Model Airplane Videos – de Havilland Comet Racer

The RC model airplane de Havilland Comet of Steve Holland is well known to the large model aircraft community being some 10 years old now but still in excellent condition and flying as she did on day one.

The de Havilland DH.88 Comet won the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race, a challenge for which it was specifically designed. A twin-engined British aircraft, it set many aviation records during the race and went on to set more as a pioneer mail plane.

Despite previous British air racing successes, culminating in 1931 in the outright win of the Schneider Trophy, there was no British plane capable of putting up a challenge over the MacPherson course with its long overland stages until the de Havilland company offered to produce a limited run of 200 mph (320 km/h) racers if three were ordered by February, 1934.

The sale price of £5,000 each would by no means cover the development costs. In 1935, de Havilland suggested a high-speed bomber version of the DH.88 to the RAF, but the suggestion was rejected. De Havilland later developed the de Havilland Mosquito along similar lines as the DH.88 for the high-speed bomber role.

3 orders were indeed received, and de Havilland set to work. The airframe consisted of a wooden skeleton clad with spruce plywood, with a final fabric covering on the wings. A long streamlined nose held the main fuel tanks, with the low set central two-seat cockpit forming an unbroken line to the tail. The engines were essentially the standard Gipsy Six used on the Express and Dragon Rapide passenger planes, tuned for best performance with a higher compression ratio.

The propellers were two-position variable pitch, manually set to fine before takeoff and changed automatically to coarse by a pressure sensor. The main undercarriage retracted upwards and backwards into the engine nacelles. The DH.88 could maintain altitude up to 4,000 ft (1,200 m) on one engine.

De Havillands managed to meet their challenging schedule and testing of the DH.88 began six weeks before the start date of the race. On the day of the race, the three distinctively coloured planes took their places among 17 other entrants ranging from a new Douglas DC-2 airliner to two converted Fairey Fox bombers.

The rest, as they say is history.  You can see history re-enacted every time you watch the model airplane videos featuring this beautiful scale model airplane.