June 21, 20205 yr This post and the set of images, below, are triggered, thanks to another recent post, here, about this (same) but, otherwise, rarely seen aircraft. First of all, I've been a fan of Captain (Sir) Geoffrey de Havilland (OM, CBE, AFC, RDI, FRAeS), right from the earliest days of my aviation interest...🙂...Anyway, in one of the (long past) Just Flight SALEs, I'd acquired this nice (de Havilland) plane, but, rarely ever flown it. The other (member) post, this week, brought it out to the forefront of my memory (and out of my virtual hangar)... The Dove was a popular aircraft and is considered to be one of Britain's most successful postwar civil designs. Several military variants, of it, were later operated, such as the Devon by the Royal Air Force, and the Sea Devon by the Royal Navy (the subject plane of this post is actually a Sea Devon model). Sourced from the (famous) Brabazon Committee (an historical entity, worth examining a bit about, for, those of us, not from that part of the world...🙂...), and built nearly 10 years after the Douglas DC-3, the Dove/Devon was required to be competitive with the large numbers of surplus military transports, especially, of course, the DC-3, in the aftermath of the Second World War. Dove was the next evolution from the "Wooden Wonder", the DH.98 Mosquito, and would be the predecessor of the successful (and popular) 4-engined transport, the DH.114 Heron. The Dove was among the first to make use of fuselage structures entirely of metal. The DH.104 version (Sea Devon XJ319), showcased, here, was a demonstrator aircraft until delivered to the Royal Navy in October 1954. It's painted as when used as a Admiral's Barge, based at HMS Daedalus (it was later sold to Australia as VH-DVE in December 1995). Next a bit about the locale: Ingalls Field is a small Virginia airport (KHSP) perched atop the Warm Springs Mountain Ridgeline at near 4000ft (mountains all-around, see screenshots, along with prevailing high-winds, dangerous for aircraft operations). Ingalls Field has served many general aviation needs and special guests over the years. It had played host to President Bill Clinton, who had arrived on a DC-9 ("Air Force One" would be too big for this little airport), in the Winter of 2000 (Note: For either RW (or our virtual) use, the Airport has an ILS equipped 5600ft Asphalt Rwy). I'd very recently, acquired this small airport scenery, free, via Bargain-Shack/PacSim...("Scenes for Pilots who deviate from the Norm" - PacSim says...) Hope you enjoy these images of this Classic de Havilland plane, on a quick (loop-around) test-flight, in dusk light, (with take-off and touch-down, both, using Rwy 25), at this (little) scenic mountainous airport (btw, the airport is said to be "out-of-sight", and also "out-of-mind", from most of the local residents, who live below the mountain ridgeline)...I do recall, been to Virginia a couple of times, but not to this town.... Thanks for viewing...!! Any comments and feedback are always welcome...!! [PacSim(KHSP), JF(DH.104 Dove/Devon), REX]
June 21, 20205 yr Very cool !! I like the Dove/Devon and especially its vintage cockpit Any attempt to stretch fuel is guaranteed to increase headwinds My specs: AMD Radeon RX6700XT, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM, 34" monitor, screen resolution: 2560x1080
June 21, 20205 yr Nice pics!. Cheers, Ed Cheers, Ed MSFS2020 Steam // Rig: Corsair Graphite 760T Full Tower - ASUS MBoard Maximus XII Hero Z490 - CPU Intel i9-10900K - 64GB RAM - MSI RTX2080 Super 8GB - [1xNVMe M.2 1TB + 1xNVMe M.2 2TB (Samsung)] + [1xSSD 1TB + 1xSSD 2TB (Crucial)] + [1xSSD 1TB (Samsung)] + 1 HDD Seagate 2TB + 1 HDD Seagate External 4TB - Monitor LG 29UC97C UWHD Curved - PSU Corsair RM1000x // Thrustmaster FCS & MS XBOX Controllers
June 21, 20205 yr I never realised that the Dove had that perspex roof to the cockpit until seeing your screenshots and then reviewing the real thing. I just never noticed that before now. It's great when we get detailed and accurate models to fly around our PCs 😎 - and learn something new! Thanks. Mark Robinson Part-time Ferroequinologist Author of FLIGHT: A near-future short story (ebook available on amazon) I made the baby cry - A2A Simulations L-049 Constellation Sky Simulations MD-11 V2.2 Pilot. The best "lite" MD-11 money can buy (well, it's not freeware!)
June 22, 20205 yr Author Patrick, Bernd, Ed, Mark: Thanks for the comments and notes....! Appreciated...!! [And, Mark: Yes, that domed roof is quite distinctive of these de Havilland Series aircraft, a trait, that would carry over e.g. to the DH.114 Heron... BTW, it was not until the final development in 1960, of the Dove 8 model, that the distinctive clear "teardrop" shaped housing above the cockpit for radio antennae (as seen in the Sea Devon images above) would be replaced by a heightened smooth cockpit roof to give the crew more headroom....] Of interest, too: I read that Australia was one of the major (early) operators of DH.104 Dove, where, the Department of Civil Aviation, decreed that airline Doves required two crew for takeoffs and landings in the Dove, so the Airlines trained their air hostesses to be (also) radio operators who occupied the right hand seat in the cockpit of their Doves for takeoff and landing, then tended to the cabin for the rest of the flight...(must have been quite a demanding dual-responsibility role)...🙂...!
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