A faster Dragon…………
By: shortfinals
Tags: 'twin-engined Puss Moth', 'Valkyrie', 'warpaint', 621 VGS, 621 Volunteer Gliding School, air ambulance, Air Atlantique, Air Atlantique Historic Flight, Air Charter, Air Show, aircraft, airliner, Aviation, Brush Coachworks, communications aircraft, crew trainers, Culham, De Havilland, De Havilland Major Six engine, DH 80A, DH 84 Dragon, DH 89A Dragon Rapide, DH Gipsy Queen 3 engine, Dominie T.1, Dragon Rapide, Dragon Six, Duxford, Edward Hillman, Fairey Reed, Fairey Reed propeller, G-ATGM, glider, GVFWE, hangar, HMS Hornbill, Hullavington, Imperial War Museum, Iraq, Iraq Petroleum Transport Company Ltd, Jordan, Jordanian Civil Register, JY-ACL, Leicestershire, light bomber, Lithuania, Loughborough, Middle East, Mike Russell, NF875, oil support, Oxfordshire, Parachute Regiment, propeller, Puss Moth, radio trainers, RAF, RNAS Culham, Royal Air Force, Royal Naval Air Station, Royal Navy, Russavia, scheduled airline, Second World War, Spanish Civil War, Viking, Viking T Mk 1, Volunteer Gliding Squadron, warbird, Wiltshire, WW2
Category: aircraft, Aviation, RAF, Royal Air Force, Second World War, warbird
| Aperture: | f/2 |
|---|---|
| Focal Length: | 7mm |
| ISO: | 120 |
| Shutter: | 1/0 sec |
| Camera: | MVC-CD500 |
A faster dragon…..
Edward Hillman had built a economical charter and scheduled airline business using the safe, affordable De Havilland DH 84 Dragon – the Dragon had arisen because Hillman’s DH 80A Puss Moth wasn’t big enough, and he negotiated with the company for a ‘twin-engined Puss Moth’. What he needed now, in the late 1930s was a ‘faster Dragon’. Enter the Dragon Six (sometimes called the Dragon Rapide, and later just Rapide) with its Gipsy Major 6 engines of 200hp, and capable of carrying eight passengers, it was an instant success in the civil market. There was military interest too, with light bomber varients being used during the Spanish Civil War, and sold to smaller nations such as Lithuania. The Royal Air Force needed radio and crew trainers, as well as communications and air ambulance machines. The Dragon Rapide put on ‘warpaint’ and became the Dominie T.1, the vast majority of them being built by Brush Coachworks, at Loughborough in Leicestershire. G-AGTM was one of these, built in 1944 and originally bearing the RAF serial NF875.
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