The de Havilland D.H.108 Swallow was a British experimental tailless aircraft developed to test swept-wing aerodynamics for the Comet airliner, becoming the first British aircraft to exceed Mach 1 in 1948; despite three tragic crashes that claimed all pilots, the program provided invaluable data on high-speed flight and ultimately achieved a speed record of 605.23 mph, demonstrating that while the tailless design proved unsuitable for passenger airliners, it offered significant potential for future supersonic research.
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De Havilland D.H.108: Breaking the Sound Barrier本站添加:
Picture this. It's December 1942.
It might seem pretty strange, maybe even a bit too optimistic to think about anything other than the war.
Back then, the Allies barely held an edge. Literally every ounce of human energy, every square foot of factory floor, and every new idea was focused entirely on the war effort.
Yet, right in the middle of this intense period, a special committee was formed by the Ministry of Aircraft Production.
Headed by Lord Brabazon of Tara, its main job was to lay out the requirements for future commercial airliners.
These airliners were supposed to go into mass production the moment World War II came to a close.
Progress was slow at first. They held countless meetings that produced few real results.
It was not until mid-1944 that something truly noteworthy emerged.
The committee drafted a series of major recommendations. For the most part, these relied heavily on the experience and vision of British Airlines. The goal was ambitious. They wanted to build a new breed of airliner that would keep the domestic civil aviation industry afloat.
This would also prevent British Airlines from being completely dominated by the United States in the post-war market.
The Brabazon Committee also explored the concept of a radically new aircraft. It was designated as the Type 4A.
The requirements for this aircraft took shape thanks to legendary aviation designer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland.
He presented the committee with his calculations on the future of jet-powered commercial airliners.
De Havilland clearly saw the massive potential of jet engines.
This was true even though the technology was still in its absolute infancy.
His confidence was backed by assurances from Major Frank Halford, head of engine design.
At that point, the Goblin, the first turbojet engine created by Halford, was already in production. Active development was underway in parallel on its more powerful successor, the Ghost.
The arguments presented by Geoffrey de Havilland proved so convincing that the idea of ditching piston engines for future long-haul flights got full approval.
His company had significantly less capital than giants like Vickers or Avro. However, they had an ace up their sleeve. They had an incredibly dedicated engineering team led by Ronald Bishop.
Bishop quickly realized that making the jump to jet propulsion meant completely abandoning traditional airframe designs.
That is exactly why several bold and radical concepts came out of their design bureau throughout 1944.
The engineers pitched various options.
Among them was a layout with engines in the tail section. There was also an idea for a stretched twin-boom aircraft based on the existing DH 100 Vampire fighter.
But the most interesting one was an in-house project designated as the 106.
This was an innovative tailless aircraft featuring a swept wing.
This was ultimately what they presented to the committee.
In October 1945, the Brabazon committee released its final report.
In it, they strongly supported the company vision for the Type 4A.
They also recommended putting it into production.
The Ministry of Supply had absolute faith in this tailless DH 106 design. It was so strong that they even drafted official aircraft recognition charts for it long before it ever took to the sky.
However, the design was highly unconventional.
The engineers concluded they first needed to build a small experimental single-seat tailless aircraft to put their theories to the test.
The company assigned this research project the designation DH 108. The main mission of this aircraft was to gather real-world data on how a swept wing behaves in flight. It was also meant to thoroughly study the aerodynamics for the upcoming DH 106 airliner.
The government agreed this was the most logical way to start, so the company got the green light to design and build two prototypes right out of the gate. The first prototype was meant to fly at lower speeds to evaluate basic flight characteristics. Meanwhile, the second was built specifically for high-speed testing.
Interestingly enough, the engineers actually started the design work two months before the Air Ministry gave the official go-ahead.
To keep costs down and speed up development, the team made a clever decision.
They decided the new experimental of the Vampire F.1 fighter.
This aircraft was already in full-scale production at the time. The engineers pulled two completed fuselages from the first production batch of 120 fighters on the assembly line at the English Electric plant in Preston.
They were loaded up and transported to the de Havilland facility in Hatfield.
Initially, one of these airframes was sent off to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. It went there for a week of preliminary testing.
Later, in October 1945, it was returned to Hatfield.
This is when construction of the two experimental prototypes shifted into high gear.
In early 1946, there was a bit of a bureaucratic mix-up with the paperwork.
Because of this, the new serial numbers for these aircraft were canceled. So, the first and second DH 108 prototypes simply reverted to the original factory serial numbers. They had received these numbers back on the Vampire production line. Those canceled designations were never used again. For this ambitious project, the engineers developed an all-metal wing.
They increased its surface area by 15% compared to the standard Vampire. They cleverly used the existing mounting points on the fuselage to save precious time.
The new wingspan was 39 ft. It featured a highly swept profile. It had a leading edge sweep of 43° and a trailing edge swept at 25°.
The aircraft featured a tall vertical stabilizer with an even sharper leading edge sweep of 51°.
It was fitted with a conventional rudder. This worked in tandem with special control surfaces on the wings known as elevons.
For the landing gear, they decided not to design it from scratch. They simply retained the proven system from the Vampire.
The main section of the fuselage came straight from a standard Vampire F.1 complete with an unpressurized cockpit and no ejection seat.
Despite this, the rear section of the aircraft had to be significantly lengthened and modified.
This was necessary to securely mount the new vertical stabilizer and install large aerodynamic fairings.
The Air Ministry was very concerned that such a risky experimental aircraft lacked an ejection seat for the pilot.
However, the engineers argued that completely redesigning the cockpit to accommodate one would take way too much time.
It would set the entire development program back too far. So, for the sake of speed, they decided to take the risk.
Development moved incredibly fast. Less than 7 months after the blueprints were finalized, the first completed prototype was officially rolled out of the factory in April 1946.
It looked absolutely fantastic.
The aircraft was painted entirely in a brilliant silver finish. Bright RAF roundels were applied to the upper and lower wing surfaces, while the fuselage itself was left clean.
A red and blue fin flash decorated the tail. The mandatory circled letter P was painted right near the engine exhaust, marking it as an experimental prototype.
Naturally, the original serial numbers were kept on the fuselage and under the wings.
These were inherited from the donor aircraft, the production Vampire F.1 fighters.
When word got out that de Havilland was building such a radical tailless aircraft, the experts over at Farnborough sounded the alarm.
They warned that at low speeds, this kind of design could suffer from severe wing rock.
In the worst case scenario, this could lead to a sudden tip stall. This would result in a total loss of control and a deadly unrecoverable spin.
To prevent a disaster, the engineers got a bit creative. They installed large Handley Page leading edge slats and locked them permanently in the open position.
On top of that, spin recovery chutes were housed in special cylindrical pods on the wing tips.
Small metal skids were attached underneath to prevent wing tip strikes during rough landings.
The heart of this unique airplane was a de Havilland Goblin 2 centrifugal flow turbojet putting out 3,000 lb of static thrust.
Just like on the donor aircraft, air was fed into the engine through intakes built directly into the wing roots.
Development of the DH 108 moved steadily forward thanks to the hard work of the design team led by Ronald Bishop.
As testing progressed, it became absolutely clear to the engineers that a tailless design just wasn't going to work for large passenger airliners flying long-haul routes.
As a result, their next design, the DH 106, took on a much more conventional classic look.
With beautifully proportioned lines, this airliner, proudly named the Comet, took to the skies for the first time on July 27th, 1949.
As it turned out, even before its very first flight, the DH 108 was already taking on a slightly different role.
It wasn't just about testing a specific tailless airplane anymore. It was about providing researchers with crucial flight data on exactly how a swept wing performed in the air.
de Havilland was eager to pass this unique research data straight to the team developing the new Comet airliner, which would also feature a moderately swept wing.
On top of that, this foundational data was absolutely critical for creating the DH 110, an ambitious all-weather fighter project designed specifically for the Royal Navy.
Let's step back for a moment. By 1942, the sheer volume of Allied bombers flying day and night combat missions had grown so massively that three dedicated airfields had to be built along the East Coast of England.
These were meant strictly for emergency landings by heavily damaged aircraft limping back from missions.
Each of these runways was an absolute giant measuring 9,000 ft long and 750 ft wide. On top of that, they featured massive safety overruns just in case an airplane couldn't stop in time and ran off the pavement.
One of these emergency strips was located at Woodbridge in Suffolk, sitting right in the middle of a dense pine forest in East Anglia.
Given the safety requirements, the colossal size of the runway, and its close proximity to the manufacturer's main base, it was the perfect spot for the maiden flight of the experimental DH.108.
So, just days after the prototype rolled out of the hangar, crews carefully disassembled it and trucked it over to this forest airfield.
The reassembly and system checks moved at a blistering pace. By the second week of May 1946, the aircraft was fully prepped for its initial taxi tests.
Geoffrey de Havilland Jr., the chief test pilot and son of the company's founder, took the controls.
On Tuesday, he made a few cautious short hops down the runway just to get a feel for the new aircraft.
Then, on Wednesday, May 15th, he took the DH.108 up for its official first flight, which lasted about half an hour.
The team spent four more intense days gathering data at the Woodbridge airfield. After that, the experimental prototype was flown back to its home base for the next phase of flight testing.
Here's an interesting piece of trivia.
The Deputy Minister of Supply once referred to this airplane as the Swallow.
That catchy nickname instantly caught on with the engineers and the crews working on the shop floor.
But, that was strictly an unofficial name. In all the formal company documents and reports, the aircraft was only ever listed by its official designation, the DH.108.
During those early flights, something completely unexpected happened.
The severe in-flight instability that British aerodynamicists had strongly warned against simply did not materialize.
The aircraft's low-speed handling was steadily dialed in.
Eventually, this let them push its top speed to just under 300 mph.
They achieved this by bolting drooped leading edge slats into a fixed position.
Still, they could not avoid problems entirely.
One of the major drawbacks of the swept-wing design eventually reared its head. The issue was that when the pilot configured the plane for landing, the trailing edge control surfaces had to be deflected upward.
This was necessary to maintain the proper angle of attack.
But, doing this drastically reduced the wing's overall lift. As a result, the airplane bled off altitude quickly.
This meant the pilot had to fly the approach at substantially higher speeds just to keep from falling out of the sky.
This was way faster than they would in a traditional straight-wing aircraft.
Construction of both experimental prototypes started at almost the exact same time.
However, the second aircraft received several major upgrades over the first prototype. It was purpose-built for extreme high-speed testing.
For instance, engineers increased the wing sweep by 2°. This brought it up to 45°.
They also ditched the standard retractable Handley Page slats. They replaced them with the fixed leading edge slats that had already proven reliable on the first prototype.
On top of that, the jet was equipped with state-of-the-art automatic flight data recorders.
It also had an uprated Goblin 3 engine producing an impressive 3,300 lb of static thrust.
Because this new prototype was meant to push the envelope at much higher speeds, the cockpit needed some serious rework.
The clear bubble canopy was heavily reinforced with a thick metal frame.
While this made the structure significantly stronger, it reduced the canopy glazing.
This robbed the pilot of about a quarter of their field of view.
The second prototype of the experimental DH.108 was officially rolled out of the assembly hangar at Hatfield. This happened 3 months after the first aircraft. It sported the exact same bright paint job as its predecessor.
After a thorough check of all onboard systems, flight control checks, and a series of high-speed taxi runs, the aircraft was cleared for flight.
On August the 23rd, 1946, de Havilland's chief test pilot took the unusual aircraft to the skies from its home runway. It became clear almost immediately. The new DH.108 had incredible speed potential. Engineers seriously believed the aircraft could easily break the sound barrier.
Shortly after, pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr. put on an impressive display. He flew a flawless routine with aggressive aerobatics and extremely low-level passes.
This took place at the first postwar SBAC show, held at the Handley Page airfield.
The event spanned 2 days. Thursday was dedicated to static displays. On Friday, attendees watched the morning and afternoon flight demonstrations.
Interestingly, the event was strictly by invitation only. This meant it was entirely closed to the general public.
Right after this successful demonstration, the aircraft reached a speed in level flight that exceeded the absolute world speed record at the time.
The bar stood at 616 mph. That record belonged to Group Captain Teddy Donaldson.
He had set it in a Gloster Meteor F.4 jet fighter just days before the air show. Geoffrey de Havilland Jr. was absolutely certain his DH.108 could break that record.
To prep the aircraft for the official record run, it was sent back to the hangar for some major modifications.
Engineers heavily modified the cockpit.
They further reduced the glazing and replaced most of the canopy with a metal fairing for better aerodynamics.
They left the pilot with just two tiny side windows and one small overhead window.
They also removed the wing tip anti-spin parachute pods.
They completely smoothed out the airframe and applied a fresh coat of high-gloss paint to reduce parasitic drag as much as possible.
The route for the official speed record attempt was supposed to follow the South Coast near Tangmere.
This was the exact spot where Donaldson set his record.
Throughout the second half of September, the team flew several high-speed practice runs.
The actual attempt to put the aircraft into the history books was scheduled for the end of the month.
On the evening of September the 27th, 1946, company founder Sir Geoffrey de Havilland watched from the ground as his son flew the crucial test flight over the Thames Estuary.
The flight plan was risky but straightforward. The pilot would put the aircraft into a steep dive from 10,000 ft. Then he would level off to hit maximum speed at low altitude.
The dive started perfectly. However, as the aircraft descended through 6,500 ft, shocked onlookers watched it suddenly break apart into several large pieces.
The wreckage crashed into the mud of Egypt Bay northeast of Gravesend.
Without out an ejection seat, the chief test pilot didn't stand a chance.
On that tragic evening, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland lost his second son.
His older son John had been killed 3 years earlier when his Mosquito collided with another aircraft in thick clouds.
Eventually, search teams managed to recover most of the wreckage of the DH.108.
Investigators quickly confirmed that the engine had been running perfectly with no signs of failure.
After an in-depth investigation, experts concluded that the airframe simply could not withstand the massive aerodynamic loads.
These loads were encountered near the speed of sound around Mach.9.
This specific aircraft had only been flying for 36 days.
But even in that short window, in the hands of an exceptionally talented pilot, it proved that this type of design held immense potential for high-speed flight research.
Despite the terrible tragedy, the program was not shut down. The company ordered the construction of a new aircraft. Engineers incorporated all the harsh lessons and priceless data paid for with the life of the test pilot.
Meanwhile, the low-speed prototype continued to gather data.
Flight testing progressed steadily without any major surprises. British researchers had previously warned that the aircraft might be unstable in flight. But in practice, the de Havilland test pilots proved those fears were completely unfounded.
The aircraft had such excellent low-speed handling that it had no problem flying in formation with much slower planes.
Thanks to this, the team easily pulled off some great air-to-air photoshoots.
They even flew mock dogfights against a Mosquito bomber. During these factory tests, the engineers decided to experiment a bit.
They adjusted the wing to a slightly different angle of incidence to compare the flight characteristics. However, that experiment only lasted a few flights before the wing was returned to its original configuration.
By the fall of 1948, the designers had gathered all the necessary data on the aircraft's flight characteristics.
After that, the prototype was handed over to the Farnborough Research Center.
There, military specialists launched their own program to test the control systems and overall stability.
To allow the aircraft to land at even lower speeds and with a higher angle of attack, they fitted it with specially lengthened landing gear struts.
These were taken from a Sea Vampire.
This did the trick, bringing the landing speed down to 95 knots. However, not everyone shared the designers absolute faith in the reliability of the DH.108.
Aviation authorities still viewed the aircraft with a healthy dose of suspicion.
Because of these lingering doubts, any high-risk flights, especially stall testing, were approached with extreme caution.
They were restricted to a safe minimum altitude of 10,000 ft.
But on May 1st, 1950, tragedy struck during one of these experimental test flights. The prototype snapped into an unrecoverable spin right at that supposedly safe minimum altitude.
Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough room for the pilot to recover. The aircraft plummeted and went down near the town of Hartley Wintney. As in previous crashes, the lack of an ejection seat proved fatal.
The highly experienced pilot was Squadron Leader George Edward Genders, who held the Air Force Cross and the Distinguished Flying Medal.
He was unable to bail out and lost his life.
Construction of a new airframe to replace the lost prototype had actually begun right after an earlier crash.
This crash took the life of the brilliant pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr.
This time, engineers incorporated all the painful lessons learned at such a steep price.
For the fuselage, they once again used the proven base of the de Havilland Vampire jet fighter.
One of the earlier test aircraft had flown with a newly redesigned more pointed nose.
It performed beautifully, so it was incorporated right into this third prototype.
The new aircraft was built specifically for extreme high-speed testing, and designers completely reworked the cockpit.
Originally, they just planned to lower it for better aerodynamics.
But they ultimately made the crucial decision to drop it even further to accommodate a fully functional ejection seat. Compared to earlier versions, the windscreen featured a heavily curved profile with a thin central pillar.
The canopy also used significantly less glass. This was done intentionally to make the structure much stronger and more rigid.
The 45° swept wing remained unchanged, but the Handley Page leading edge slats were upgraded to operate fully automatically.
Hidden inside the slightly lengthened fuselage was an absolute beast. It was an uprated de Havilland Goblin 4 turbojet. It produced an impressive 3,750 lbs of thrust, giving the aircraft massive performance potential.
This third DH 108 was finished in a brilliant silver, and it wore markings very similar to the earlier airframes.
After a thorough check of all its systems and standard high-speed taxi tests on the runway, the aircraft was ready to fly.
Its maiden flight took place on July 24th, 1947.
It is worth noting that following the tragic loss of Geoffrey de Havilland Jr., highly experienced aviator John Cunningham had taken over as the company's chief test pilot.
He was at the controls for this third DH 108's first flight.
Over the next year, Cunningham worked closely with his deputy, fellow test pilot John Derry, to conduct complex flight testing.
Their schedule even included some spectacular flight demonstrations at the massive SBAC air show at Radlett that same year.
Over the next few months, the high-speed flight program was so successful that Sir Geoffrey de Havilland suggested using the aircraft to challenge the international speed record.
They were aiming for the 100-km closed-circuit record.
At the time, that prestigious title was held by Supermarine.
Back on February 27th, 1948, their chief test pilot Mike Lithgow had pushed the Attacker fighter over the New Forest.
He reached a speed of 564.88 mph.
The Ministry of Supply officially owned the DH.108 airframe.
They agreed to sanction the attempt in partnership with the Havilland.
After that, flight planners carefully mapped out a custom route. It consisted of five legs. The route started and finished at the town of Bell Bar near Hatfield.
It passed through Puckeridge, Arlesey, Sandon, and Redbourn.
Interestingly, the navigation waypoints plotted by de Havilland added up to a total distance of 62.23 mi.
Those extra 492 ft created a slight margin of error in the record speed calculations.
This skewed the result by roughly 1 mph.
On the evening of April 12th, 1948, weather conditions for the flight were absolutely perfect. Experienced test pilot John Derry was at the controls of the DH.108.
He set a stunning new speed record of 605.23 mph.
This massive jump beat the previous record by more than 40 mph.
This was achieved even though the engine produced 1,350 lb less thrust than the Attacker aircraft. It was a major triumph for British aerodynamics.
After this landmark flight, the test program resumed. It progressed incredibly well throughout the summer.
In September 1948, the Society of British Aircraft Constructors held its annual air display.
This time, the event was moved to the Farnborough Airfield. This is where it is still traditionally held today.
The spacious new location finally gave the general public a chance to attend the air show in massive numbers over the weekend. That is exactly where the famous record-breaking aircraft was scheduled to make its public debut in front of an excited crowd.
On Thursday, September 9th, John Derry took the aircraft up for another round of high-altitude testing.
This happened just 2 days before its highly anticipated debut at the Farnborough Airshow.
During a steep dive from over 40,000 ft, the dive angle began to steepen on its own. It quickly approached a vertical plunge. The scariest part was that the airplane became completely unresponsive to the flight controls.
Derry immediately cut the throttle.
Control of the aircraft gradually returned. This allowed him to pull out of the dive at an altitude of just over 20,000 ft.
During this extreme dive, the instruments recorded a speed of Mach 1.04.
This made it the first supersonic flight in British history.
Granted, just how much control the pilot actually had during that critical moment is highly debatable.
After he landed, technicians thoroughly checked the airplane's instruments. They found some minor measurement errors. It turned out that the true dive speed was a staggering Mach 1.2.
At the time, the British genuinely believed this was the first supersonic flight in the world by a jet-powered aircraft.
After all, in 1947, the American Chuck Yeager made his first supersonic flight in the experimental Bell X-1.
This aircraft was rocket-powered.
However, declassified information later revealed a slightly different story.
It turned out that back in April 1948, a prototype of the North American YP-86A fighter had already broken the sound barrier. This happened 5 months before John Derry's flight.
Meanwhile, this revolutionary supersonic flight only got a modest 6-in column in the British press.
But John Derry himself put on a spectacular show at Farnborough. A deep sense of national pride swept over everyone lucky enough to witness the performance. Even the usually reserved British aviation fans erupted in uncharacteristically loud applause.
And following this triumph, John Derry went right back to his dangerous routine of test flying.
The following summer, the de Havilland company decided to enter their experimental aircraft into the prestigious race for the SBAC Challenge Cup.
This competition took place in Elmdon, right where Birmingham International Airport is located today.
On August 1st, 1949, the prototype was flown by pilot John Derry.
It took a highly respectable third place, clocking an impressive average speed of 488 mph.
Second place went to John Cunningham, who was also flying a de Havilland aircraft, the Vampire F.3 fighter.
And the winner of the race was a pilot nicknamed Wimpy Wade, who flew the Hawker P.1040 prototype.
At this event, the DH.108 carried racing number 90, painted brightly inside a white circle on the tail.
It was also the very first time the red triangle, the ejection seat warning sign we all recognize today, was painted right next to the cockpit. Atmospheric conditions that August day were so unusual that spectators could actually see and photograph the shock waves forming around the aircraft.
Today, you can regularly spot this kind of vapor cone on fighters like the F-16, Tornado, or Phantom.
But back in 1949, it was extremely rare and left spectators in awe.
Later that year, on August 19th, this unique aircraft was handed over to the British Ministry of Supply.
It was transferred to the research center at Farnborough, where it joined another experimental prototype.
From that point on, de Havilland no longer had control over their aircraft.
The new operators flew it for just 6 months. On February 15th, 1950, tragedy struck during a flight out of Farnborough. The aircraft crashed near the town of Brickhill in Buckinghamshire. Even though the cockpit was equipped with a modern ejection seat, the pilot did not survive. At the controls was Squadron Leader John Stuart Ralph Muller Rowland.
He was an outstanding test pilot who had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Official theories for the fatal crash varied widely.
They ranged from a catastrophic structural failure to a sudden failure of the pilot's oxygen supply.
Just 3 months after this disaster, the first DH.108 prototype crashed as well.
With its loss, a grueling 4-year flight test program studying the aerodynamics of tailless aircraft came to an end.
This research provided engineers with invaluable data and an entirely new frontier of aviation, one that would pave the way for future breakthroughs.
Today, supersonic flight is a routine part of modern aviation that we often take for granted.
But it is always worth remembering the incredibly high cost of this progress.
It was measured in monumental effort and tragically in human lives.
These days, the media usually focuses on the financial side of aerospace, like how many billions it cost to develop and build new aircraft.
But we must never forget that back in those turbulent, revolutionary days of early jet flight, brave test pilots paid the ultimate price to make those remarkable achievements possible.
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