de Havilland Dove
The de Havilland Dove (DH.104) was a British twin-engined short-haul airliner built to the Brabazon Committee's Type VB feederliner requirement as the all-metal successor to the Dragon Rapide biplane. It first flew on 25 September 1945 and entered service with Central African Airways in December 1946. Production, as the sources scope it, totalled 544 aircraft built between 1946 and 1967, including 127 Devons for the RAF and 13 Sea Devons for the Royal Navy. Civil Doves flew feeder, executive, air ambulance and survey work around the world, the type served with the armed forces of more than 20 countries, and examples were still reported airworthy in 2025.
Why It Mattered
The Dove was the aircraft the Brabazon Committee's Type VB requirement produced: a British-designed short-haul feeder airliner, and the monoplane successor to de Havilland's pre-war Dragon Rapide biplane. It first flew on 25 September 1945, six weeks after the Japanese surrender, and the British Airliner Collection calls it the first British airliner produced after the Second World War. It also had to compete with the large numbers of surplus military transports left by the war, the DC-3 among them. Vintage Aviation News counts it among the most successful British aircraft of the postwar era, and production ran from 1946 to 1967.
Design Notes
Unlike the Dragon Rapide biplane it replaced, the Dove's structure was entirely metal. Its modern features included constant-speed propellers, flaps and a retractable tricycle undercarriage. Its most distinctive construction choice was adhesive bonding: the all-metal airframe made extensive use of the Redux resin adhesive, cutting down on rivets, saving weight and smoothing the surface to reduce drag. Two de Havilland Gipsy Queen inverted in-line piston engines powered the type, uprated over the production run from 330 hp in the Dove 1 to 400 hp in the Dove 7 and 8. Maintainability was designed in, with components made interchangeable and easy to remove or replace. Standard airliners carried eight to eleven passengers, while the executive versions seated six.
Operational History
The Dove entered service with Central African Airways in December 1946. Airlines flew it on short-haul routes and feeder services into the main airports; operators named by Vintage Aviation News include BOAC, Air Wisconsin, Airlines of Western Australia and Far East Airlines. Away from the airlines it worked as an executive transport, an air ambulance and a flying classroom. Production started at Hatfield and moved in 1951 to Broughton, near Chester; the final example was delivered in 1967. The military market was large, and the type served with the armed forces of more than 20 countries. For the Royal Air Force the communications version was the Devon, and for the Royal Navy the Sea Devon; as the sources scope the total of 544, it includes two prototypes, 127 Devons and 13 Sea Devons. An early batch of 30 Devons joined the RAF and flew VIP and light transport work for over 30 years.
Afterlife
The Dove's four-engined development, the Heron, was built in numbers of its own, with 149 produced. In the United States, Riley Aeronautics converted Doves with 400 hp Lycoming flat-eight engines and a taller swept fin; these were third-party conversions, not de Havilland production. Writing in September 2025, Vintage Aviation News reported that a number of examples remain airworthy, flown in the UK, Canada, Germany and other countries by private owners and charter operators. Others survive in museums: the British Airliner Collection's Dove G-ALFU at Duxford spent its working life from 1948 to 1972 with the Civil Aviation Flying Unit at Stansted, was donated to the Imperial War Museum in 1973, and passed to the Duxford Aviation Society in February 1984.