It may be a case of heaping cliche upon cliche, but if ever an aircraft failed to 'fly right' despite 'looking right,' de Havilland's simply gorgeous DH91 Albatross airliner of the 1930s is it. The four-DH Gipsy Twelve-engined machine may have set new standards for aerodynamics, but its wooden airframe was an anachronism in an increasingly all-metal era, while its operating economics simply could not match the best overseas makers had to offer, typified by Douglas with the DC-2. Only seven were built, and the outbreak of war saw to it that their service with Imperial Airways was brief, after which two were impressed by the RAF. This new title tells the DH91's complete story, detailing well some of the reasons it wasn't more successful: programme delays and poor performance loom large, with copious references to period reports written by both manufacturer and customer. The wartime impressments are covered in more detail than has ever been the case before, but the same goes for most aspects of the type's short career.
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