AIRCO DH.1 AND DH.2

Introduced in 1915, the Airco DH.1 was designed as a two-seater artillery spotter/reconnaissance aircraft with a Renault Type W air-cooled V-8, 70 hp, mounted behind the pilot equipped a ‘pusher’ fixed-pitch wooden propeller.

The DH.1’s two-seater, open cockpit featured a stepped down observer platform forward and below the pilot’s position with a .303 Lewis machine gun mounted on a nose swivel.

A similar ‘pusher’ design had been previously trialed on the Royal Aircraft Factory’s F.E.2B two-seater night/day bomber and fighter with significant success but the F.E.2B had the benefit of the more powerful Beardmore 6-cylinder, 160hp water-cooled in-line piston engine.

Unfortunately, the entire Beardmore engine production run had already been earmarked for the FE.2B which left the Airco considerably underpowered.

As war-time engine production was stepped up and the Beardmore become more readily available, a further 70 Airco aircraft, now with the more powerful engine and designated the DH.1A, were produced for operational service in the Middle East. 

In Europe however, fighter aircraft design and innovation had progressed at a breathtaking pace with the more manoeuvrable and heavily armed German Fokker Eindecker monoplanes wreaking havoc over the trenches of France and Belgium. 

A single-seater fighter, the Eindecker was not only lighter and faster than any Allied aircraft of the day, it also had a significant advantage being equipped with a radical new synchronised gearing design which enabled the forward facing machine guns to fire through the arc of the propeller.

The Eindecker pilot had to simply point his aircraft and fire which gave the Germans a significant degree of air superiority during 1915.   

Realising the need for a similar forward-facing machine gun but yet to master the engineering to fire through the propellers arc, the Royal Flying Corp (RFC) turned to the original Airco rear mounted ‘pusher’ design to create a smaller and faster single-seater, fighter known as the DH.2 with its single and later, twin forward facing machine guns mounted on the aircraft's nose and operated by the pilot.

Seven RFC squadrons were equipped with the DH2’s  which proved more than a match for the Eideckers, with No.24 Squadron engaging in 774 combat exchanges and claiming 44 German aircraft.

The DH.2 heralded the emergence of the ‘air ace’ fighter pilot with the commander of N0., 32 Squadron, Lionell Rees being awarded the Victoria Cross after a solo attack on a formation of ten German aircraft, destroying two of them. 

James McCudden became an ace in DH.2s and would become the British Empire's fourth-ranking ace of the war. German ace and tactician Oswald Boelcke was killed during a dogfight with No. 24 Squadron DH.2s due to a collision with one of his own wingmen.

In all, fourteen aces scored five or more aerial victories using the DH.2 and many also went on to further success in later types. Eight pilots scored all of their victories in the DH-2  

For the first six months of 1916, air superiority was regained by the Allies but it was to be short lived.   

By the end of the year, the Germans had introduced their more powerful and more heavily armed Halberstadt D.II and Albatros single seater biplanes.

More manoeuvrable and able to fly significantly higher that the DH2’s, the pendulum had swung back in favour of the Germans and the single seater DH2 was slowly withdrawn from combat to be replaced with the next generation of British fighters equipped with their own version of the synchronised machine gun firing mechanism such as the Sopwith Camel and the Airco DH5.

All Airco DH.1 & DH2 Instruments listed below come complete with a detailed, custom-built Scale Model of the Airco DH.1​​​​​​​ or DH2 Aircraft on its Magnetic Display Arm; Mango Wood Display Stand & Plaque, plus Printed Fact Sheet featuring photo of instrument in aircraft cockpit - as shown in this Fairy Swordfish example opposite:

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