Evening All,
Here are some more pictures of the conversion from the Airfix DH 4: the build thread is in the scratch build section.
When G. de Haviland left the Royal Aircraft Factory in 1914 to join the Aircraft Manufacturing Company as chief designer he had been working on the FE 1 and BE 2 designs. His first design for his new employer was a two seat tractor biplane, but the War Office wanted a pusher design similar to the FE 2. Consequently de Haviland produced a pusher design, the prototype of which was powered by a 70 hp Renault V8 engine. This first flew in January 1915 and an order for 49 machines followed. Called the DH 1 this machine took a long time to get into production, (like all other British aircraft at this time), and it was not adopted by the RFC because the FE 2b had already been ordered in large numbers and had a better overall performance.
The DH 1A was an attempt to improve the performance of the original design by installing a 120 hp Beardmore engine, (the same as powered the FE 2b), with a radiator behind the pilot and a gravity tank under the port upper wing. It was armed with a single Lewis machine gun on a mounting in front of the observer, and one behind: the observer sat in the front cockpit. About 23 machines were built and delivered to the RFC of which 6 were sent to Palestine to no 14 Sqdn who operated it alongside other types. It was used mainly for escort duties but at least one enemy aircraft was shot down - a Rumpler two-seater. The machine represented by my model is one of the Palestinian machines. The reason why it is on a grass base is because I do not have a sandy one, so these photos were taken on the Turkish ex-governor's lawn after it had been occupied by British forces!
The remainder of the DH 1 and 1A's were sent to home defence squadrons in Britain or to training squadrons where the survivors were finally withdrawn from service in the autumn of 1918.
The DH 1A is one of the less well known types from the First World War, partly because so few were built and partly because they were deployed on front line duties on what was regarded at the time as a secondary campaign. It was not at all unusual for pusher types to be used in training squadrons between 1915 and 1918 as there were few aircraft available that had been designed specifically for training purposes, and there was a general shortage of machines for this vital role.
For anyone who is thinking about a pusher model I can only say that in reality they are not much more difficult than any other biplane. There is more rigging than on some other biplanes but if you can manage a DH2 kit you could manage one of these conversions.
Thanks for looking.
