing precedence to the lowliest apprentice through a factory swing door. When John Derry was killed flying the DH.110 prototype at the 1952 SBAC Show, a very junior member of the company telephoned the news to him at his Stanmore home. The line was bad, and all that the junior could say was: "I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, that the 110 has crashed." Sir Geoffrey replied: "I have got your message. I will tell the other directors. Please make sure that Mrs Derry is being looked after." He did not ask for any details, not even whether John Derry had been killed. His instant thought, in what must have been a moment of great shock, was for Mrs Derry. He was one of the few men who taught himself to fly with an aeroplane and an engine designed and built by himself and it was his delight to take the firm's Chipmunk up for the odd spin until as recently as about ten years ago. He regarded good and bad fortune with the same cool eye, right from the day in 1908 that his first machine was badly wrecked on its maiden flight. By a miracle he was spared; and within two years he and Frank Hearle had redesigned and rebuilt it around the same engine. The same Captain de Havilland, as he then was, at Hatfield in 1938 with young Phil Smith, who was to become the designer of the Trident and the IZS perseverance carried him and his colleagues through the many troubled-starred times that followed. He would always insist that de Havilland the company was a team, not the man, and he really meant it. "DH" was the presiding design genius, the great but never preposterous innovator. It was Walker who engineered the designs, Hearle the organization man who got them built, St Barbe who sold them, and Nixon who managed the finances. We refer to them by their surnames, for this is the courtly de Havilland style in which they still address one another after half a century. He picked good young men, gave them his example and, wisely, their heads. He had the rare gift of delegating complete responsi- bility to younger men, perceiving before they did—and before many of his contemporaries did—the limitations of an older generation as aeronautical technology advanced into the age of the specialist. His technical influence and judgment came to be sought rather than exerted, and this was actually so until his death. Occasionally he would volunteer an opinion, and it was always right. One day towards the end of the war, so the story goes, he was in the experimental shop contemplating the nearly finished prototype Dove. "I think you may find it will need a little more fin area," he observed to one of his senior designers. Sure enough, a dorsal fin was found to be necessary during flight tests. That, incidentally, was the last of the classically curved fins with which every DH aeroplane was stamped from the earliest days. It became as much the badge of de Havilland as the famous hat he wore. "DH" had a sure eye for form, and designed some of the best looking aeroplanes that have ever flown. The Mosquito, in the design of which he played a leading part, was perhaps his most triumphant union of excellence and elegance. He was in his office at Hatfield regularly until a few days before his death. Only those closest to him know how he felt in the last year or two about the extinction of the name de Havilland. He never showed any bitterness. It was perhaps the very power of the de Havilland ethos and the independence it engendered that made it a prey to the relentless forces of aircraft-industry rationalization. It was sad that it had to be extinguished while he lived. The name de Havilland flies on in Australia as Hawker de Havilland, and most independently in Canada, where fine aeroplanes with the initials DH will continue to do honour to one of British aviation's greatest sons. J.M.R. " DH had a sure eye for form, and designed some of the best looking aeroplanes that have ever flown" fy tie age of 27 he had designed and built his om aeroplane and engine and taught him- self to fly "Flight" photographs
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