De Havilland DH-82 Tiger Moth - Historical Aircraft Restoration Society, Albion Park Rail, NSW
Posted by: Tuena
S 34° 33.662 E 150° 47.455
56H E 297328 N 6173417
A De Havilland DH-82 Tiger Moth on display at the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society's (HARS) museum.
Waymark Code: WMWYQ8
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Date Posted: 10/31/2017
Views: 4
The HARS website (
visit link) gives the following information about this aircraft:
Tiger Moth
Designed by de Havilland in 1931 to a Royal Air Force (RAF) need for a simple primary pilot trainer.
The RAF was delighted with the aircraft and from an initial order of only 35 eventually ordered a total of ~4,000 machines. Tiger Moths were made under licence in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, New Zealand and Australia. They were by far the most numerous basic training aircraft in the world from the 1930s to the 1950s.
One of the RAF requirements for the design was that a trainee or instructor pilot wearing a parachute could easily escape from the cockpit. Hence the upper wings are kinked to maintain centre of gravity, pushed forward further than the bottom wing and cut out slightly above the cockpit for that purpose.
Construction is a mixture of lightweight steel tube framing, plywood skin, and doped Irish linen over timber frames for the wings.
Some ~1,000 Tiger Moths were made at the Australian De Havilland Bankstown factory of which ~785 were used by the RAAF from 1940 to 1957.
Tiger Moth Serial Number A17-394 (Civilian Registration VH-DHV)
Interestingly, our aircraft was not built by De Havilland at Bankstown but was newly built in 1957 from a mix of new spare parts and an older fuselage at Archerfield QLD. Our aircraft is part of the Boeing Havilland Collection on permanent loan to HARS.